Book Giveaway: MOLDILOCKS by Lynn Marie

Lynne Marie has written a picture book titled, MOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE SCARES, published by Sterling. She has agreed to share a copy with one lucky winner and a half hour FB Video Consultation with another. All you have to do to get in the running is to leave a comment. Reblog, tweet, or talk about it on Facebook with a link and you will get additional chances to win. Just let me know the other things you do to share the good news, so I can put in the right amount of tickets in my basket for you.

Sharing on Facebook, Twitter, reblogging really helps spread the word for a new book. Thanks for helping Lynne Marie!

If you have signed up to follow my blog and it is delivered to you everyday, please let me know when you leave a comment and I will give you an extra ticket. Thanks!

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

A fun, shivery take on a favorite fairy tale!  

ONE CHILLY NIGHT Papa Scare, Mama Scare and Baby Scare take a stroll to let their very hot Alpha-Bat Soup cool. But while they are out, a lonely little zombie named Moldilocks sleepwalks into their haunted house, eats their soup, breaks a chair…and maybe even answers the Scare family’s nightmares!

Though slightly spooky, this is also a sweet, poignant story about belonging – and being adopted into a new family that’s just right!

IN A HUGE HAUNTED HOUSE, with room enough for four, there lived three Scares:

Papa Scare, Mama Scare and Baby Scare.

One special night, the family returns home after a midnight walk in the graveyard only to find a little zombie named Moldilocks asleep in Baby Scare’s bed…

Forget Goldilocks and the three bears—MOLDILOCKS and the THREE SCARES are here, in a delightfully zombie-tastic new version of the popular story. Papa Scare (a monster), Mama Scare (a mummy), and Baby Scare (a vampire) live in a haunted house where they eat finger sandwiches and alpha-bat soup. One night, they go out to walk their dog (a bloodhound, of course) to let their soup cool down. While they’re away, in walks the zombie Moldilocks, looking for food, a chair, and a bed that’s just right. Kids will love this hauntingly funny story with its surprise ending!

BOOK JOURNEY:

I love wordplay – playing around with language and rhyming existing words to make them something else. While I do this often for fun and without being prompted, in this case, I did it in conjunction with brainstorming ideas for Storystorm (at the time PiBoIdMo). It obviously sprung from rhyming the Gold in Goldilocks with Mold. Of course, a character named Moldilocks could be none other than a Zombie! And the Scares (rhymes with Bears) would be monsters! But then, I needed a fresh spin on the tale, and I wasn’t quite sure what that was. So the idea sat, dead as a doornail.  From time to time, I’d recall it, but it didn’t come to life.

Then one day – honestly one random day although it could have been a rainy day with lightning — all the parts fused together and took on a life of their own (much like Frankenstein’s monster).

Rather than be an intruder, as in the original tale, Moldilocks would be the answer to the Scare’s nightmares (as you can tell, I’m a fan of assonance and consonance, too). How? There would be something missing in each of their lives until she showed up. I still wanted to mix things up a bit, so I flipped monster roles as well. I assigned Papa Scare the role of homemaker/cook and had him prepare the Alpha-Bat Soup (instead of porridge) and I put Mama Scare to work in the lab. I added a bloodhound named Plasma because, well, honestly because I couldn’t resist, and also gave Moldilocks a little silent sidekick of a maggot-fly named Zombee. The only problem remaining was that my main character, Moldilocks lacked a true problem and motivation. I brainstormed possibilities and also integrated my own situation as an adopted child. And so she was alone and in search of home! When she smelled the warm soup that the Scares left to cool, it lured her in – it smelled like home, something she had longed for for a long, long time. Playing around with the details for the chairs and beds and integrating the puns was just – well, FUN!

