Hey friends! I don’t discuss my day job too much on my blog, but every once in a while I get excited about something and want to tell you about it. I have two books for little kids in the Hallmark Gold Crown stores right now!
How are they high-tech? On each page, the kid swipes their finger across part of the illustration, which brings up all kinds of sound effects and extra dialogue. I’m really impressed with what the team did — the sound quality is high, and it’s much longer and more elaborate than I expected.
That action is written into the story, which made writing these a challenge: for each spread, I had to think of things like catching a monkey in a net or throwing a pizza at an alien, But I think the stories came out really well!
The first one, Ava the Animal Rescuer, features a little girl who helps all kinds of animals out of dangerous situations. Yes, she’s kind of young to be flying her own helicopter. In the first draft, she had a grown-up pilot, but he wasn’t bringing much to the story. As the owner of two rescue dogs, this project is near and dear to my heart.
In the second one, Intergalactic Treasure Hunt, space twins Hydro and Jen (see what I did there?) hunt for treasure, outwit a big bad space pirate, and solve the problem of their broken gamma ray oven. I love outer space stories, so this was so much fun to write.
I’m really pleased to have two books out in which little girl characters are essentially action heroes. I can’t wait to show some of my nieces and nephs!
What’s the age range for these books? These might be fun for my nieces.
Aw, thanks for asking! I would say 2 – 7. The really little kids like them mostly because of the interactive sounds 🙂
These look like so much fun! Congratulations!
Oh thanks so much, PJ!
Love these. I plan to nominate you for the Sunshine Blogger Award. … Will post, tomorrow.
Oh my gosh, what?! I don’t know exactly what that is but I’m so excited! 😀
I don’t, either, but it seems like this is a nice way for us to let our own followers get to know us, plus meet others and share blogs we like with our followers.
There are four rules:
1) Thank the person who nominated you.
2) Answer the 11 questions you were asked.
3) Nominate 11 other bloggers and let them know they were nominated.
4) Ask the nominees 11 questions.
Since I gave you a heads up, you get time to think of 11 questions you would like to ask…. since I got this out of the blue, today, I need a bit of time for that. 😉
Okay! I’m going to wait and see what you do first 🙂 How cool! I love it. Thanks!
IMHO, supporting other worthy bloggers is a good thing… love your happiness jar idea, though I got hooked on your zodiac traits concept.
A Fabulous achievement very pleased for you enjoy your well earned high.
Oh thanks so much Ellen!
Yay you!
🙂 Thanks Cathy! Thanks for reading!
Congrats!
😀 Thanks Dayton! You know how we Hallmark writers love our kids’ books.
I do indeed. Some of my favorite kids books have come out of Hallmark. 🙂
Bryn, I am a ‘recent’ follower of your blog and your write-a-novel-in-a-year posts. I live in Canada and am trying to purchase these books through Indigo.ca but can’t find them. Any idea as to whether they will be made available through Indigo/chapters? (I have belonged to an animal rescue group near my home for many years and with several fosters and 3 adopted dogs in my repertoire, I am particularly intrigued by Ava’s story).
Hey Sheila, thanks for asking — and thanks for following!
I don’t think they will be distributed through Indigo, sorry to say. I know there are Gold Crown stores in Canada, but I don’t know if there are any near you! I have links to the Hallmark retail site, but they aren’t on Amazon.ca as far as I know.
Thanks for giving animals a loving home 🙂