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For Kate is a poignant exploration of love, loss, and love rediscovered through the unique relationships between humans and animals. There is more here than 'animal' poetry. This in a homage to the raw emotions of humanity intertwined with the power of hope. This IS a must have in the collection of every cat lover who understands the gentle curl and purr of both poetry and a loyal cat. The poems are mixed with lines of hilarity even in the face of loss and love regained.

Entering the lush, lyrical, and fantastical world of Rachael Ikins' Totems, readers become journeyers, not simply visitors, to Ambergris' realm. The golden-eyed, bear-wizard Ambergris is our guide through, as well as leader in, a woods in which mushrooms are soldiers and black flies are no longer annoying insects but the Black Fly Brigade Sisterhood. This is a woods overflowing with original characters, such as Merthwyn, the adopted elven boy, and the good-humored Grandfather Trout, who offers rides through a mysterious pool at the base of a hidden falls. Animal totems allow Ikins' fabulous story to be read on multiple levels as fable, allegory, parable, myth, but most of all as adventure into imagination. In Ikins' Totems, "An observer would not fail to notice that the microscopic leaves of impossibly gossamer texture seemed to wave and nod at his words, as if he and those plants truly held conversation." Readers are, indeed, held in the magic of enchanted conversation with all manner of living things within Ikins' fertile, sumptuous, and quixotic creation. - Nancy Avery Dafoe, author of numerous poems, stories, and essays.

A young boy shares an unusual dream with his family. He doesn't want a puppy, kitten or goldfish as a pet. Instead David, wants to adopt a pot-bellied piglet.An award-winning story for pig lovers of all ages, A Piglet for David shows how one family unites to help one of its youngest members pursue what seems to be an impossible dream and then shares unique adventures because of that dream. A heartwarming story told with humor and tenderness about following your truth and growing up.

"I have read Rachael Ikins' BROKEN SPOONS four times. First to last... then last to first. I am overwhelmed with the breadth and depth of it. The images -- layered, abundant, so real they seem to invite us to hold them tight to teach us what grief and healing is. Ikins describes how hidden grief can be: "nobody sees..." Exactly. Grief at its worst is solitary. It can be lifted with the care of those who love us. But nobody knows the depth of a love that saved both Rachael and her dog. She describes the grief of the rest of the living family... who carry their loss in ways she so fully understands. With the shock, hope believes there can still be a miracle to give more time. But, as the author reminds us so often: "rules are rules." Each of those brilliant powerful images will linger long now because they are written on my heart too. Ikins' description of her dog Sassie preparing to leave this realm was filled with hope and heartbreak for Sassie was sitting on Rachael's heart as she wrote this." -Patricia D. Dickinson, retired assistant library director, founder and moderator of the Canastota Writers Group, grief support leader

Misdiagnosed for over a decade with multiple mental illnesses and prescribed dozens of pharmaceuticals, artist and author Rachael Ikins' latest book delivers powerful prose, poetry, and art created directly from the clearing of her mind following that period in her life.

In this poetry collectionwe find something new: the poet's originality and capacity for profound emotions. It has been aptly remarked by Longinus that true emotion in the right place inspires the words. The most impressive quality of these poems is that the poet is able to fill the reader's mind with illumination, which is the mark of genius and the guarantee of truth.