Recently, I’ve been working on a series of books involving Magic E, an owlish wizard who knows a little word trickery. With a wave of his wand and a flick of his wrist, he changes the vowels sounds of words like pin, tub, can, and cap by adding an E to the end of them.

The book in this series are going to be outlandish stories with some fun word play. In one story, Magic E sends Tim the porcupine back in time—get it, add an e to Tim and you get time! In another, he teaches a cod to read secret codes. Chuck the Duck goes from being a dud to a cool dude, and Sam has his cap turned into a magical cape.

These stories really allowed me to let some of my goofiness out into the world. And to top it off, I once again get to work with the amazing Luke Flowers. He’s illustrated my retelling of The Muffin Man, and also worked on a few titles that will be coming out this summer. His work is incredibly fun, and from the initial sketch of Magic E, I can tell he’s going to capture the playfulness of this series.

Stay tuned for more.

Most adults know the muffin man by now, but many will have never heard the story in quite this way! Author Blake Hoena has given the intrepid baker and his beloved Drury Lane bakery a new daily routine, turning the Muffin Man into an early riser who makes a wide variety of muffins to tempt the passers-by. At the end of the day, the store is empty and everyone is happy. This cute picture book is written in such a way that every page can be sung to the melody of the classic children’s song; in fact, the book even includes a CD featuring a recording of the full song, complete with toe-tappingly catchy music. Illustrations by Luke Flowers are delightfully cartoony, full of bright colors, and young readers will be smiling along with the people in the book as they go through every page. This is a fun addition to the library of any young reader, although parents might quickly get tired of hearing the song over and over again. Great for the preschool crowd.

—San Francisco Book Review

A project I had been working on this summer has finally come to fruition, and just in time for Christmas! The Adventures of Big Blue and the Capt’n, with Hari the Tiger, is a picture book I cowrote with Ben Young, a worldwide adventurer who has a deep desire to help educate people about the preservation of endangered species. He had an idea for two characters, both endangered animals: Big Blue, a blue whale, and the Capt’n, a green sea turtle. Their goal is to teach children about the endangered animals they meet as they travel the world. Ben asked for my help creating a story around Big Blue and the Capt’n, using some of his personal experiences. He’s been to Indonesia, where this story takes place. He’s also seen the animals and places mentioned in this book. In the end, I hope what we created helps make people more aware of the threats to some of the world’s most amazing and endangered animals.

And YES, there will also be plush toys of Big Blue and the Capt’n for sale.

Available at http://store.discovery.com

With kids underfoot, jokes are aplenty in our household, whether we’re making up songs or sneaking up on each other or retelling a funny one we heard earlier in the day. We share a lot of laughter.

Admittedly, I tell a few stinkers—not fart jokes, but jokes that bomb. I get my share of eye rolls and “seriously!”s and patronizing smirks. But I’ve learned that without failure, there can be no success. This is very true of telling jokes and writing funny stories. So I keep trying.

My most recent attempts have been in my Jokes and Jingles series, children’s books that retell knock-knock jokes in song (AND graphic novel format). Here’s a sketch from Orange You Glad. It is the story of how Susie Loo goes looking for a snack and gets harassed by an annoying banana. It might be my favorite of the bunch—at least I think it’s the funniest.

I have been exercising my funny bone this fall with graphic novel adaptations of knock-knock jokes for my Jokes and Jingles series. The fun part about writing these children’s books?—the kids and I tell these jokes (and some weird variations of them) around the house.

Here’s is a sketch from Boo Hoo? I turned it into a story about a girl named Betty who is playing hide-and-seek with her friends.

I knew the publisher, Cantata Learning, was interested in creating easy-to-read graphic novels in a picture book trim size. So I suggested joke books, and I feels the knock-knock jokes turned out to be a perfect for this format. It’s easy to see and read the back and forth that sets up the punch lines.

Here is a little bit of silliness, a sketch from my song Chocolate Chimpanzees. It is part of a series of tunes based on letter blends, and this one is chock full of chuckles. Two chimps join a chicken on a quest for a treasure chest. They meet a chili eating chinchilla, a checkers-playing chihuahua, and a charango-playing cheetah while chasing after Charlie the chipmunk.

