Scarletta Press launches new children’s line with "Lost in Lexicon" by Pendred Noyce

Minneapolis-based Scarletta Press announces that it will launch a new children’s book line by acquiring Lost in Lexicon: an Adventure in Words and Numbers by Pendred Noyce. A self-published literary fantasy for readers ages 9-12, "Lost in Lexicon" tells the story of two cousins, Ivan and Daphne, on a quest to find lost children in a world of words and numbers running wild. “It’s just the combination of braininess, humor, and adventure we were looking for to start our new line,” says Ian Graham Leask, Scarletta’s publisher.

Look for this cover AUGUST 2011

 With four books planned, the Lexicon series will serve as cornerstone of Scarletta’s new line of intellectually stimulating books for strong and thoughtful readers. “We want to publish fiction that ‘writes up’ to kids, treating them as young intellectuals who enjoy thinking,” says Leask. "Our books will be fun, adventurous, and suspenseful, but their vocabulary and storylines will be designed to challenge young readers in the right way.”

Founded in 2005, Scarletta Press has gained a reputation as a publisher of high quality literary fiction and non-fiction. Its adult books have won or been nominated for a number of literary awards.

Pendred Noyce, author of "Lost in Lexicon," is a Massachusetts physician, education reformer, and mother of five. She is active in educational philanthropy as a trustee of the Noyce Foundation, where she takes a special interest in mathematics and science education. Serving on the boards of multiple math and science-based education non-profits, she also chairs the board of the Libra Foundation in Maine and the Rennie Center for Education Policy Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Noyce wrote "Lost in Lexicon," her first book for children, as a gift for her son Damian’s ninth birthday. “I wanted to see if I could make middle school math and language concepts come alive in characters and villages. I had a lot of fun writing the book, but when my agent took it out to large publishers, they considered it too didactic and old-fashioned for today’s kids.” Convinced that the publishers were wrong, Noyce formed her own company, Tumblehome Press, and assembled her own editorial and artistic team. Illustrations by Joan Charles, a California artist, brought a sense of playful magic to the text.

The Terminator Twist

If you couldn't tell by now, Scarletta Press has started traveling in new directions. With our jump into the popular fiction genre, we've published an outrageously humorous read in Our Jewish Robot Future by Leonard Borman. It's a book that is slowly, but SURELY, garnering more and more attention.

One of the most recent reviews can be found on page 15 of the Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter (November/December 2010 issue).

"Do you remember the Terminator movies? An evil cyborg from the future comes back in time with the mission to kill the woman who would become the mother of the leader of the human resistance movement. In a twist on that theme, Borman creates a Jewish robot of the future who travels back in time to tell Alex and Margarita Haralson that they must convince their adult children to start reproducing in order for their many-times-great-grandchildren to ultimately develop the robots that would travel into space and preserve Judaism..." Read the rest here.

 Don't forget to pick up your copy today!

"The future can be a very strange place..."

Another great hit for Leonard Borman's Our Jewish Robot Future. Midwest Book Review calls this futuristic novel "highly entertaining and a very highly recommended read."

Read the review in Midwest Book Review's Small Press Watch for November. This review will appear in the Cengage Learning, Gale interactive CD ROM series "Book Review Index" published 4 times yearly for academic, corporate and public library systems as well as book review databases (LexixNexis and Goliath). This review will also be posted on amazon by Midwest Book Review.

Not to mention...

Once again, we love a little spotlight on Scarletta Press. Our Jewish Robot Future recently had a nice mention in the bookshelf section of Tablet Magazine, an online Jewish community magazine. Here's a small taste of what they had to say:

"If Jewish/vampire trysts and Orthodox dragonslayers sound too old-fashioned for you, you might prefer Leonard Borman’s Our Jewish Robot Future (Scarletta, October), which comes freighted with the illustrative subtitle “A Comedic Novel about the Garden of Eden and the Cyborgian Transformation of the Human Race.” If nothing else, the novel demonstrates how irresistible it is for some authors to insert Jewishness into their wild fantasies..."  Read the rest here.

Invitation to Moderate

Scarletta Publisher Ian Graham Leask will be at the Rain Taxi Twin Cities Book Festival on October 16 moderating a panel. You can find him and several authors in the Hennepin Room at 2:30 PM for The Great Midwest: Regional Writing panel.  (Don't forget to also check out Scarletta Press near the KFAI table!)

"Join us as authors from outside the Twin Cities talk about writing in and about the region of Minnesota and the Midwest. Moderated by Ian Graham Leask, producer and host of KFAI’s Write On Radio!  

Charlene Ann Baumbich uses humor to teach readers and listeners how to appreciate the little things. She’s the author of over a dozen books, including her newest, Divine Appointments. Though she resides in Illinois, many of her books are set in Winona, MN—find out why! 

Patrick Hicks teaches creative writing at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, and is the author of several poetry collections (most recently This London) and the editor of a brand-new anthology of South Dakota poetry, A Harvest of Words. He has recently returned to the Midwest after living in Europe. 

Mark Munger is the owner of Cloquet River Press and the author of several books, including The Legacy, Ordinary Lives, River Stories, and most recently, Mr. Environment: The Willard Munger Story. He lives in northern Minnesota. 

Kent Nerburn is the author of the loudly acclaimed Neither Wolf nor Dog and its sequel, the Minnesota Book Award winner The Wolf at Twilight, among many other books that encourage millions to “seek the unseen in life.” He lives near the Canadian border in northern Minnesota."

Adventures at MBA

Midwest Booksellers Association hosts the trade show every fall. This past Saturday, October 2, was the exhibit day, and Scarletta Press had a wonderful time.

Scarlett'as Amanda Fish & Author Leonard Borman

For your listening enjoyment

Recently, as in this past Tuesday, September 28, Leonard Borman, author of Our Jewish Robot Future, made a grand appearance on local radio program KFAI Write On! Radio. For your listening enjoyment and in case you missed the original stream, we've provided the audio here.

Enjoy and have a good laugh along with Leonard and Scarletta Publisher Ian Graham Leask!

Click here to play Streaming Audio