There was a lot of storytelling time,' author recounts her northern Ontario childhood before electricity

Author Pat Lamondin Skene remembers a time growing up when her family, living in the small northern Ontario community of Britt, didn't have electricity at their home.

"There was a lot of storytelling, family time," she said about those early childhood years before they had electricity.

But when they got a television it was a big change.

"We were listening to other people's stories in the living room as opposed to telling our own stories around the kitchen table," Lamondin Skene said.

That time of change is the subject of her eighth children's book, called Lights Along the River.

She hopes children who read her book can reflect on the changes in their own lives, and the changes they will see as they grow up.

"Maybe they can have discussions with their families about what changes they might see or what changes they've already seen in their life, and realize that change is a big part of life," Lamondin Skene.

The changes in her own life are also the subject of her first book for adults, an autobiography called Swiftly Flowing Waters.

Lamondin Skene says she hopes other women might read it and take inspiration from her own life and the challenges she has faced.

She grew up in a Métis family and says they were denied their heritage for decades.

Lamondin Skene went on to have a successful career in banking, with CIBC, where she retired as the bank's vice-president of electronic banking in 1998.

Then she followed her dream of writing children's books, and has travelled around the world despite living with lupus.

"I think women need to tell our stories and share our experiences," Lamondin Skene said.

"You know, maybe we find ourselves in other people's stories and in some small way we can serve as a guidepost to help them through."