EXCITING NEWS

My kid has decided to take over the stewardship of this project, as of today. Considering he reads about a thousand more pages than me per week, this only seems logical! I'll still be inputting the info online and helping him clean up phrasing, but it's 100% based on what comes out of his mouth.

If you would like to check out the honest, unadulterated opinion of a 3rd grader, please head over to his blog today...

The Adventures of Gracie & MonkeyBear (Book 1)

Looks like we're about to embark on another adventure!          

THREE PROS
*If I ever get around to publishing my own children's book, I will immediately call Lore Mountain Productions for a price quote; the care they take in manufacturing is unparalleled (I especially liked the textured cover)
*The amount of creativity and imagination displayed by the two protagonists was awe-inspiring
*My kids couldn't stop laughing at my attempts at reading the Voosurian language out loud  

THREE CONS 
*I hate to use the word clunky, but I can't think of another synonym for the lack of flow between major and minor events in this story
*While I admit the 90-degree text and illustration rotation on certain pages gave the book added character, there was something about the experience of rotating the hardcopy that irked me 
*I couldn't stop whining about having to parse through Voosurian and English text across multiple pages

ONE DAD'S OPINION
I wish you knew how badly I wanted to give C.S. O'Kelly's book a Buy rating on looks alone.  As I have already alluded to, AG&M's publishers appear to have spared no expense in bringing O'Kelly and illustrator Jordy Farrell's combined vision to life.  It really looks great -- I cannot stress this enough.  Still, looks aren't everything!  There's a lot going on inside of here, and that's the main problem.  For all of its creative charms, the plot felt, to me, at least, like it kept tripping over itself on its way to the finish line.  And since the best part of any adventure is the journey, this doesn't bode well for Gracie & MonkeyBear.  [Brief request to authors everywhere: stop joining words together and capitalizing the first letter in what was the second word?  I can't be the only one who hates this, right?!]  Look, there's enough adventure here to make it worth a read or two, no doubt.  Alas, that's as far as AG&M will take you on your quest toward building the perfect collection...         
                    
Buy / BORROW / Donate / Destroy