About Alderwick Adventures

A mother-daughter project built around stories, history, and childhood wonder

Alderwick Adventures is a small, family-run history mail club created by a mother and daughter who have spent decades teaching, making, storytelling, and learning together.

We created Alderwick to give children the kind of educational experience we have always loved: rich in stories and real knowledge, full of beautiful details, and imaginative enough to make a child feel as though they have stepped into another time.

Each adventure begins here with us—through research, writing, watercolor, design, and many conversations about how to make history both accurate and memorable.

Meet Allison

I grew up as one of five homeschooled children in a family where learning was woven into everyday life.

History was rarely just a chapter in a textbook. It might lead to a stack of library books, a sewing project, an old recipe, a museum visit, or a conversation that continued long after the school day officially ended.

That experience shaped the way I think about education. Children often remember more when they can connect an idea to a story, an object, or something they have experienced for themselves.

I later worked as a teacher, tutor, curriculum creator, and sewing instructor. Through those roles, I gained experience turning large subjects into lessons and projects that children could understand, enjoy, and remember.

At Alderwick, I research the history behind each adventure, develop the story concepts, write Pip’s letters, and plan the educational elements that accompany them.

I want every letter to feel exciting to open, but I also want the learning inside it to be substantial. That means carefully choosing the details children encounter, checking the historical context, and finding ways to explain complex moments clearly without reducing them to a list of facts.

Meet Debbie

My mom is the artist behind Alderwick and the person who first showed me how creative and meaningful learning at home could be.

She homeschooled five children over nearly thirty years, adapting lessons to different ages, personalities, interests, and stages of family life. Our home was always filled with books, art supplies, fabric, projects, and handmade traditions.

She brings that same creativity and care to Alderwick.

Her watercolor illustrations are painted by hand, giving Pip’s world a warmth and character that would be difficult to create any other way. She helps develop the visual direction of each adventure, contributes story ideas, and thinks carefully about the small details that make an envelope feel special in a child’s hands.

She also brings the practical perspective of a longtime homeschool mother. She understands that something can be beautiful and educational while still needing to work in a real home, during a real week, with limited time and several things happening at once.

Her influence helps ensure that Alderwick adds delight and depth without becoming one more complicated project for a parent to manage.

How we create each adventure

Every Alderwick adventure is a collaboration.

It usually begins with a historical moment we believe children should know—not only because it is important, but because it contains the beginnings of a wonderful story.

We research the people, setting, objects, language, and everyday details surrounding that moment. Then we begin asking the questions that shape Pip’s adventure:

What might he see, hear, or smell when he arrives?
Where could a mouse go that a person could not?
What small problem might allow him to witness the larger history unfolding?
Which details will help a child understand why this moment mattered?

From there, I write and revise the letter while my mom begins developing the artwork. We discuss everything from historical accuracy and reading level to the size of an artifact, the placement of an illustration, and whether a detail will make sense to a seven-year-old opening the envelope.

The process includes far more revising, repainting, testing, trimming, folding, and rearranging than anyone would guess from the finished letter.

But that is part of what we love about it.

Made slowly and thoughtfully

Alderwick is not designed by feeding a few facts into a template and attaching an activity at the end.

Each story is researched and written individually. The illustrations are created in watercolor by hand. Artifacts are chosen or designed to connect directly to the history inside the letter. Activities and resources are selected because they add something worthwhile—not simply because a package needs more pieces.

We pay attention to the details children notice:

The sound of a printing press in Benjamin Franklin’s shop.
The movement of a ship beneath Pip’s paws aboard the Mayflower.
The shape of a Pony Express letter.
The copper color of the Statue of Liberty before years of weather turned her green.

Those details help transform history from a distant sequence of dates into a real world filled with choices, problems, courage, work, and ordinary people.

Our goal is not merely to tell children that something happened.

We want to help them imagine what it was like to be there.

Why we created Alderwick

We know there are many wonderful history books, curricula, videos, and project ideas available to families.

We also know how much time it takes to find them, prepare them, gather materials, and turn good intentions into something a child actually experiences.

We created Alderwick to do some of that work for families.

A letter arriving in the mailbox gives a child a natural invitation into the past. It can be read in one sitting, added to a morning basket, shared with a grandparent, or used as the starting point for days of further exploration.

It is simple enough to fit into family life, but carefully made enough to become something children remember.

For us, Alderwick brings together much of what has shaped our own lives: homeschooling, teaching, history, storytelling, art, handcraft, and the belief that childhood learning should leave room for both knowledge and wonder.

From our family to yours

We are a small team, which means every part of Alderwick passes through our hands.

We research the stories. We write and illustrate them. We discuss the details, assemble the pieces, and prepare the envelopes that will eventually arrive in children’s mailboxes.

Behind every adventure is a great deal of collaboration, care, and genuine excitement about what a child might discover inside.

It is a privilege to have our work become part of another family’s learning, reading, and traditions.

We are so glad you found us—and we hope you will join Pip for one of the many adventures still waiting to be discovered.

Allison & Debbie
Creators of Alderwick Adventures