Of the handful of songs I’ve written so far, this is my fave. The melody popped into my head one day, and the words just flowed. Not often is something as easy to write as this song was. Or as fun. Now I just need to wait for it to be put to music.

Ever since I wrote my first graphic novel, Matthew Henson, Arctic Explorer, I have been fascinated with the format. Sure, some of that has to do with me reading Spider-Man and Batman comics as a youngster. And part of it is that I wish I was better a better artist because I’ve always wanted to draw my own comics. But it’s also because of the added element, the pictures, in telling a story. Sometimes, illustrations can present things is a simpler, more straightforward way than just words, especially when targeting young readers.

So recently, I was given the challenge to create graphic novel joke books within a picture book trim and page book. Oh, and they were also to be paired with music. I thought knock-knock jokes would be a perfect fit, and then to the great annoyance of my kids, I began telling and retelling some of the classic knock knock jokes to them.

The above sample is a sketch from Knock, Knock, Moo!, a play off of the interrupting cow joke. Though the farmer in this book has more than just an annoying cow.

Only once before, for the book War in Afghanistan, have I co-written with someone. That project was easy, as I worked with a long-time friend and we were able to divide up the writing by chapters. All went smoothly.

I was a little more worried, though, about a recent batch of songs I had pitched. They were to be illustrated in picture books and paired with music, and they were based on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) teachings. See, I had the bright idea that my wife could help me with them. She is a STEM specialist, and I know this publisher was looking for science songs. So I hoped that pairing our skills would get them to bite.

And they did! The pitch was accepted, and thankfully, we devised a system for getting the books written. My wife provided me with the ideas (her expertise as a STEM specialist) while I wordsmithed the text (my expertise). Sure, there was a little back and forth, and a few disagreements. We both have our musical talents (she sings while I play guitar) and preferences (she likes more classical music while I’m into American and blues). But in the end, I think we may have some hits on our hands.

The above sample is from Math Saves the Day!, a song about how we use math every day, even when we aren’t thinking about it.

Back when I was in grad school, at Minnesota State University, Mankato, students got in free to all sporting events, which was great for a poor college student like me. That meant hitting home hockey games was one our favorite (as in inexpensive) forms of entertainment. The Mavericks weren’t always the best team, but they played against the Badgers and Gophers, so we got to see some exciting games.

Like with all fun writing projects, you mix things you enjoy, and for The Science of Hockey, that’s exactly what I was able to do. Hockey + graphic novel format = my newest release into the world. It’s also my first book in the Max Axiom, Super Scientist series. He’s a character created by a couple friends of mine, Chris Harbo and Donnie Lemke. So it was doubly fun adding to Max’s legacy.

In grad school, at Minnesota State University, Mankato, friends and I would hit Mavericks’ hockey games whenever we got the chance. As students, we got in free, which was about all we could afford at that time in our careers. While I can’t claim to be a huge hockey fan, the games were a blast, sitting behind the opponents’ goal and harassing the visiting team.

But I must admit a guilty pleasure in seeing the Zamboni roll out between periods. Ever since I was a kid, I have been fascinated with how this odd-looking, slow-moving machine worked. Not to mention, I’d be shouting along as the Gear Daddies classic “I Wanna Drive a Zamboni” blare over the arena’s speakers. When younger, I was envious of the person getting to drive it around—probably still am a little jealous.

So when given the assignment to write a graphic novel The Science of Hockey, I knew I had to dedicate a spread to the Zamboni.

My book is be part of the Max Axiom, super scientist series. And one futuristic device Max possesses is X-ray glasses. I thought he could use them to take a close look at how a Zamboni works. And since someone would be driving it around the rink at the time, I asked the illustrator to show the skeleton of the driver, something I thought was a humorous touch.

The Science of Hockey will be released this summer.

I was recently sent proofs of my fractured fairy tale, choose your path adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk. Now I’ve been a fan of this tale since way back before I wrote a graphic novel about Jack’s adventures. It was a childhood favorite of mine growing up. So it’s a story I know and love.

