I have a special guest today visiting my blog. Daniel McInerny is stopping by to do a guest post talking about his new imaginative children's book, Stout Hearts and Whizzing Biscuits. I definitely recommend his book to all of your children for christmas.
Here is my Review of Stout Hearts and Whizzing Biscuits if you would like to see what I had to say about it. =]
With out further ado, Here is the guest post I promised:
The Sleeping Giant: A Patria Story
A Guest Post by children’s author Daniel McInerny
It is no secret that sales of eBooks and eReaders are booming. The coming Christmas Season will doubtless show an even sharper spike, even into the first two-to-three months of 2012, as folks who next week unwrap shiny new eReaders will be scrambling for content.
A sleeping giant in this trend toward electronic reading is the children’s market. Not that nothing is happening in this area. Top publishing houses are busy making children’s books available as eBooks (just take a look at the Kindle Kids section on Amazon, and the Nook Kids section at Barnes & Noble). Then there are the uTales apps for the iPad. Not to mention the elephant in the room with this sleeping giant: J.K. Rowling’s much anticipated “Pottermore” website and the first-ever release of the Harry Potter books as eBooks.
Yet my hunch as a children’s author and children’s entertainment entrepreneur, is that the children’s eBook market is burgeoning with potential. Children love electric technology, and today’s children are so immersed in it, it seems inevitable that, as eBooks and eReaders become more and more prevalent, more and more children will be reading electronically.
Imagining Patria
In the Summer of 2011 I founded a company, Trojan Tub Entertainment, that looks to make a positive contribution to this trend. Trojan Tub features my “Patria” humorous adventure stories for middle grade readers, meaning readers from the ages of approximately 8 to 13.
Like many writers of children's stories, my apprenticeship began in a family room chair with kids on my lap as I made up a bedtime story. I vividly remember the first time I told a Patria story, sitting with my two little girls (now teenagers). They were very different stories then. Years later, as I began to write them down, the nature of Patria changed. What began as a fantasy world, in the sense of "high fantasy," became something "fantastical." Patria as I re-defined it no longer was discovered in another world. Patria became part of our world—that is, given a rather wacky take on ancient history.
So where is Patria? Northern Indiana. I can’t be more specific than that. The precise location of Patria is a well-kept secret. You’ve heard of the government’s Area 51? Patria is Area 1.
The first book in the Patria series is called Stout Hearts & Whizzing Biscuits. Here’s a synopsis:
When Oliver Stoop, age 11, moves with his family to a remote piece of land in northern Indiana, he soon discovers that someone is already living there—an entire kingdom of someones, in fact. These are the good citizens of Patria, a secret land founded by refugees from the Trojan War who sailed across the Atlantic in a reconfigured Trojan Horse—3,000 years ago!
For Oliver, Patria is a land of wonders—and for the first time in his life, friendship. There's young Prince Farnsworth Vesuvius, inventor of the Magna-Pneumatic Whizzing Biscuit Blaster, and his formidable sister, Princess Rose, whose inedible, stone-hard biscuits provide the blaster's ammunition. But there's also the rest of the eccentric and lovable Patrian Royal Family, the boy warriors in the Potawatomi Indian Camp, not to mention the Viking kids from the Geat Village, newcomers to the area who only arrived 1,000 years ago.
Yet when the noble Knights of the Blue Sock threaten to drive off the Stoops by force of arms, Oliver has to decide where his loyalties lie, and whether he has the courage to undertake the quest that is both Patria's, and his family's, last, best hope of peace.
Going Electric
Stout Hearts & Whizzing Biscuits is only available as an eBook. It’s available at Amazon (for the absurdly low price of $2.99), as well as at barnesandnoble.com’s Nook Store and iTunes. The audiobook, read by the author, is also available at Worldwide Audiobooks ($4.99).
So no hardcover or paperback? Nope. Trojan Tub Entertainment is a digital project, all the way down to the 1’s and 0’s. This means that Stout Hearts & Whizzing Biscuits and my other Patria stories will only be available as electronic documents to be read on eReaders such as Kindles and Nooks, iPads and laptops.
Why, by the way, do I call my company “Trojan Tub” Entertainment? Present-day Patrians are descended from Trojans who escaped from the burning city of Troy in a reconfigured Trojan Horse. With the legs cut off and sliced down the middle, the Horse made for a fantastic hull. This is the Trojan Tub, and a replica of it in the library of Patria Castle plays an important part in the climax of Stout Hearts & Whizzing Biscuits.
The Kingdom of Patria
Trojan Tub Entertainment is not only about the Patria eBooks. There is also a companion Kingdom of Patria website at http://kingdomofpatria.com. The Kingdom of Patria is a place for kids and families to play—to enjoy free Patria short stories, listen to audio, join one of two Patria “clubs”—either the Illustrious Order of Knights of the Blue Sock, or Madame Mimi’s Well-Ordered School for Ill-Mannered Girls—as well as read blog posts from Patria’s main characters: Oliver, Farnsworth, and Princess Rose.
I hope you and your family and friends will visit the site, as well as download your copy of Stout Hearts & Whizzing Biscuits. And if you are so inclined, “Like” Trojan Tub’s Facebook page, and follow me and the company on Twitter: @kingdomofpatria.
The second book in the Patria series, Stoop of Mastodon Meadow, which continues Oliver’s adventures in Patria, will be released in early January 2012.
Daniel McInerny, founder and CEO of Trojan Tub Entertainment, is a native of South Bend, Indiana (just downriver from Patria). He holds a PhD in philosophy, and taught for many years at various universities in the United States. He currently lives in Virginia with his wife, Amy, and his children, Lucy, Rita and Francis. He also writes the blog, High Concepts, devoted to the arts, entertainment and culture (http://danielmcinerny.blogspot.com/). Please write to him with questions and comments: danielmcinerny@kingdomofpatria.com.
Here are some more Links to Check Out Daniels Childrens Book:
Thanks Daniel for Writing this awesome guest post and I hope you guys go check out his awesome book. I can't wait for more stories from Patria. =]
-Michael
No comments:
Post a Comment