Category: KidsLit

A Vote for The Little Red Publishing Hen is a Vote Against Big Picture!

Posted on by Head Wombat

Listen. What I’m about to tell you may shock and upset you. For a great many people it won’t be surprising, in the least. But I feel it needs to be said.

The Brutal World of Big Picture
The Brutal World of Big Picture

For too long, Big Picture has run the picture book business. You know who I mean. Mo Willems. Oliver Jeffers. Drew Daywalt. Maurice Sendak. Sandra “Big Town” Boynton.

Do you guys really want Big Picture to continue to dominate our picture book lives?

Well, if you don’t go out and vote for The Little Red Publishing Hen in the Goodreads Choice Awards 2015, that’s what very well might happen.

We may wind up living in a world of lawlessness where pigeons harass you to borrow your car (despite not having a license), animals are encouraged towards slothfulness with an excessive number of naps, and unionized crayons. Do you really want that? Do you want that on your head? I don’t think you do.

Amongst other things
Amongst other things

But a world in which a plucky young hen can raise a family (and all that that entails), write and then publish a book? Well, sir and or madam, that’s the kind of world I want to live in.

So this November 6th through the 8th or so, I want you to get out there to the polls and show Big Picture the type of stories you want to see, and vote for The Little Red Publishing Hen (instructions here for those of you just joining us).

Take back our stories!

Verano in the sea
Verano in the sea, waiting for your vote… for the little red publishing hen

Also, here’s a very personal anecdote, from 2013. In 2013 a plucky young fish roared into the Goodreads Choice Awards, full of hope and vim and vigor. He kept up with those giants of Big Picture for a few days but was ultimately cast aside in favor of Drew “Da Hammer” Daywalt and Oliver “Bearpaws” Jeffers and their evil army of lazy crayons. Don’t let the same thing happen again. Please don’t let the same thing happen again. Please get out and vote for The Little Red Publishing Hen. Find a relative who may not yet be connected to the internet, connect them to it, and have them visit the Goodreads Best Picture Book page and write in “the little red publishing hen”. Or at least create an account in their name and then vote for them.

Don’t let Big Picture tell us what to do, vote for The Little Red Publishing Hen!

Vote for The Little Red Publishing Hen in the Goodreads Choice 2015 Awards! Please.

Posted on by Head Wombat

This is going to remind people, people who have long memories, of another time and another place.

So I’ve been told I’m not allowed to go around people’s houses, sign them up for Goodreads accounts, visit the Best Picture Book page, write in The Little Red Publishing Hen and vote for it for best picture book any more.

But, what I can do is tell you how to do it yourself.

First, visit the Best Picture Book page.

Step 1 - visit the https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-picture-books-2015
Step 1 – visit the https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-picture-books-2015

Next, log in or create an account on Goodreads (it’s free!) and come back to that page.

Step 2: ready to write-in a vote!
Step 2: ready to write-in a vote!

Now you’re going to, very carefully, type in “the little red publishing hen”:

Step 3: Write in the little red publishing hen
Step 3: Write in the little red publishing hen

Then you’re going to click or tap on The Little Red Publishing Hen in that drop-down list. Or you’re going to hit enter…

Step4
Step 4: Nearly there!

Then, with all your might (maybe a little less if it’s a new computer or phone and you don’t want to destroy it, just for the sake of voting for The Little Red Publishing Hen), press that big, red Vote button!

Step 5: Wallow in your part in L'affaire Chicken!
Step 5: Wallow in your part in L’affaire Chicken!

And that’s it. Tell your friends, neighbors, Romans, countrymen. Send them here, which will send them over there. Download the book, read it (it’s free to Goodreads members and on the iBookstore), share it with your writerly friends (it’ll give you something else to talk about other than pitching them ideas for a story — and when you see the single solitary tear in their eye you know you’ll have hit a real nerve).

 

Pretty please?

Nin and Ja

Posted on by Head Wombat

So we have a little family story, along the lines of “Verano the Fish” only much, much, much longer running.

It’s called “Nin and Ja,” for lack of a better title. It follows the adventures of these two boys, good friends, and sometimes their sisters, and the boys names are, for lack of a better names, Nin and Ja. As our kids have grown, so have Nin and Ja, usually a step or two behind where our own are. So these guys, they’ve just entered school.

And this is the sort of thing that’s typical of their stories:

Well, that old saying, “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off it, too?” were “if three of your classmates leapt out the window into a yarn spaceship, would you do it?” the answer would be quite different, as all the kids in the classroom bolted from their desks.

Coming soon to an ebook store near you?