0011 What do Cranes and Sex Slave Trafficking have in common?

Hub of Discovery
Jun 24, 2013
2 min read

Positive Living Vibrations with Sara Troy and her guest Annette LeBox and the discovery on sex trafficking. Originally Aired: 07-04-2013

Annette LeBox was born in England in 1943 during the Second World War. Her father, a Canadian soldier, was killed on D-Day at Juno Beach. After the war, her mother, a British war bride, brought one-year-old Annette to Canada by ship, landing at Halifax’s Pier 41.

Annette was raised in Ontario, but during her twenties lived in Britain, Ireland and Spain before moving to her present home in British Columbia. Through the sixties, she worked as a nurse’s aide, store clerk, bartender and bunny at a copycat Playboy Club, before becoming an elementary school teacher. In 1994, she took a position as a Faculty Associate at Simon Fraser University where she began Narrative Research under the mentorship of Dr. Ted Aoki. It was through this work that she developed an interest in writing. Soon after earning a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, she published her first picture book, Miss Rafferty’s Rainbow Socks.

Many of Annette’s books are inspired by nature she has to date written six books, and we will discuss them today, but what intrigues me is what took her across the seas to China to discover more about cranes, but led her into another direction all together, today we are going to talk about her love of cranes, her many books on crane adventures but also how a book of a different topic altogether came about from that trip to China.

After retiring from teaching she decided to go to China to do some research on Cranes but found a world that would lead her to write a magical realism book that has shown a shameful light on modern day slavery.

In 1996, HarperCollins published Annette’s first picture book, Miss Rafferty’s Rainbow Socks. Since then Annette has had four picture books and two YA novels published.

A new children’s book “Peace is an Offering” is available now and I will be interviewing Annette on this book and others in July.

Many of Annette’s books are inspired by nature. She was a founding member of a local environmental group, the Pitt Polder Preservation Society, a major stakeholder in the conservation of two regional parks, Blaney Bog in Maple Ridge and Codd Wetland in Pitt Meadows. These ecosystems harbour both Greater Sandhill cranes and wild salmon.

Annette divides her time between her home in Maple Ridge and her remote cabin in the Cariboo region of central British Columbia, where she enjoys cross-country running and skiing, skating, hauling brush, and reading by the fire while listening to the howling of the wolves.

Annette is married to Michael Sather, an avid birdwatcher and fellow ‘craniac.’