Where is Malibu Maine? What is Malibu Maine?
Malibu Maine is an imaginary town and home base of The Maine Birthday Book, Hop Onward Rabbit Rabbit, The Moon Over Malibu Maine and several special projects in the works.
In Malibu Maine, we love wildlife, imagination, space, the seasons, exploring outdoors, discovering things, and having fun. We also love snacks.
I wandered into this imaginary place in 2016 when the little kid inside the adult me wanted a place to play. It was a hard time. My Mom was very sick. I needed a place to go. Having an imaginary town was like having a safe space to work things out and to reconnect with things that I loved when I was young. Little-kid-me helped big-adult-me along that year. We hung out, we kept each other company. “We” started writing.
After My Mom passed away, I launched the Malibu Maine website as a blog, originally, in her memory. Over time, it became the unofficial setting for the children’s books that showed up in my imagination. I made it more official with the newest one, The Moon Over Malibu Maine!
In 2026, a fourth book will come out - it’s currently on the desk of the amazing watercolor artist and illustrator, Laura Winslow. I hope to bring a fifth book along in 2027. I have a few projects with characters who can’t wait to meet the world, but it takes time to make them happen, and in the meantime, I am also working on a dream of making Malibu Maine a real place to visit. I imagine it as a gathering place with a store, story walks and trails outside and maybe even a studio space inside for classes and special galleries, showings and events. I imagine good snacks too. Gotta have the snacks!
If you might like to learn more about this work and how you might help, please feel free to reach out to me directly at tonya@malibumaine.com. If you might like to help by purchasing books, or purchasing original paintings from the pages of the existing books (if you have a favorite page(s) from a book and would like to know if it’s available, I’m happy to speak with you), or sponsoring some of the work that I’m doing on the books that are currently in the works, or sponsoring a special school or related visit, I am grateful.
Built into Malibu Maine is the essence and memory of my Mom, Diane . You can scroll down to learn a little more about her and about the origin and making of Malibu Maine.
Thank you for visiting,
Tonya Shevenell
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”
logo by peter shevenell
In memory of Diane E. O'Donnell Shevenell, Malibu Maine is symbolically established on her birthday, July 24th, so that the town will have an extra special reason to celebrate each year. Diane is the mother of Malibu creator, Tonya Shevenell.
My brother, Peter, listened to my every thought bubble while designing the logo for Malibu Maine. The barn and its alewife weathervane are nods to the natural beauty of Maine and to two of its enduring industries. Where farmlands meet the sea are places of "ancient conversations" and inspiration. I walk along one of these places every week, and it's where ideas seem to find me; including the one for Malibu Maine. The barn represents creative space where ideas grow and develop; its doors and window both invite light in and let it shine forth as a beacon. The weathervane shows direction. Alewives are sea-run fish indigenous to Maine, that once could be found migrating in any stream or river near the Gulf. Their journeys from ocean to pond or lake are symbolic of timeless persistence and exploration. Malibu Maine is all about imagination, creativity and the spirit of place.
Diane O’Donnell was born in Portland, Maine She spent her childhood between Portland and Chebeague Island, where her Mother’s side of the family has called home for generations. Mom was the President of the New England Yul Brynner fan club when she was in high school. She loved going to the movies. She also loved horses and spent a lot of time in barns. She graduated from Deering High School, and went to the University of Maine at Portland (before it merged with the Gorham campus into the University of Southern Maine). After two years, she transferred to the University of Maine at Orono. Second semester junior year, she did an internship in Washington D.C. with Maine Congressmen, Stanley R. Tupper (pictured).
In Washington D.C., she met Ray Shevenell, a senior at Georgetown University. He was from Portland, too, and even though they had grown up less than a mile from each other, their paths had never crossed. They were married at St. Joseph’s Church on Stevens Avenue in Portland in May, 1965.
Mom loved being outdoors and had a green thumb. She helped a lot of people buy and sell their homes as a self-employed real estate agent. She made the best lemon bars ever.