Save the date for RhyPiBoMo 2016!

Don’t miss this event, for children’s writers, that celebrates rhyming picture books. Visit my website for daily blog posts by some pretty spectacular authors, agents and editors who will share tips on how to write professional rhyming manuscripts. Read and comment daily for weekly prizes and don’t forget to join our RhyPiBoMo Facebook Group for camaraderie, rhyming critique groups and rhyming parties, where we see how much you remember from the week’s blog posts and…we can only type in rhyme!

It’s zany-rhyming-mania and it’s coming soon!!

Watch for the calendar of bloggers as well as info about registration!

Our 2015 Best in Rhyme Award Ceremony last December was a great success and we are gearing up for nominations for 2016. As I mingled after the award ceremony that night, I met Lane Fredrickson, the author of MONSTER TROUBLE and a top 10 finalist! She kindly mentioned that somehow, I had missed posting the review of her book prior to the event…”What,” I said, as I shook my head. “I remember,  Annie Bailey wrote the review and I uploaded it into the blog.”

Well, yes and yes…but somehow, I never posted it. I promised Lane that I would share it! It has been sitting here quietly, waiting for its turn to shine.

So without further ado

I am proud to introduce

MONSTER TROUBLE

Author: Lane Fredrickson

Illustrator: Michael Robertson

Publisher: Sterling Children’s Books

Review by Annie Bailey

 

Winifred Schnitzel isn’t afraid of anything—not even monsters. In fact, she thinks they’re quite cute. But even cute monsters can get a little tiresome. Night after night they growl, belch and cause all sorts of monsterly mayhem, hoping they’ll finally give Winifred the spooks. But Winifred is fearless, and they only interrupt poor Winifred’s beauty sleep.

Tired and fed up, Winifred decides she must get rid of the monsters once and for all.

So Winifred constructs the Sticky-String, Small Monster Snare . . .

. . . which bursts when the large monsters show up first.

What about stinky, Limberger cheese?

It turns out monsters find it especially tasty on bagels with fish-eyeball jelly.

Enter the mother of all traps: “The Prickly Bum Chair!”

But poor Winifred is so, so sleepy that she slips into a snooze without ever seeing her final creation in action. When she awakens to a menacing hisssss, sleep-dazed Winifred does the unthinkable . . . and discovers that there might be a way to outsmart the pesky monsters after all.

Told in perfect rhyme and silky-smooth meter, this humorous, cleverly crafted tale is a perfect pick for your own little monster.

*

Lane’s Website: Rhymeweaver

 My first picture book, Watch Your Tongue, Cecily Beasley, came out in September 2012. My second, MONSTER TROUBLE, came out in late 2015. When I initially decided to write a rhyming picture book, I wasn’t sure how to go about it, or what the rules were. I joined a critique group and SCBWI (The Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), took some poetry classes, went to workshops, and even got a degree in English along the way. A lot of people tried to discourage me from writing in rhyme.

If you’re considering writing a rhyming picture book, some people will tell you that editors don’t like them, and that they are difficult or impossible to sell, and that agents won’t represent picture book authors.

But mostly, people will tell you that you have to write “perfect” rhyme and meter to publish.  I wasn’t sure what “perfect” rhyme and meter were when I first heard this.

And there seemed to be a lot of conflicting opinions bouncing around about the elusive “perfect” rhyme and meter. It took a long time for me to realize that writing a picture book with rhyme and meter wasn’t impossible; there just wasn’t a really good resource that laid out all the details I needed to know in a way that was easy to understand.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

 

This wonderful review was written by Annie Bailey,

a Best in Rhyme Committee member.

Thank you Annie!

Annie’s Website