Book Giveaway: THE BIG BEACH CLEANUP by by Charlotte Offsay

Charlotte Offsay has written a new picture book, THE BIG BEACH CLEANUP illustrated by Katie Rewse and published by Albert Whitman & Company. It hits the bookstores on March 1st, but it is available for pre-order on Amazon, now. Charlotte has agreed to share a copy with one lucky winner living in the United States.

All you have to do to get in the running is leave a comment. Reblog, tweet, or talk about it on Facebook with a link and you will get additional chances to win. If you are a follower who has it delivered everyday, please let me know in your leave a comment and I will give you an extra ticket. Just let me know other things you do to share the good news, so I can put the right amount of tickets in my basket for you. Thank you for helping Charlotte and Katie.

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Cora is excited to enter the local sandcastle-building contest―until the contest is canceled due to litter at the beach. Determined to help save their favorite place, Cora and Mama get to work picking up the single-use plastics that have washed onto the shore. It will take more than four hands to clean up the beach, but Cora is just getting started.

BOOK JOURNEY:

I am a long-time follower of your blog Kathy and am thrilled that you are featuring my debut picture book, The Big Beach Cleanup, today! Thank you!

Every manuscript I write seems to take a different journey. Some seem to come out fully formed while others change drastically from first to final and only a small nugget of the original idea remains. The Big Beach Cleanup falls firmly into the later category – I have over 80 drafts of it on my computer, it was originally called How Many Hands and didn’t even include the sandcastle competition that the story now revolves around!

When I first began writing The Big Beach Cleanup I sat down to write about little hands joining together to make big change – that was the heart of the story for me and so that nugget has remained a constant thread through every draft. It took me a long time to find the right way into this story, and I struggled to find the right character and storyline that children would be able to connect to. It wasn’t until one day on a walk with my children when I picked up a piece of trash off the street and tossed it into a nearby trashcan, that Cora, the main character of The Big Beach Cleanup was born. My small action sparked a big conversation with my two young children about how trash gets onto our streets, how it travels through storm drains to the ocean and why it is important to do our part. I went home that day and wrote the first draft of Cora’s story about a young girl who wanted to do her part to protect our oceans.

Even though Cora’s story was born that day and I knew I had found my way into the manuscript, it still didn’t feel right. The story felt didactic and was missing the fun. As much as I wanted to write a story to inspire children, I also wanted to entertain them and write a story that I as a parent would enjoy reading aloud. That is where my wonderful critique partners came in. They helped me figure out what was missing and dream up and weave in the sandcastle competition.

I then reached out to ocean advocacy experts to help me fact check my manuscript. I was fortunate to connect with two different experts who reviewed my manuscript and offered their feedback. From there I had a draft that I was fairly happy with but after so many rewrites, I was eager to get it in front of fresh eyes. When I heard that Albert Whitman editor Christina Pulles was running an Inked Voices workshop I jumped at the opportunity for feedback. I had attended a workshop (on a different manuscript) with Christina in the past, so I knew that her style resonated with me and how valuable her feedback would be. During that workshop the Inked Voices community and Christina gave me invaluable feedback regarding reworking the ending of the manuscript.

After a few rounds of edits with my wonderful agent, Nicole Geiger of Full Circle Literary, we sent The Big Beach Cleanup out on submission. I was thrilled when I learned that Christina Pulles wanted to acquire the manuscript and delighted that I would get to partner with the talented Katie Rewse, whose artwork I love and who is a big ocean advocate herself! Christina has been a dream to work with, helped me make further improvements to the manuscript, and shared Katie’s artwork from the beginning (which I love even more than I knew I would).

I am thrilled with the way The Big Beach Cleanup has turned out, and I hope that it both entertains and inspires readers to join hands and make the changes they wish to see in the world.

CHARLOTTE’S BIO:

Charlotte Offsay was born in England, grew up in Boston, and currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two small children. Born into a family with a love of travel and adventure, Charlotte enjoys exploring new places and cultures. She is a former corporate finance client specialist who now spends her days caring for her family, volunteering in her local community, traveling, and using her experiences to fuel her true passion: writing.

Through her work, Charlotte hopes to make children laugh, to inspire curiosity, and to create a magical world her readers can lose themselves in time and time again. Her debut, THE BIG BEACH CLEANUP, will be published by Albert Whitman in Spring 2021, followed by HOW TO RETURN A MONSTER releasing Fall 2021 with Beaming Books. For more information visit http://www.charlotteoffsay.com. She is represented by Nicole Geiger at Full Circle Literary.

KATIE’S BIO:

Katie Rewse is an illustrator based in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England, where she studied for both her BA and MA in illustration. Since graduating in 2017, Katie has specialized in children’s book illustration and has enjoyed working with many publishers, while also making decorative work for a variety of contexts.

As a keen surfer, Katie feels passionate about looking after the ocean, so she was delighted to be asked to illustrate this book and help spread this important message.

Charlotte, thank you for sharing your book and journey with us. It sounds like a much needed book. I’m happy that you thought to write a book that will inpsire children to help clean up our environment and realize even little hands can help. Good luck with the book.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy