Three Good Books

by Susan J. Berger
Happy first day of December and all the days that follow.

Three good books:

In case you missed the SCBWI blog post, SCBWI co-founder, Stephen Mooser, author of over sixty traditionally published books,  self published his new book, Class Clown Academy.
The books has a wonderful website for kids and grownups alike.
Please take time to visit The Class Clown Academy Website
You negotiate the site by clicking on the school map  -An image located on the lower left hand corner of the picture frame.
Click on the map; go to the Theatre and watch the film, Farts and You. It's delightful. A lovely way to start your day.
Be sure and visit the library to read, Jokes, Riddles and Tall Tales. The Class Clown Academy App is free on iTunes.
I love Steve's marketing plan and I think the website will be a great sales tool. There is a link in the Student Store portion of the website to the book and to other fun merchandise.
The site's a bit difficult for a grown up to navigate, as you have to find the map. I hope his team is planning to make better links to the activities. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid got it's start on a website, Fun Brain. I wish for Steve that kind of success.

On December second, The Hero's Guide Complete Collection:  will be available on Kindle for the first time. 22.99 for all three books. I love Christopher Healy's Hero series. Our Junior correspondent, Sam Krol, interviewed Christopher Healy last February. Both Sam and Victoria join me in loving The Heroes Guides. Don't wait for the movie. Please check them out. Hero's Guide also has a website
 Prince Liam. Prince Frederic. Prince Duncan. Prince Gustav. You’ve never heard of them, have you? These are the princes who saved Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel, respectively, and yet, thanks to those lousy bards who wrote the tales, you likely know them only as Prince Charming. But all of this is about to change.

 How I saved Hannukah by Amy Goldman Koss is now available as a Kindle book. I own the paperback and I love this story,
From School Library Journal

        Hanukkah is fast approaching, but to fourth-grader Marla Feinstein, it doesn't seem like a very big deal. While all of her neighbors are festooning their houses with Christmas lights and decorations, Marla has to make do with a plain menorah, a plastic dreidel that won't spin, a mom who doesn't even wrap her Hanukkah presents, and a dad who is out of town on a business trip. With her friend Lucy, Maria embarks on a mission to make Hanukkah fun, and soon has her mother making latkes, her little brother winning at dreidel, and the whole neighborhood dancing the hora. The fun and breezy tone and affectionately drawn characters will appeal to readers who will find themselves learning a bit about the meaning of Hanukkah in the bargain. DeGroat's pen-and-ink illustrations complement this warm and funny story.

I am so happy this story has a new life as a Kindle Book. (If you don't do Kindle, it's still available from independent users in paperback.

On a side note. Support your Independent Local Bookstore!
I spent the weekend in Reno, Nevada, visiting friends and I found an independent bookstore. Always a thrilling experience. At home, I have the wonderful Flintridge Bookstore in La Canada, and Once Upon a Time Bookstore in Montrose. Grass Roots Books is small with chock full shelves and a fair number of customers. Their prices are unbelievably low for new books.
I always check out the children's section first. I saw many of my favorites, and many new books to check out.







Christmas, Hanukah and Kwanza were well represented. But there are so many books and so little shelf space.  Many of may favorite books, - adult and children were missing.
 None of the three books mentioned above were there. I am so grateful for electronic books keeping in print books that I love. Happy reading and shopping, my friends.  Write on.

Junior Inker Sam Krol Interviews Christopher Healy

by Sam Krol

Sam fell in love with The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom.

Click on the link, please, and read the first page. You'll see why. Since his twin, Victoria got to interview Richard Peck, Sam asked if he could interview Christopher Healy.

Christopher said Yes.

Here is the Interview

Sam Krol

Did you base any of your characters on people you know?

Christopher Healy

None are completely based on people I know, but Princess Lila is based partly on my daughter, who, like Lila, considers herself a scientist, always asks a ton of questions, and often has one curl of hair falling into her eyes. And while my son is not an evil genius like Deeb Rauber, he does share a sense of humor with the Bandit King. As for the four princes… well, they all represent different parts of myself. When you put Liam, Frederic, Gustav, and Duncan together you get me: full of myself, afraid of everything, easily frustrated, and embarrassingly weird.

Sam Krol

Where did you come up with the idea for the bard?

Christopher Healy

Sadly, I didn’t come up with the idea. Back in the middle ages, bards and minstrels really existed! They would travel from town to town, singing long songs that recounted epic legends. I simply decided to see what it would be like in a world where bards and their musical fairy tales were the only source of news. And then I decided to make them really bad at getting the facts straight. And to not really care about the facts as long as their audiences were entertained. Hmm… I guess there are actually some people like that in real life, too.

Sam Kro

How many other books have you written?

Christopher Healy

After The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, there The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle and The Hero’s Guide to Being an Outlaw, which comes out in May. I’m working on a new book now that is not part of the same series, but has just as many words in the title.

Sam Krol

How long did it take you to write this book?

Christopher Healy

It took me over a year to write the first Hero’s Guide book, but less to write the others. That’s partly because, with the first book, I had to figure out everything—who the characters were, how they would act, what their world was like, and so on. That was some of the most time-consuming work—and it was already done by the time I sat down to write Books 2 & 3.

Plus, I learned to outline—you can write a lot faster when you’ve already decided what will happen in the story.

Sam Krol

How hard was it to write this book?

Christopher Healy

Very hard. Writing is tough, tiring business. I’m getting exhausted just writing the answers to this interview. But it’s fun, too. And rewarding. And hard to avoid when you list your profession as “writer” on most questionnaires.
The hardest parts about writing are getting started (because there’s nothing scarier than a blank page) and finishing (because you can revise your work forever, so deciding when it’s good enough to stop can be an incredibly tough call to make). 

Sam Krol

When did you write this book? 