My first retelling stuck pretty close to Joseph Jacobs’ version, but being a “fractured” tale, I twisted things around quite a bit in my new take on this classic. It includes three main paths, and each takes a different character’s POV. One story is told from the giant’s perspective, another from Jack’s (or Jacks, plural, as Jack teams up with some famous Jack from children’s literature), and lastly the mother’s.

It was immensely fun re-envisioning a favorite story from you youth. And in doing so, this project also allowed me to exercise my humor writing a bit, as you probably can tell from this illustration.

Last weekend, I headed home for a nephew’s high school graduation. And while I could have crashed on somebody’s couch or stayed in a hotel, my first instinct is always to look for a place to camp. Camping and fishing were some of my favorite summer activities as a kid. Heck, I used take my grandfather’s old canvas tent, which he got it in the military, and set it up in the backyard. I’d sleep out there often as my parents would let me.

So this trip was no different, and I pitched my tent at Collins Park, a park I spent a lot of time at as a kid. I stayed at a car camping site since I was only there for one night and didn’t want to go through the work of hiking into a remote spot.

Whenever I go camping, along with some of the basic supplies needed to survive, like bug spray—the mosquitoes were thick—I bring books. Usually I load up my Nook as I don’t want to carry around too much. There’s just something incredibly peaceful about sitting in the middle of the woods and loosing myself in a book. This trip, I choose to dig into the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan. I enjoyed Percy Jackson and the Olympians so figured I made a good choice. I read through book 1 on day one, and then the next morning, as my coffee was brewing, I started book 2.

They are nice light reads—great for that down time between hikes or while sitting around the campfire waiting to make S’mores. And I’m sure I’ll finish book 2 before my next camping trip.

My fourth book in the National Geographic Kids Everything series is out this month. And like all my books, I’m proud of the work I did on this one. It took a lot of research to nail down some of the facts. But also, I have an ornithologist in the family. One of my uncles is a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. So I feel like I need to know my stuff. I hope he feels I did these amazing predators justice.

So I’ve written books on football, skateboarding, and soccer. All of which are sports that I either follow or take part in. But my newest book, Heavyweight Takedown, focuses on a sport I haven’t tackled yet. And while I can’t claim to be a wrestling fanatic, it holds a soft spot in my heart. I grew up watching “profressional” wrestling. I saw live the High Flyers defeat Jesse “the Body” Ventura and Adrian Adonis. Watched the Crusher take on Baron Von Rashke. Sure, it was fake, but it was fun to watch and mimic as I wrestled around with my cousins.

In high school, my interest switched to old Kung Fu movies. But then in grad school, I studied under Terry Davis, author of the Vision Quest, a cult-classic in the wrestling world. So when offered to write a book on wrestling, I had to take on the project, partly for it’s sentimental value and partly as homage to the professor who helped guide my writing career.

Summary: Kyle is the star of his junior high wrestling team’s A squad. Not only does he win most of his matches, but he’s also the heavyweight. So when a new kid, Kenny, shows up and challenges Kyle for the heavyweight spot (and wins it), Kyle’s confidence shrinks. Now on the B squad, Kyle is frustrated. He wants his team to do well, and Kenny is a good wrestler. But Kyle also wants to be on the A squad. Can Kyle come up with a way to help his team?

Every now and then, my editors send me teasers of the books I’ve written, whether it’s sketches of the illustrations or a mock up of the cover. I always enjoy seeing my books come to life through the art work, so it’s great to get a glimpse into how things are progressing.

Early last year, I finished up a graphic novel retelling of Peter Pan. I believe it will be released this summer. And not long ago, my editor sent me this mock up of the cover. The book is being illustrated by Fernando Cano. He illustrated my Tony Hawk—Live 2 Skate books as well, and I love his work. His style is really capturing the playful feel of my retelling.

Can’t wait to have a copy of the printed book in hand.

It’s been a while since I’ve post anything about what I’ve been reading. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been cracking open a book here and there. Aside from actual writing, reading is probably the most important thing I do to hone my craft. It allows me to see how other authors use words and phrases. How they describe scenes and construct stories. How they create characters and breath life into them. Not to mention, reading provides a necessary break from writing so that my creative juices replenish.

So here’s what I’ve been reading.

The One and Only Ivan—a 2013 Newberry winner and based on a true story; Ivan is an artistic gorilla that is one of the main attractions at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. But when Ruby, a young elephant joins the other attractions, Ivan uses his art to change their lives for the better.