 

In total, I did about 7 rounds of critiques with my critique groups (I’m a member of a few groups and like to get varied feedback) before I sent it out. This was pretty low, as I think I did 27 with Hedgehog Goes to Kindergarten, although I did only three with its sequel, Hedgehog’s 100^th Day of School and 7 with The Star in the Christmas Play. However, it takes as many as it takes to get it right, and each round would have had anywhere from 3-7 people critiquing it. So there’s that…

 

I was an active member of Kid Lit College at the time Moldilocks came to life and I submitted it for a critique-and-chat. KLC director Jodell Sadler told me it would sell the first time she saw it. She even recommended the big pause in the book. Leslie Shumate of Little Brown did the critique and expressed an interest in taking it on, but just after she left publishing altogether. When that happens, with no one to bring the manuscript forward, the opportunity just dies.

At the 2016 SCBWI FL Conference in Miami, I had submitted another favorite manuscript of mine for critique, THE DINO STORE (still available). This time, the wonderful Meredith Mundy at that time of Sterling Children’s Books, was my critiquer. At the onset of the critique, she revealed, “I really loved THE DINO STORE, but we have nine other dinosaur books, so if I took yours on, it would only be competing with those. So what else do you have?” I pitched her Moldilocks first (since it had just died at Little Brown), as well as a few others. She asked to see the manuscripts, three at a time. I sent them out right away. After that, there was along of waiting and wondering (and waiting and wondering and waiting and wondering – you get the idea), but eventually she MADE AN OFFER! The entire process from conference to contract was January, 2016 to October, 2017, with the book’s release date being today, August 6, 2019! And it was worth EVERY moment of the wait. I am so thankful to Meredith Mundy, my Agent — Deborah Warren, Eliza Berkowitz, Ardi Alspatch, and David Rodriguez Lorenzo, as well as Jodell Sadler and the many members of my fabulous critique groups who were part of and who helped me breathe life into Moldilocks and were with me on this journey.

Here’s the Book Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCnKNTlCej0

 

Lynne Marie is the author of Hedgehog Goes to Kindergarten – illustrated by Anne Kennedy (Scholastic, 2011), Hedgehog’s 100th Day of School – illustrated by Lorna Hussey (Scholastic, January 2017), The Star of the Christmas Play — illustrated by Lorna Hussey (Beaming Books, 10/16/2018), Moldilocks and the 3 Scares — illustrated by David Rodriguez Lorenzo (Sterling, 2019)  and her first non-fiction picture book, Let’s Eat! Mealtime Around the World — illustrated by Parwinder Singh (Beaming Books, 2019) and more forthcoming. Her stories, poems, folk tales and crafts have appeared in many magazine markets, including Family Fun, Highlights, High Five, Spider, Baby Bug and more. She was a first-round panelist for the 2016 and 2017 Cybils Picture Book Awards. In addition, she’s an on-staff writer for Jon and Laura Bard’s Children’s Book Insider and a book reviewer.

When she’s not cruising around the world, she lives on a lake in South Florida with her family, a Schipperke named Anakin and several resident water birds. She’s represented by Deborah Warren of East West Literary Agency. You can learn more about her at www.LiterallyLynneMarie.com.

She lives on a lake in South Florida with her husband and two children.

VISIT THE AUTHOR:

CHECK OUT MY AUTHOR WEBSITE: http://www.LiterallyLynneMarie.com

CHECK OUT MY CRITIQUE WEBSITE: http://www.thepicturebookmechanic.com

ON AMAZON.COM: https://www.amazon.com/Lynne-Marie/e/B0065SF8EO/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/WordsandPictures.by.LynneMarie

MY AUTHOR FACEBOOK PAGE: Children’s Author Lynne Marie  https://www.facebook.com/LiterallyLynneMarie/

ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/pictures.by.pixel.pixie/

ON TWITTER: @Literally_Lynne

VISIT MY BLOGS: 

My Word Playground (Writing and Reading for Children) https://literallylynnemarie.blogspot.com/

My World Playground (My Travel Blog *NEW*) https://myworldplaygrounds.blogspot.com/

MY YOU TUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAcYhJhh8xjx_sf7YaRweqQ

Lynne Marie, thank you for sharing your book and journey with us. It looks like a must have fun Halloween picture book that kids and their parents will love.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy