What's Abigail Reading? Frozen

Abigail wrote a short book report for school and she wanted me to post it as the latest installment of the Reading Crew. So, here's her take on Frozen. Let's see what she had to say about it.

Here's what Abigail says the book is about.

The book is about a family who rules a kingdom called Arendalle. First, Elsa's sister Anna asked, "Do you want to build a snowman?" Elsa got up from bed and raced her sister down the hall. When they were building slippery slides, Anna got hit by Elsa's magic powers.

Next, as Elsa's powers grow stronger, she asks her parents to stay away. When her parents go away on a ship they end up dying. Now Elsa's the new queen and they finally open up the gates. Then, Elsa runs away because everyone knows her secret now. Everyone tries to stop her but no one does.

After that, Anna goes on a journey to find her sister and to bring back summer. Anna finds some new friends on the way. With their help, Anna s
aves her sister from a bad guy who is trying to kill Elsa, and jn Arendalle summer is back.

The theme is--to help others because if someone you love or care about is getting hurt then he/she will need the help.

So how did Abby rate the book version of Frozen?

She gave it four out of five dolphins.

Between the Lines: Rumpelstiltskin

On a recommendation from the Brothers Grimm, I was able to secure an interview with the reclusive and very secretive gold spinning gnome, Rumpelstiltskin. Even though the Grimms story has given him a huge amount of notoriety, he still shuns the limelight. Let's find out what interesting tidbits of information he can give us.

Greg:  Well, well, it certainly is a pleasure to have the world famous Rump--

Rumpelstiltskin:  No! Don't you say it! I'll not have you blabbin' my name all over the place! My name's my name and there's no one but me's goin' to use it!

Greg:  Well, I think it's a little late for that now, don't you? I mean, just about everyone has read your story. They all know your name is Rum--

Rumpelstiltskin:  Tut, tut. No sir! Don't you say it. I don't care if they do know it. It's the principal of the thing, you know! I'll not have my name spoken while I'm around if I can help it.

Greg:  Okay, okay. Sorry. I won't mention it, I promise. So what are you up to these days?

Rumpelstiltskin:  Well, not singing, that's for sure. The last time, I lost my chance at the queen's son, and a whole kingdom.

Greg;  Yes, that was unfortunate for you, although most readers weren't too upset by it to be honest with you.

Rumpelstiltskin:  The public don't have no sympathy. They see a beautiful princess and an old gnome, so of course they're gonna side with her. No one tries to see poor old Rumpel...er, um, my point of view. The world don't understand. We had an agreement, a bindin' contract, and she didn't play fair. She went and spied on me. 

And look at the girl's father. What kind of parent is he, I ask you? He tells the king "Oh yeah, she can spin straw into gold, yeah right, no problem!" What kind of father does that to his daughter? I'll tell you what kind. A greedy one that's what. He out to have been drummed out of the Fraternal Order of Fathers if you ask me.

Greg:  You may have a point there.

Rumpelstiltskin:  A point?! I think I have more than a point! If it wasn't for me, she would have been thrown in the dungeon after the first night. I was doin' her a favor. No one sees it my way. Oh it makes me mad!

Greg:  But surely you've been able to rise above that setback after all this time. What are you up to these days?

Rumpelstiltskin:  Well, I saw the error of my ways, obviously. I realized I'd been barkin' up the wrong tree. Straw is right out. I don't work in straw any more. I turned to paper. I turned a lot of paper into gold. For example, I turned stocks into gold in the late 1920's. Stocks they called 'em. I turned a lot of stocks into gold for people.

Greg:  Yeah, that was great, but the stock market crashed in 1929.

Rumpelstiltskin:  Well, the effect was only temporary. Paper don't stay gold long. Then, I turned real estate into gold a decade ago. That didn't take, either. A couple of years ago, that turned to junk. Things haven't been the same since, some folks say.

Greg:  Anything else?

Rumpelstiltskin:  Well, there's oil. I did a great job with that. It turns to gold pretty easily, but it's not stable. It keeps tryin' to change back to just a bunch of grease, but it won't.

Greg:  Why, is it because they made a bargain with you that hasn't been broken?

Rumpelstiltskin:  No, it's not my deal. They made a deal with someone else on that, but I don't go in for that kind of stuff. I don't like the heat.

Greg:  Well, uh, yes. Thank you for your time, Rum...er, Mr. R. It really has been quite enlightening.

Rumpelstiltskin:  Not at all, not at all. Actually, I'm thinkin' about gettin' back into my old line of work. I hear there's a princess over in England. She had a child recently. Do you think she'd be interested in three rooms full of gold straw?

A Writer's Week #104: "What's Cookin'?"

The title of this post is something I'd imagine Hallo Tosis the dwarf to be asking right about now. Since he asked, I'll update both you and him. The Deliverers have recently finished up an Assignment, number three to be precise, that I'll be sharing with you all in just a few short weeks. They are currently on Assignment number four.