One Crazy Summer—this was one of the books my son had to read for his school book club, so I thought I’d check it out too.

Tesla’s Attic—book one in the Accelerati Trilogy, with each book focusing on one of the world’s most amazing scientists.

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures—I read this one to my daughter, and it had her screaming, “the squirrel got vacuumed up!”

And lastly, I just watched the movie the Maze Runner. I enjoyed it so much that I bought the whole series, and that’s what I’ll be reading next.

When working on my adaptation of “She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain,” I wanted to do something similar to my version of “On Top of Old Smoky.” I wanted to turn it into a fun, silly, and hopefully rememberable song. One kids will have fun singing.

Now sometimes I don’t know where my inspiration comes. An idea will just hit me, and this can happen while I’m walking the dog, cooking dinner, or on the verge of falling sleep. The best ideas always seem to strike when I am away from my computer, which is what happened in this case.

I started to think: What if the main character was a clown? So I began to list all the things that remind me of a clown: big nose, floppy shoes, painted face . . . Then I started to wonder: What will the clown be doing? And that’s when it struck me, my clown, the clown in this song will be a rodeo clown. And instead of riding a buckin’ bronco, she’ll be trying to round up a pesky billy goat.

And then I wrote . . .

She’ll round up a billy goat on the loose.
(na-a-a-a, na-a-a-a)
She’ll round up a billy goat on the loose.
She’ll round up a billy goat,
she’ll round up a billy goat,
She’ll round up a billy goat on the loose.
(na-a-a-a, na-a-a-a)

“She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountian” was once a song sung by railroad workers, and as one person sang, the other workers would call out after certain lines in the song. I thought it would be fun to do that as well, so each verse will have call outs, like this one, which has the billy goat na-ing.

Growing up, and given the choice, I’d sing “On Top of Spaghetti” before the traditional “On Top of Old Smoky.” The made-up lyrics were funny and silly and all about my favorite food—I could eat spaghetti and meatballs for every meal, including breakfast. Plus, the original version was all about courtin’ and losing a true lover. Things I knew nothing about in my knee-scraped youth.

When approaching an adaptation of “On Top of Old Smoky,” I wanted to recreate that feeling of silliness inspired by the “On Top of Spaghetti” version. And here’s where my background in research helped inspire me. “Old Smoky” refers to the Smoky Mountains—I once edited a book about Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This fact wasn’t in that book, but there have been hundreds of Bigfoot sightings in those mountains. So . . .

On top of old Smokey
all covered in snow,
I lost my true lover
by courtin’ too slow.

. . . became . . .

On top of Old Smoky,
all covered with fog,
went looking for Bigfoot
with my pot-bellied hog.

My version of the song is about a boy and his pot-bellied pig looking for Bigfoot, and the various animals they meet along the way.

My love of Greek and Roman myths probably started with the classics. And when I say classics, I don’t mean The Illiad or Metamorphosis. I’m referring to Clash of the Titans (1981) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963). These movies may have had cheesy claymation monsters, but they were my introduction to mythology. Watching them spurred me on to learn more about myths, to the point where mythology is now one of my favorite subjects to write about.

Now pair some of the classics (and this time I mean books like The Odyssey and Argonautica) with my favorite format: graphic novels, to tell a story, and we have four of my newest books.

The 12 Labors of Hercules—Hercules seeks forgiveness after committing a horrific crime and is told to perform 12 nearly impossible tasks, from slaying the Hydra to capturing Cerberus, a three-headed dog.

Jason and the Argonauts—To reclaim his father’s throne, Jason goes on a quest to retrieve the magical golden fleece, which is guarded by a fearsome dragon that never sleeps.

Theseus and the Minotaur—Theseus seeks to end the tributes Athens is paying to the kingdom of Crete, and to so, he must first face the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster.

The Voyages of Odysseus—Chronicles Odysseus’ ten-year voyage home, to Ithaca, after the Trojan War and his many adventures, from blinding the Cyclops to meeting the the witch Circe.

