Posts Tagged percy jackson

Big Ideas in Middle-Grade Novels

Writers of children’s books are often asked: “When are you going to write a book for adults?” This is a question that almost always causes consternation on the part of the writer, the subtext being that children’s books are somehow lesser creations and offer little in the way of big ideas or insight into the human condition. Readers of children’s books, however, know the folly of such a question. Books for children contain much wisdom, the kind that those who ask the above question would do well to ponder. Here below are just a few such passages. There are so many more, and I’d love to hear your favorites in the comments section.

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” – J.K. Rowling

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

“It’s our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” – J.K. Rowling

CORALINE

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” Neil Gaiman

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIAR & SPY

“Boredom is what happens to people who have no control over their minds.” – Rebecca Stead

THE MAGICIAN’S ELEPHANT

“It is important that you say what you mean to say. Time is too short. You must speak the words that matter.” – Kate DiCamillo

THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW

“For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.” – C.S. Lewis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH

“You must never feel badly about making mistakes, explained Reason quietly, as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.” – Norton Juster

THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH

“But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword.” – Rick Riordan

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.” – Lucy Maud Montgomery

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHARLOTTE’S WEB

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.” – E.B. White

THE TWITS

“A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” – Roald Dahl

WHEN MY NAME WAS KEOKO

“A mistake made with good in your heart is still a mistake, but it is one for which you must forgive yourself.” – Linda Sue Park

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OH MY GODS Middle Grade Graphic Series – Stephanie Cooke

Welcome 2021, and welcome Stephanie Cooke, co-author of Oh My Gods!, (HMH Kids/ETCH) the first in a new middle-grade graphic novel series. Stephanie stops by MUF to talk about the new book, her process with her collaborators, and what other artists and writers inspire her. PLUS we’ve got a free copy of Oh My Gods! to give away; enter at the bottom of the interview! 

Mixed Up Files: Stephanie, welcome to the blog, and can you give us a little bit of your background and how you found your way into the #kidlit world?

Stephanie Cooke: Absolutely! I’m a comic book writer and editor from Toronto, Canada and I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember. I love books in all mediums and eventually knew I wanted to try my hand at writing my own. I’ve felt that for a number of years that the kidlit market was seriously underserved in the comics industry and wanted to help change that. Both Oh My Gods! and ParaNorthern (out in July 2021) were originally pitched for a younger teen audience, but were picked up and aged down into the middle-grade market, and I have to say that I’m so glad they were. Writing for kids has truly been such a joy and allows me to have so much fun with the story, characters, and puns (which I love beyond all reason).

Oh My Gods! by Stephanie Cooke and Insha FitzpatrickMUF: Talk to us about your new graphic novel and how it came to be. You worked on this with other collaborators. Whose idea was it? And how did you all find each other to work on this together? Are you IRL friends/coworkers, or were you new to each other at the start of this?

SC: Oh My Gods! has been a passion project for a number of years now and came into existence during a conversation between Insha Fitzpatrick and myself. Insha and I have been friends for ages – we used to run an entertainment website together and also did a podcast! We were talking about Greek Mythology excitedly and then the start of Oh My Gods! started bubbling out of our talk, and before we knew it, we were putting together notes, story ideas, character concepts, and more into shared docs. We began refining the idea and narrowing things down, and realized that it wasn’t a concept that was going away…we had to work on this! So we kept at, until it was ready for an artist.

I was hiring an artist for a short story on a completely different project and Juliana Moon sent in her portfolio to us. She wasn’t the right fit for the project I had been scouting for but I could see so much potential in her character designs in how expressive they were and how much fun she clearly had with her art. I showed her art to Insha and she loved it! We had a conversation with Juliana, and that was that. We’ve been a team ever since, but it’s truly hard to imagine a time when Juliana wasn’t there; we all get along amazingly and have the same energy that always hypes each of us up. Whitney Cogar came on board via HMH / Etch to do the colours for the story, and we’ve absolutely adored what she’s brought to the book!

MUF: What was the process like working on this? Can you explain a bit about the actual nuts and bolts of writing and illustrating? And how long from “let’s do this!” to pub date was your journey?

SC: Creating a comic book is such a fun experience. The collaboration makes it a truly unique and fantastic storytelling medium! For the writing portion of things, Insha and I spent a lot of time building up a really detailed outline together that was essentially a bullet-point version of the story. We collaborate on that until we’re happy, and then I go in and create a loose script based off of what we created (which includes the art direction for Juliana as well as placeholder dialogue). Insha refined characters and really fleshed them out, making them feel as real as we possibly could (seriously…she made them all Spotify playlists, Pinterest mood boards, and more!)

Once we’re ready to move forward with the characters and the script, we go through it and refine it. Insha is amazing with dialogue for that younger audience so she’d go in and adjust things and help it feel more unique and fitting for each character. We refined, refined, refined until we had a story that we were happy with!

Then it goes off to Juliana for the art. There’s a few different stages for that process where you have to submit thumbnails (rough art for the pages), pencils/inks (more refined art), and the final black and white line art which then goes over to Whitney to be coloured. Then of course, we have to add in the dialogue and captions which is handled by our book designer, Andrea Miller.

It’s hard to say how long it all took. We initially were going to pitch to comic book publishers to release the book in a serialized monthly format, and then I had another book picked up by HMH Kids (and my wonderful editor Lily) called ParaNorthern (which is out July 2021). That was actually the first graphic novel that I sold! I worked on that for a while, finished up writing duties on it, and then HMH asked for more of my work. We presented them with Oh My Gods! which they loved and fast-tracked for publication. So realistically from inception to publication, the turnaround specifically for Oh My Gods! was probably 4+ years!

