May 19, 2026 - Pat Jones’s first children’s book has a beautiful cover, designed by Louisville-area illustrator Bryan Werts. The Secrets of Scrapyard Hill, the first adventure in the Columbus, Indiana, author’s Junkyard Jones and Pepper the Pup series, features the main characters in the junkyard with a magical, glowing sphere they find that helps inspire Junkyard Jones to create a device to help his friend, Farmer Mandy. She hurt her back stacking hay bales and needs to feed her cows. Junkyard Jones designs and builds a self-feeding system to help her.

Junkyard Jones loves to build things with his hands. But what he loves to do even more than that is to help people. His companion, Pepper the Pup, helps as Junkyard uses his heart and his imagination to figure out how to solve his friends’ problems by making something that will help them. It doesn’t hurt that the pair are aided by a little bit of magic along the way.

Jones is a U.S. Army veteran who draws inspiration from his two children to create stories of hope and love. Growing up with little, Patrick learned that with some imagination and creativity, discarded items can be made into something extraordinary. 

The book should be out this spring or summer.