By Julianne Homokay
Special to the Alpine Mountaineer
From her self-professed “magic cabin” in Twin Peaks, Renaissance woman Sara Beers took her career in a new creative direction, writing and publishing her first children’s book, Amongst the Trees. As stated right on the front cover, the book was “inspired by the mountains of southern California.”
As fairly recent emigrants to the mountain from Los Angeles, Beers and her husband must have made the trip up and down “like 20 times,” Beers laughed. As she fell more and more in love with the mountain community, she “wanted to share this beautiful place,” and “build that connection” with the community in hopes that we all might be even more motivated to protect it. Out came Amongst the Trees.
There is an educational element to the book that is very much inspired by wildlife preservation. “I’ve hidden treasures for the kids” in the book, she said, including a key at the end for kids to learn to identify animals and plants. However, the tone of the writing and art is whimsical, not didactic at all. “Hiking trails inspired the text and the art,” she said.
Reading the book feels very much like taking a walk through the woods. Readers will find many of the same “featured friends” in the book that they might encounter on a hike: Coulter pine cones, erebidae moths, acorn woodpeckers. And in collaborating with her artist, Alessia Tricarico: “I asked for a childlike style,” she said.
Instead of approaching a traditional publisher, Beers created Magic Cabin Books to get her book out into the world, “to bring the vision to life. I opened it to push Amongst the Trees,” she said, but she aims to review other books and publish other authors as well. Beers never tires of finding ways to serve others, so she’s also donated hundreds of copies of her book to be distributed in Africa and “to Los Angeles fire victims through a local Sotheby’s team in Blue Jay,” she said.
Amongst the Trees is available online and locally.
For Beers, the book is a culmination of a creative journey that began in childhood.
She was born in Italy where her mother was completing a Master’s degree in agricultural engineering. Her father was an art dealer in their home country of Bosnia, where Beers grew up until she was just shy of her sixth birthday, and where she was “immersed in the vibrant creativity” of her father’s world, yet also had a “grounded connection to nature fostered by my mother’s work in agriculture,” she said. After the onset of the war in the Balkans, her family was able to flee to the United States with the help of a contact in Idyllwild, where she had her first exposure to the mountains of southern California.
In high school, she developed an interest in video production and editing. During junior college, she did a stint on the LA Kings Ice Crew, “was obviously around a ton of sports,” and decided she wanted to parlay those dual interests into a career as a sportscaster. She transferred to Arizona State University, as the Phoenix area is a hub for professional sports.
At ASU, however, she discovered that “I always was a little more creative than I gave myself credit for,” and she switched her major to Film. “I ended up really falling in love with that version of storytelling,” she said. After college, she returned to Los Angeles, and began producing documentaries. During the pandemic, she added production design and casting to her resume. So, Amongst the Trees is a culmination of her creative journey as well, a melding of her love of nature and visual storytelling.
What might strike you about Beers should you meet her is her staunch interest in the beauty of our world in all its diversity. She is relentlessly optimistic and possesses an innate sense of childlike wonder. Ultimately she “hopes to foster a sense of adventure, curiosity and deeper environmental love” in her readers.
The book’s dedication says it all: “To the adventurers: may you never stop exploring.”
Amongst the Trees is available through Magic Cabin Books (magiccabinbooks.com), at other online outlets such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and will soon be available at Goodwin & Sons Market in Crestline.
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