Stubby, the Dog Soldier has been selected for the 2015 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People reading list by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and the Children’s Book Council (CBC). The committee “looks for books that emphasize human relations, represent a diversity of groups and are sensitive to a broad range of cultural experiences, present an original theme or a fresh slant on a traditional topic are easily readable and of high literary quality, and have a pleasing format and, when appropriate, illustrations that enrich the text.”

A nice shout out to an extra special pooch!

So the song Oh, My Darling, Clementine is about a miner who’s daughter drowns, and he sings about the tragedy. It’s a pretty morbid tale.

In a cavern, In a canyon,
Excavating for a mine,
Dwelt a miner forty-niner,
And his daughter Clementine.

Oh my darling, Oh my darling,
Oh my darling Clementine,
You are lost and gone forever,
Dreadful sorry Clementine.

Now I wanted to have a more playful twist on this song, so I thought, what if it was a cowboy who was looking for his cow? Throughout the story, the cowboy rides across the plains searching for his long-lost cow, and the cow will be hiding somewhere within the illustrations: behind a cactus or riding on a train.

In a pasture, in a prairie,
walking down a railroad line,
lived a cowboy with a big hat
and his cow named Clementine.

Oh, my darling, oh, my darling,
oh, my darling, Clementine,
you are lost and gone forever.
I’m so sorry, Clementine.

To find out how the cowboy and his cow became estranged, you’ll just have to check out the song at Cantata Learning when it’s published—all songs will be available to listen to on their website.

This Tangled Tune is based off of Here We Go ’round the Mulberry Bush, a song in which children hold hands and go around in a circle. And it’s a pretty simple tune with one basic verse.

Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
On a cold and frosty morning.

My version will use the same melody, but the publisher wanted to have a wider variety of verses, and that’s when I came up with the idea of doing daily chores throughout the song.

This is the way we pick up toys,
pick up toys, pick up toys.

This is the way we pick up toys
so early Sunday morning.

And the illustrations will be fun, because instead of showing children, there will be monsters doing the chores.

So my first Tangled Tunes adaptation was Three Blind Mice. The original song is pretty simple, with one verse.

Three blind mice,
Three blind mice,
See how they run,
See how they run!

They all ran after
The farmer’s wife.
She cut off their tails
With a carving knife.

Did you ever see
Such a sight in your life
As three blind mice?

I wanted to create more of a story for this book, so I added a few characters. Not only do the mice meet the farmer’s wife as they run through his house, but also his daughter and son, and a farm cat at the end.

Then there’s that bit about cutting off tails with a butcher’s knife—since these will be illustrated picture books, I was told to stay away from such gruesome details. So here’s one of my verses, in which the mice wander into the kitchen as the farmer’s daughter is doing the dishes.

Three blind mice.
Three blind mice.

See how they run!
See how they run!

They all ran after the farmer’s daughter,
who picked up a cup
and splashed them with water.

Did you ever see such a thing in your life
as three blind mice?

Ever since I first strummed a guitar way back in middle school, I’ve been writing songs. The lyrics always came easier for me than the music, which could explain why I became a poet instead of a rock star, but that hasn’t stopped me from continuing to pluck away on my 6 string. Today I play a Dobro acoustic with resonators. It has a deep, bluesy sound.

Now I can’t say that my guitar skills have improved much over the years, but I still try to write songs, though, nowadays those songs have turned silly. I blame that on my kids as they influence what I write.

There’s the nose-picking blues:

Everybody knows when [insert name] picks [his/her] nose
[he/she] eats her boogers,
[his/her] green, slimy boogers.

And the pretty butterfly song:

I’m a pretty butterfly—watch me flap my wings
I’m a pretty butterfly—watch me flap my wings
I’m a pretty butterfly—I’m a pretty butterfly
I’m a pretty butterfly—watch me flap my wiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnngssssss

 Now image me and my two kids singing that as we stroll through a butterfly garden—quite a sight.

Recently, I’ve been contacted by Cantata Learning, a new publisher that is pairing books with music—the text is actually written as a song. And while they weren’t impressed with my guitar licks, my poetry skills have landed me a chance to write some books/songs. I’ll be working on several stories in their Tangled Tune series, which will take some of those old classics like She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain and twisting them into funny new songs.

To see what I come up with, stay tuned . . .