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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Queen of Disguises, Most Recent at Top [Help]
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1. The road to children’s series is a yellow-brick one

Di.yellow.brick copyWith my blunt, redheaded sleuth songbird Dinah Galloway now starring in six published mysteries, I feel I can now officially take my place in the ranks of children’s series authors. Now, Dinah’s not unruffled and glam like Nancy Drew. Nor is she versed in magic à la Harry Potter – though just watch her make Purdy’s peanut butter chocolates vanish in a blink.

I’ve waited in vain for the postie to deliver a special membership card to this special cadre of writers. You know, The bearer of this card is an official Serial Flake, or something like that. In lieu of receiving that honor, I decided to investigate just who started children’s series.

Click your heels three times, and the answer is … L. Frank Baum, the actor-turned—farmer-turned journalist who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Raised by a Pennsylvania oil baron, Baum enjoyed an idyllic childhood on his Eden-like family estate, Rose Lawn. While a newspaper editor in South Dakota, he wrote Oz, basing Dorothy’s parched, gray surroundings on the Midwest drought of the time. I’m guessing Rose Lawn was his inspiration for her Over the Rainbow escape from the drought.

Fiona Bayrock interviewed me, along with Pam Withers and Deborah Hodge, about series books in an article for Children’s Writers and Illustrators 2010.

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2. Getting fit without getting terrified

Okay, so some of us don’t ever land graceful hoops like in this photo. Some of us don’t even land ungraceful ones. Educators and fitness experts alike are now saying, “So what?” The point of fitness, they assert, isn’t to look cool, or make every right move, or least of all to impress others. The point is to have fun – to get fit without getting terrified. We have to remove schoolkids’ long-held concept of phys ed as an ordeal. For example, if kids aren’t comfortable running five times around the track field, maybe they can walk briskly instead. And what’s wrong with skipping rope as exercise? Even Dinah Galloway, who very grudgingly comes to love – well, like, fitness in the health-themed mystery Queen of Disguises, can manage the occasional double-under.

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3. Gutenberg would breathe a sigh of relief

Johannes Gutenberg would be pleased. The German goldsmith (1398-1468), who invented the printing press in 1439, can rest easy in his grave. Computers will never replace print, avers Jeremy Klaszus in the Calgary-based Fast Forward Weekly. Never mind those exciting paperback thrillers that it’s fun to cuddle up by the fire on a rainy day –  as one news vendor points out, even a good-sized newspaper would be too much for your eyes if you tried to read it all onscreen.

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