Christopher Healy

After breakfast, during lunch, and before dinner.

Sam Krol

How did you come up with the idea of Prince Charming?

Christopher Healy

Thankfully, I can say I didn’t come up with the idea of Prince Charming—because Prince Charming is boooooooring. It was some guys a few hundred years ago who said, “Hey, let’s invent a totally lame royal guy with no personality and make him the hero of all our stories!” But I’m glad they did, because if not for all those dull princes in old fairy tales, I would never have had a reason to create my own, more interesting versions.

For my character creation process, I read through a bunch of old fairy tales and thought up reasons for all the strange, unexplainable behavior in them. For instance, I asked myself why the prince in “Rapunzel” never tried to get a ladder; and that’s why Gustav is a less-than-genius guy who never thinks before he acts.

Sam Krol

Why is Frederick a scaredy cat

Christopher Healy

His father tried to feed him to a circus tiger when he was young! Wouldn’t that turn you into a scaredy cat?

 

Sam Krol

Did anybody help you write your book?

Christopher Healy

The story fairies. Most of what I type during the day is complete gibberish; then the fairies come to my computer at night and rework it into readable sentences.

But seriously, I get input from a lot of people as I write—my wife, my kids, a few close friends. I show them chapters as I go along, and ask for their opinions and suggestions. And then, of course, my editor at the publishing company reads through it all and offers his advice too.

But, mostly it’s the fairies.

Sam Krol

Who is your favorite character?

Christopher Healy

 Chewbacca. Unfortunately I can’t use him in my books due to copyright reasons.

Sam Krol

Where did you write this book?

Christopher Healy

In my Hobbit Hole. Which is what I like to call my home office. I call it that because it is a quaintly furnished underground burrow in a country hillside.

Sam Krol

Did you take breaks while you wrote your book? 

Christopher Healy

Only bathroom breaks. And snack breaks. And video game breaks. Also coffee breaks, fresh air breaks, television breaks, and dance breaks. Oh, and breaks during which I would read other people’s books. But as a writer, reading other people’s books is really an essential part of the job. So, no—no breaks.

The Management would like to thank Christopher and Sam for this interview. Currently Sam is devouring Book two, The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle. 

His sister Victoria is urging him to hurry up.

Christopher's third book, The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw comes out April 29th and we all can't wait.

The Five Best First Paragraphs I’ve Read this Month

by Susan Berger

I’m back to reading Children’s and YA books. These first paragraphs are from my April favorites. The books link to Goodreads because their listings also include links to independent bookstores and libraries.

It was a sunny spring morning, but there was murder in the air. Jordon Johnston was killing  Pomp and Circumstance. Actually the whole elementary school orchestra was involved. It was a musical massacre.

About Average by Andrew Clements

The minute I read the first paragraph, I checked out the book. Andrew Clements is best known for Frindle His books don't stay on the shelves in the libraries. Kids love him and I do too.  I would have linked you to Frindle, but Blogger is strange and irritable today and will not let me do so.

Whenever Castle Glower became bored, it would grow a new room or two. It usually happened on Tuesdays when King Glower was hearing petitions, so it was the duty of the guards at the front gates to tell petitioners the only two rules the Castle seemed to follow.

Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George

I picked up this book because last year I read her book DragonSkin Slippers and loved it. I’m looking forward to the sequel, Wednesdays in the Tower which will be released May 7^th.  I also read The Princess trilogy by Jessica Day George this month. This trilogy is based on The Twelve Dancing Princesses, one of my favorite fairy tales.

I’m going to give you the whole first page on this next one:

I have had not so good of a week.

Well, Monday was a pretty good day, if you don’t count Hamburger Surprise at lunch and Margaret’s mother coming to get her. Or the stuff that happened in the Principal’s office when I got sent there to explain that Margaret’s hair was not by fault and besides she looks okay without it, but I couldn’t because Principal Rice was gone, trying to calm down Margaret’s mother.

Someone should tell you not to answer the phone in the Principal’s office if that’s a rule.

Okay, fine, Monday was not so good of a day.

Clementine  by Sarah Pennypacker, Illustrations by Marla Frazee

I'd already read Clementine, but I checked it out to read to my seven year old granddaughter. I read her the first chapter and she decided to take it home with her and read it herself.

PROLOGUE

THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT PRINCE CHARMING

Prince Charming is afraid of old ladies. Didn’t know that did you? Don’t worry. There’s a lot you don’t know about Prince Charming. Prince Charming has no idea how to use a sword; Prince Charming has no patience for dwarfs; Prince Charming has an irrational hatred of capes. Some of you may not even realize that there’s more than one Prince Charming. And that none of them are actually named Charming. No one is. Charming isn’t a name; it’s an adjective.

The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy Illustrated by Todd Harris

This is my favorite funny read for April. I picked it up because May is Fantasy month at Reading for Kids, a group I volunteer with, and this was the fourth Grade title. I cannot WAIT to read this with them next week. I loved it so much that I pre-ordered the sequel, A Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle.

Prologue: May 22, 1950

HE HAD A FEW MORE MINUTES to destroy seventeen years of evidence, Still in pajamas, Harry Gold raced around his cluttered bedroom, pulling out desk drawers, tossing boxes out of the closet, and yanking books from the shelves. He was horrified. Everywhere he looked were incriminating papers-a plane ticket stub, a secret report, a letter from a fellow spy.

Bomb The Race to build and steal the world’s most DangerousWeapon by Steve Sheinkin

I mentioned this book in my last first Lines post. I read it in April and WOW!!!  A fascinating look at the players in this history. I bookmarked all the pictures as I went back frequently to reference their faces. He did a brilliant job with the book.

Bomb won the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children, Newbery Honor and YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults: 

Hope one of these books strikes your fancy.  Happy Reading.