Nobody really knows how old Crinkleroot is. He is much older than ten and alot younger than one thousand. I myself wasn't much older than ten when I began telling his story. Back in the 1970's I drew the very first pictures of Crinkleroot and his friends Sassafrass and Walking Stick, late one evening in Pennsylvania. My family and I were living in a cabin at the foot of a wooded mountain.

Don't ask me how I knew what he looked like - I just knew. His eyes and nose and long beard flowed out of my pen onto paper. I knew just what kind of hat he wore and where to put a feather in his hair.Crinkleroot was named after the wildflower, crinkleroot. It grows in wooded places up on hillside and down beside streams. I have found the wildflower crinkleroot many times while walking and exploring. When my family and I moved from Pennsylvania to Vermont, crinkleroot was one of the first wildflowers we discovered growing around our new home