Send to Kindle{Guest post from Stephen Hodges-author of The Magic Poof}
As Jump Into a Book’s Discover Your World Summer Reading Extravaganza draws to a close, I’d like to welcome one last guest blogger and author. I became aware of author Stephen Hodges wonderful book The Magic Poof during our January 2014 Multicultural Children’s Book Day celebration. I love Stephen’s work, his humor and how he uses this delightful books to tell a wonderful story. I can’t wait to read Book #2 in the Magic Poof series!
Welcome, Stephen!
When I think about a multicultural children’s book that I love, I admit to being a little biased.
The book I love is called “The Magic Poof” and I’m biased because I’m the one who wrote it! The Magic Poof” is about Ange-Marie, a little African-American girl who has always felt different. You would feel different too if you had a giant ball of nutty magical hair on your head with his own personality and magic powers! In this first book of the series, Ange-Marie is deciding what to wear for picture day. However, her hair, aka the Poof, also wants to look good for picture day. How does Ange-Marie look her best and keep her enchanted hairy friend a secret? In the end, both the Poof and Ange-Marie find that compromise is the key to any friendship.
So you are probably wondering why a short skinny white guy writes a book about a little African-American girl with a Poof of hair that has a nutty personality. Well the simple reason is love. My wife is African-American, and she has a ball of poofy hair too. Every morning, while she would eat breakfast I would end up playing with it. I would stretch it, form it into shapes and then I would start making it talk! My wife’s poof would start poking her and talking into her ear. And that’s when the true love began. See my wife would tell me: “I love you… but you need to stop playing with my hair and find something else to do.” And that’s when “The Magic Poof” was born!
My love for my wife inspired me to create characters that I truly loved. I imagine the character of Ange-Marie like having my own daughter, someone I could watch grow up as I wrote more books. And of course, writing about her best friend, a big ball of magic hair and their adventures would be fun too! I love these characters because they remind me that being different is a great thing, and it’s so important to share our differences with the world. It’s what makes us all truly unique.
“The Magic Poof” Activity:
Draw a gigantic, wacky hair-do, in any style you want on a large piece of paper. Make it fun, make it nutty. It can be silly, it can be serious and it can be just as alive as the Poof himself! Take the drawing you created and hold it up to your head as if it was your own hair. Then take a Poofy selfie and show it to everyone you love!
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