Blog Book Tour

I was tagged by my friend Sue Fliess to participate in a blog tour.  Sue is the author of a soon-to-be-released book that I illustrated called "A Gluten-Free Birthday For Me!"  Sue tagged me about a month ago and I've been busy busy busy.  But hopefully "better late than never" still applies.

Here are the questions that I am suppose to answer...

1 What is the working title of your next book?
 I'm really excited about my next two books.  The first is called The Ice Cream Shop.  It's being released by Scholastic next summer (2014) A second book called The Sea Monster is scheduled for the fall.



2 Where did the book idea come from for the book?

 A couple of years ago, in lieu of sending out Christmas cards, I sent out mini Christmas comic books featuring two characters named Steve and Wessley.  Those two guys have decided to stick around in my head and worm their way into several more stories.  The Ice Cream Shop and The Sea Monster are the first two being put to paper. 

3 What genre does your book fall into? 
This is a level 1 early reader similar to my other book, May I Please Have a Cookie?

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Oh, they would definitely play themselves as it would probably be an animated short film.  John Lasseter are you listening??

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Steve learns that reading signs can be very important.

6) Who is publishing your book?

Scholastic

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I don't actually write a manuscript.  My first drafts are story boards.  This one went quickly.  It took me about 2 weeks.

 8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

These two guys follow a long standing tradition of bungling duos, Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, Frog and Toad, George and Martha.

 9) Who or what inspired you to write and/or illustrate this book? 
Easy reader books can be, dare I say it, dull.  What I hope to do is create books that I think are funny and that just happen to be easy enough for a child to read themselves.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader's interest? 

These books are very character driven and I've been spending a lot of time thinking about Steve and Wessley's personalities and how they will be drawn.  Here are some character sketches and some 3-D models that I created.

 Check back soon for another author illustrator to link to in this blog tour....