Lots of exciting things have been happening in connection to Assignment three--The Golden Dragon of Ang. Illustrator Daniel Vogel has completed his work on the pictures and the maps, and brilliant stuff it is. Layout designer Ana Vogel sent me the completed front cover on Sunday. On Thursday she sent me the interior of the book. Now all that remains is for me to give it one more review, send it back to Ana to make any final revisions, then submit it to the publisher. That means everything should be in place in about two weeks! Exciting stuff.

This weekend, production will start on the book trailer. I've been experimenting with a couple of different techniques and I think I'll try my hand at some narration rather than the narrative tiles that I used in the first two trailers. I'm hoping things will work out, if not it will be back to the

Title Page

drawing board.

In light of all the production developments related to book three, The Deliverers 4 was a little neglected this week. I wound up writing 1,250 words, which brings the total up to 11,250 over 11 chapters and 49 pages. It's coming along, but writing will be on the back burner this weekend for sure and perhaps for the entire week. We'll see.

I'm still on the fence about whether this will be book four of five or the final book in the series. Things are still zipping along. The pace seems to be okay to me, it's just that their task is a little more straightforward than usual, so instead of the cliffhanger at the end of the book, I might make that part one while what I had envisioned as book five may wind up being part two of book four. Once again, we'll see how it goes. Have a great week!

What's Christian Reading? Happenstance Found

It's been a while since I've been able to corral one of my children to write a little about what they've been reading. Today, Christian actually volunteered to write something. Hmmm, must have been a slow day. The book he read is Happenstance Found from the Books of Umber, by P.W. Catanese. Let's see what he had to say.

Here's what Christian says the book is about.

This book is about a boy named Happenstance who has some extraordinary abilities. These abilities include night vision, super speed and high jumping. In the story he wakes up in a dark and gloomy cave with no memories. Some people happen to be exploring this cave and find him. They try to make it out of the cave but one of the explorers, Umber, wants to see the giant tyrant worm that lives there. They escape from the cave with the tyrant worm right behind them. Luckily it won’t go into the sun so they were safe, but then the volcano erupted. They barely made it to their boat and got away. 

They then go onto a bigger boat run by Umber’s friend Nima and Nima’s friend Baroon. Umber’s helper, Balfour, is also there as Umber and the other explorers, Sophie and Oates, used this ship to get to the island where they found Happenstance. They soon notice a strange ship following them.They use evasive maneuvers to try and lose him and it works! They make it to the coastal city of Kuruhaven and Happenstance finds out that Umber is the Lord of the Aerie and a very successful merchant.

When they get to the Aerie Umber introduces Happenstance (who he decided to call “Hap”) to his friend Lady Truden. Lady Truden takes Hap on a tour around the aerie and lets him pick out his room. Hap looks out of the window of the room he picked and discovers that it is the part of the Aerie that his room was the ornamental head of a dragon. The dragon head was carved out of stone of course, so it wasn’t real. This book is a very interesting story and I hope that you will consider reading it.

Here's what Christian liked best about the book.

What I liked: I liked how the author makes it seem like the story is happening around you. I also liked

 how the author makes the main characters get into these crazy fights with monsters in the beginning of each book.

Here's what Christian did not like about the book.

What I didn’t like: I didn’t like the part where the ship starts trailing the ship Hap is on. I think the author should have put it in a little bit later.

So, how did Christian rate Happenstance Found, by P.W. Catanese?

He gives it four and a half out of five flaming monkey heads.

Front Cover Reveal

Well now, this is my third cover reveal post since I started the Deliverers Blog. It's pretty cool that the Deliverers Series will soon be up to three books. The first reveal I did was for Sharky & the Jewel and it was the first post on this blog. The second reveal--for Order of the Crystal Lion--was last summer.

Last night, graphic designer Ana Vogel sent the cover for The Deliverers 3: The Golden Dragon of Ang over to me. She's now in the process of laying out the interior and I hope to have the final files soon. I've been looking at it ever since. Artist Daniel Vogel did another great job. I think he really took this one to the next level. Here it is:

This is a really cool cover. I'm so blessed to have such talented friends! I love the rust/orange colors and the orange byline. My mother is going to laugh when she sees it. I know just what she'll say--"Miami Dolphins colors!"

Back when I was in junior high school, I wanted to paint my room aqua and orange to show my undying love for the Miami Dolphins. Well, now I have a book cover that does the same thing! Thanks, Ana!

I am really excited about this installment in the series, but then again, I've been excited about all of them. I'm not sure exactly how long this one will wind up being--my guess is about 10 or 15 pages longer than the last one. It's going to have two maps, for reasons that you'll learn when you read the book.

Now that I have all the art I can start working on the book trailer. I'll let you know how that's going sometime next week. As soon as I have a firm publication date for the book, I'll start a countdown featuring character interviews, the video trailer and some giveaways. Stay tuned!