Why Scarletta is the Best, Why My Book Kicks Butt, and How I Became The Greatest Children's Book Author That Ever Lived!

Okay, so I may have used some superlative terms in titling this blog post, but that's what you get when you don't send your editor a title!

(OK, I didn't tell Paul I needed one, and I mostly wanted to make a title that was sure to grab your attention. In fact, barely any of the title is addressed in this delightful guest post from Mr. Czajak, but you're reading this and playing along so I think I've adequately done my job.)

To kick off the Monster Needs a Costume Blog Tour: A guest post by our very own beloved author of this fantastic book, Paul Czajak.  Thanks for reading! 

                                                                                                          -Josh

10 Things I Didn't Know Until I Published My First Book: Guest Post By Greg Bancroft

Publishing can be a confusing process, and many first-time writers have no idea what to expect. Or they might expect certain things, but it turns out to be completely different. Today, first-time author, and writer of the newly released Betsy's Day at the Game, Greg Bancroft shares some of what he's learned since beginning his publishing journey.
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1. Working with a publishing company, going into the office, dealing with editors and staff is not as mysterious as I thought. Real people work at real desks in an office focused on selecting and publishing children's literature. However, in a way, when I first visited the office, I felt like I was entering some kind of "special place" - off-limits to only a handful of "special people." I wasn't sure I should enter. In reality, it's a pretty normal office (albeit, a very cool space) where people work very hard at their jobs. Not scary, not mysterious.


2. From submitting a draft to seeing the book on a store's shelf took longer than I had imagined. Add in the time I took researching, writing, field-testing and re-writing, it was a good two years or more.


3. Seeing someone as talented as Katherine Blackmore (and as well-known!) draw such beautiful illustrations and capture the story and relationships so well, was surprising to me. What a talent. What a gift to me and to this book.


4. Seeing people's reaction for the first time, upon reading the book, and responding so favorably is what I'd hoped for but didn't really understand fully. The book has had quite an impact on people: remembering times with family at a game, reflecting on relationships with parents, grandparents, and kids. More than just appreciating a sweet story, it evokes a visceral and emotional response from others.

A Day at the Lake Blog Tour

Our newest picture book, A Day at the Lake, is going on tour! Well, a blog tour that is. The book follows three children as they explore the many wonderful things about spending a day at the lake, and with the winter we're having, some fun in the sun is just what we all need! The book will release this Wednesday, but the tour will start on Friday. Until then, here's a sneak peek at where we're heading:

Middle Grade or YA? A Mother Writes for Advanced Readers

When your first grader (or third grader) gobbles up Harry Potter, what’s next? When your eager reader begins to look past the chapter book section in the library to the middle-grade section and beyond, how should you steer that child? In a society that pushes early sexualization of children and treats tweens as consumers controlling parent purse strings, is it possible to help children grow their brains without cutting short their childhoods?

Author Guest Blog: Robyn Parnell

Robyn Parnell is the author of The Mighty Quinn, a middle grade novel being published by Scarletta Junior Readers next May. But long before she started writing The Mighty Quinn she was volunteering in a creative writing group at her son's school in Hillsboro, Oregon. It was during that time that she not only met the children who would later become role models for characters in The Mighty Quinn but where she met a boy who would challenge her to find an interesting story in a town where supposedly nothing special ever happened.


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Darers Go First

By Robyn Parnell Can Zorgon the Magnificent speak truths without betraying secrets? Is it clever or cowardly for a Herculon Sentry to passively resist persecution? Should the Galactic Council's actions be dependent upon mitigating circumstances or unwavering doctrines? Must the Zirconium Raider Queen fight for every noble cause, or carefully choose her battles? Can Solarian Seekers cultivate new allies without discarding the Old Ways?
Max* was the most precocious of the students in the creative writing group I'd been asked to lead at my son's school. He incorporated universal themes into his character's dilemmas, but refused to cast those characters in our universe. His stories were situated on faraway planets in distant galaxies. While I saw nothing particularly wrong with specialization, for Max, space was the final, and only, frontier.
He was the first student to read his stories aloud, and the last to recognize that his critiques of the others' recurrent topics ("Dude, your villains always die in fiery crashes!" "Alyssa, another stray Rottweiler looking for a home?!") also applied to his own works.
Although the students had been chosen for the group due to their creative writing aptitude, they initially, rigidly, followed what I privately called the preteen's "anyone but us/anywhere but here" directives of storytelling:

1.) Protagonists must be extra-normal; ideally, super beings with super powers (Rottweilers included)

2.) Stories must take place "somewhere else" – another time, country, dimension, galaxy – in order to be interesting.

As the weeks passed and we discussed SCAC vitals (setting, characters, action, conflict), the students alternately supported and challenged each other through character matrixes and plot exercises. Few events in my writing life have been as rewarding as hearing a ten-year-old author's epiphany: "There's no suspense when mega-brave, mega-smart, mega-powerful characters get mega-fast solutions to their mega-big problems." (Yessssssssssss! They said it, so I don't have to!)