Debs Daniels didn’t just stumble into adventure—she was born into it. Her first home was a boat bobbing in San Diego Bay, which apparently set a precedent for a life spent never quite standing still. From there, she spent four years bouncing around Europe, where she perfected the art of getting lost in foreign countries before GPS could save her (or ruin the fun, depending on how you look at it). She once spent a weekend in the Soviet Union, she’s visited historic sights from palaces to concentration camps, and celebrated her eighth birthday with a slumber party in an actual Pullman car that FDR rode in. Most people collect stamps. Debs collected stories that sound like they belong in someone else’s memoir.

But beneath all that globe-trotting and quirky birthday parties lies something deeper. Debs has always been drawn to the broken places and the people who inhabit them. At sixteen, she volunteered at a Hungarian orphanage. In her twenties, she worked in a Turkish home for the developmentally disabled. Later, she became a single foster mom to a nine-year-old, navigating the choppy waters of complex trauma, neglect, and abandonment with more heart than handbook. These weren’t side quests in her life story—they were the main plot, teaching her that love shows up best when you’re willing to sit in the uncomfortable spaces with someone.

These days, Debs writes from her Airstream camper as she travels the continental U.S. with her rescued pups as co-pilots and editorial assistants (they’re better at napping than note-taking, but she keeps them on staff anyway). She’s the kind of person who has driven a train, bungee jumped out of a hot air balloon, and been held at gunpoint while babysitting—all while living with a congenital heart defect that’s apparently as adventurous as she is. Her life reads like a dare someone made to the universe, and the universe said, “Hold my coffee.”Despite growing up in inner‑city poverty and facing health challenges, she’s always shown up to serve kids in various capacities throughout her life.

Debs writes because she believes God tucked stories away in her head, and it’s her job to dig them out and share them. She writes for the lonely, the brokenhearted, the kids who feel like they’re too much or not enough or simply invisible. Her books are love letters wrapped in adventure, whispering the same truth to every reader: You are a treasure. You belong. She writes about found families because she knows that sometimes the people who save you aren’t the ones you’re born to—they’re the ones who commit to you.

She’s been distracted by life and quilting (because apparently even adventurers need a hobby that involves sitting down occasionally), and she’s faced moments when giving up felt easier than pressing on. But she keeps writing anyway, because stories matter. Because hope matters. Because every kid who has ever felt forgotten deserves to see themselves as the hero of their own wild, beautiful, impossible story.

Debs Daniels writes children’s books from the road, from the heart, and from a lifetime of learning that the best adventures aren’t always the ones you plan—they’re the ones that find you when you’re brave enough to say yes.