Stephanie Cooke, author

Stephanie Cooke, author.
Photo: Tyra Sweet

MUF: How many books in the series can readers look forward to?

SC: So far we have two books coming out in the series! Insha, Juliana, and I have so many more ideas that we would love to write though, so we’re really hoping that we get an opportunity to explore those. Greek Mythology has so many interesting figures and stories, and we really want to play in that sandbox more!

MUF: Your publisher says that the book “reads as if Raina Telgemeier and Rick Riordan teamed up to write a comic.” Are you fans of those two creators? Who else inspires your work?  

SC: I am absolutely a fan of them both. I’ve admittedly not read the Percy Jackson books, which might be blasphemy as a big Greek Mythology fan but I have seen the Broadway play! Not that that’s the same, but I have huge respect for the franchise Riordan has built and the way he’s integrating other writers and mythology into it. That’s the dream, really! I would love to have this take off in a way that we can bring in other creators to the table to share their voices and stories. And being compared to Raina Telgemeier is beyond intimidating! I’m in awe of the career she’s built for herself and firmly believe she’s one of the best creators out there. The way she integrates feelings and real-life scenarios that kids may not know how to cope with otherwise while also telling an extraordinary story? She’s a master at what she does.

I think another inspiration would be Noelle Stevenson too. I love her sense of humour and her style; Nimona and Lumberjanes are absolute favourites for me! And then specifically for Oh My Gods!, I think that the TV show Clone High was a huge inspiration. That was done by Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Bill Lawrence; Lord went on to write Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as well as The LEGO Movie, which both have so much heart, wit, and cleverness imbued in them.

MUF: Can you suggest a few other new(ish) middle grade graphic novels you think readers might enjoy reading?

SC: YES!!! I live for recommendations. These are some of my faves that I’ve enjoyed over the last little bit:

ANNNND, this is a completely selfish recommendation but please also check out my upcoming graphic novel ParaNorthern which is out on July 6, 2021 with art by Mari Costa.

MUF: And since MUF is all about middle grade books, what made you decide to make your book a MG one, vs. say, for younger, early chapter reader kids or older, YA readers? What is it about this age reader that you felt fit best with your ideas and story?

SC: I think I jumped the gun a bit by mentioning this a tad earlier but initially we had pitched Oh My Gods! as a book for a slightly older audience and then we aged it down to middle-grade, and I’m so glad we did!

I just finished writing my first YA graphic novel and while I love it so much (I love all my book children!!) it’s very different to write for that audience, and I’m so happy we made Oh My Gods! for a younger audience. You’re able to include a lot more silliness with that audience, and it really does feel like the best extension of who we are as a team! We put so much of ourselves into the characters and story and this (to me) feels like a great representation of us.

MUF: How do we find you online? List any website/social media URLs you’d like us to share.  

You can find me online at stephaniecooke.ca as well as on Twitter and Instagram @hellocookie.

Enter the giveaway here! 

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

10 middle grade books made into movies

With winter break coming up, and hopefully some down time in your household, get kids psyched to watch great films and read great books with these middle grade books-made-into-movies combos. 

Anne of Green Gables by  L. M. Montgomery
This beloved book, originally published over 100 years ago, features the charming and spirited Anne Shirley, an 11-year-old orphan adopted by a brother and sister who thought they were adopting a son to help them on their farm. Instead, Anne arrives, and the lives of all three are changed (for the better!). Stream it on iTunes

 

The BFG by Roald Dahl
At first BFG (Big Friendly Giant) doesn’t seem all that friendly to Sophie, not when he snatches her out of her bed one night, but soon the two are fast friends, and working together to stop the other, meaner giants from swollomping young children.
Stream it on Amazon

 

 

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants By Ann Brashares

This lovely novel about the friendship between four girls and the introduction of a pair of magical jeans into their lives was made into a fantastic flick with now-big-name stars Amber Tamblyn, America Ferrera, Blake Lively and Alexis Bledel. Stream it on Amazon

 

 

Sounder by William H. Armstrong
Set in the Depression-era, this American classic about an African-American family dealing with racism and poverty is moving and powerful, and the film, with powerhouse actors including Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, will touch your entire family.
Stream it on Amazon

 

 

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Four siblings + a magical wardrobe = a tale that’s been thrilling readers for almost 70 years.
Stream it on Netflix 

 

 

 

 

Holes by Louis Sachar
Sachar’s novel, which won the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award, is about a boy named Stanley Yelnats, who’s sent to Camp Green Lake, a detention center. There, he and other boys spend all their time digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep, until Stanley decides to figure out just what they’re digging for… and why.
Stream it on iTunes

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Poor Greg, stuck in the middle of three brothers, stuck in middle school, and generally stuck. His suffering sure is hilarious for the rest of us, as evidenced by the sound of giggles that emit from kids as they read their way through Kinney’s block-buster series.
Stream it on iTunes

 

 

The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman
Delightful and playful and all sorts of perfection. Definitely not inconceivable! Stream it on Netflix

 

 

 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
A modern quest story, with a twelve-year-old demigod named Percy Jackson at the center. When Percy is sent to Camp Half-Blood, he discovers that he’s half immortal, and that his father is Poseidon, the ruler of the sea.
Stream it on iTunes

 

 

 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Maybe you’ve heard of this book? A little something about a boy wizard? Read this blockbuster phenom of a novel together, then watch the films as a family. Stream it on iTunes

Stay tuned for more books into movies: next up is a film adaptation of Sherman Alexie’s amazing YA book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Cannot wait!

Andrea Pyros is the author of My Year of Epic Rock, a middle grade novel about friends, crushes, food allergies, and a rock band named The EpiPens.