Scissortown Grand Opening . . . and Children’s Pictures in a Blender

An appointment with 54 children, Scissortown pictures and a blender

Let me explain . . .

The Scissortown Grand Opening Ceremonies (step aside, Sochi) took place last Monday, complete with a “Welcome to Scissortown” sign and marching band consisting of Tommy, Tina and yours truly. T and T each opened a box of books (one of Faith-Based Application versions and the other of Life Application versions) and passed them around to the dignitaries.

Honoured attendees included Tommy, Tina and Katie Kat (heroes of Scissortown), Scissortown CFO (aka my husband), T’s and T’s moms, Coralie and her husband, Steven (aka videographer, book designer, IT guy), our daughter and her friend, and my brother and his wife (aka the Scissortown Express Delivery Team).

What fun! As my brother kindly explained, he had learned during his publishing career that the only way to catch a typo is to make 1,000 copies of the document. Bingo–and I challenge you to find it!

Guests took book(s) to give, sell or use in promotion, and everyone had a good time except Katie Kat, who eschews noisy crowds and book launches.

Oh yes, back to the blender.

But let’s start with our local hardware store. With nothing to lose and no bookstore in our town of under 3000, I looked around our local hardware store. Hmmm, there might be some shelf space beside the toys. Perhaps the owner would consider selling Scissortown on consignment. When asked, he took me to the portion of the front counter dedicated to local works! And there went Scissortown with a stand and poster supplied by me, happily featured with books by another local author and a CD by a local musician.

Oh yes, the blender.

On Friday I read the story to 54 well-behaved children and an entirely adequate number of supervising staff at Tommy’s after school care program.

I’m to return for a draw for a free book this Friday, which brings us to the blender. The children have colored line drawings of Scissortown pictures, which their teacher is going to BLEND as per page 9 of the story!

I hope I get some good pictures . . . watch this space.

“Are You Robert Munsch?”

asked the grade two boy at my book launch.

Should I be flattered or what? Let’s see, millions of copies of Canada and U.S. bestseller Love You Forever sold, over 50 published books to date, storytelling gigs with thousands of children in attendance . . . . On the other hand, maybe I got my hair cut a bit too short this time. But I WAS wearing a skirt . . . .

Anyway, my book launch at the K-9 Christian school was fun.

The librarian had drawn up an interesting and varied schedule–grades eight and nine, followed by kindergarten, grade six, grade two, grade one, then a three/four group, then grade five and then seven.

I told the upper level students about my longtime dream of writing books.

But–“Not everyone can write,” my grade eleven English teacher had explained kindly. And it’s true. Not every high school student can write a story suitable for high school students.

Her colleague trashed my poem. But then, not everyone is a poet either.

The dream not only didn’t die, it didn’t even suffer much. I just kept believing I could write and getting (mostly) good marks in English.

Then, after getting laid off from my job at the college, I found my writing niche–magazine articles. Editing adult non-fiction followed, and now I’m writing picture books for children.

So, little boy, I’m not Robert Munsch. But I love doing what he loves doing–telling stories to children.

In my next post, I’ll tell you what worked for this book launch–and I’ll even tell you how I managed to have a book launch before the book was finished.