Welcome to the Wonderful World of the Good Knight! (And those adorable little dragons!)
The Stories Behind the Books, part 1: Good Knight Series
The Good Knight Books started as a play on words......and an accident. I had accidentally written the word knight instead of night. I went to cross it out and then, well, it cracked me up. The image of the Good Knight was already alive in my mind, doing good deeds. I thought and thought about what this knight might do......and then, my own children, who did not want to go to sleep that night (or any night) provided the inspriation! Oooooooh! Those little dragons! The dragons have been on many adventures since....and each story is based on something that happened in the real lives of my children. It would be really hard to pick a favorite, and I absolutely LOVE to read these stories aloud to kids. My favorite fan letter of all time came from a little boy who wrote that my book Good Night, Good Knight was the first book he ever read all by himself all the way through. Awesome.
The newest book, A Cold Winter's Good Knight just came out in November of 2008. And a new one is will be released int he Spring of 2011.
Long live the Good Knight!
Stories Behind the Books pt 2: Somewhere Today: A Book of Peace and A Baby's Coming to Your House
Both of these books have the distinction of featuring the photography of Eric Futran. He did such an amazing job!
Somewhere Today: A Book of Peace was an idea that came to me in the form of a dream. I dreamed there was a book that showed some of the simple things that kids do every day to make the world a better place.....a book that focused on the positive choices we can make. Of course when I woke up, I realized it was just a dream.....and then I got out of bed and wrote a draft that eventually became the book. This book has had lots of positive feedback and letters from kids with their own versions of how to make the world better. If your class has done their own version, email me and I'll showcase it on my blog.
A Baby's Coming to Your House was written shortly after my third daughter was born. I had tried all during the pregnancy to write a book for her. I didn't like any of my drafts. Then, BANG! this new baby came into our lives and I knew exactly what I wanted to tell all of the new big brothers and sisters in the world (including my own). (Favorite page? It's a toss up between the big, baby crying and the diaper page!)
Labels: books
Stories Behind the Books: pt 3: Putting the World to Sleep
Each book has a story behind it......that probably goes without saying. My first book, PUTTING THE WORLD TO SLEEP was conceived when my eldest daughter, (who is now in college!!!) was a pre-schooler. She was pretty particular about hearing a certain tape before bedtime dealing with bears going to sleep. Having heard that tape about a BILLION times, I thought my head would explode if I had to hear it again. But young Noel was nothing if not consistant. "Mommy, can we hear the song about the bears AGAIN?" Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.
"Hey, let's make up our own song," I said. "We don't need those bears. Let's sing about....Oh, I know, Putting Noel to sleep............or putting the dog to sleep........or putting the pizza to sleep....
(Yes, I was quickly running out of ideas)......or putting the world to sleep.
The writer part of my brain really liked how that sounded, Putting the World to Sleep. So, I wrote down a few ideas about it (after Noel had drifted off, of course....after tip-toeing out of her room, trying not to step on the creaky board and start the process all over again! Curse you creaky board!)
