A Scary Tale from Derek Taylor Kent

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by Derek Taylor Kent
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The Importance of Middle-Grade Fiction
Or
Why Reading my Book Series Scary School is Guaranteed to Turn your Kid into a Well-adjusted, Ivy League-bound, World-beater Dynamo

by Derek the Ghost
Let’s start off with this question. Why is reading important for children? Wait. I have better question. Why is absorbing a story in the form of text considered a superior means of story-absorption as opposed to pictures and sound through a television or movie screen?

Back in the olden days before TV and movies, reading was the numero uno form of self-entertainment. However, like TV of today, using books to take in fictional stories was considered a highly frivolous activity. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only form of reading not considered frivolous was reading the bible.

So why did the cultural paradigm shift? Television and movies became the dominant form of story dispersion, and suddenly books became the underdog. When books became the underdog, they went from frivolous to intellectually elitist practically overnight. You could argue the same thing happened with theater.

So, are you actually smarter because you read, or is it just our culture’s perception of reading that merely makes you appear smarter?

Here’s the answer. You’re actually smarter.

It goes without saying that reading requires a basic education. But more importantly, it requires that the brain function in a heightened state of stimulation called Alpha Mode. During Alpha Mode there’s an innumerable amount of split-second decisions taking place. The brain is constantly deciphering letters and interpreting their meaning while at the same time forming imagery to correlate with each phrase. It requires a lot of sub-conscious brain energy and millions of electrical reactions.

Because reading requires so much brain energy, the brain becomes tired quickly and wants to switch to Beta Mode. Beta Mode is when you are spacing out, vegging out, or just hanging out. You are essentially on autopilot, just taking things in, but not actively participating. When you are driving a car, you are usually in Alpha Mode. But when you suddenly look up and realize you’ve driven ten miles past your freeway exit, that’s right… you switched over to Beta Mode, buster.

The good news is that reading is like running. When you first start running you can only run a short distance before getting tired. Reading is the same way. The more you read, the more “brain exercise” you’re getting, and staying in Alpha Mode for longer stretches without getting tired becomes much easier. This effect bleeds over into all facets of life. You’ll be able to study longer and more effectively, retain more information, and work more thoroughly and patiently for extended hours. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did this better than anyone.

Now let me ask you this: Why were kids who had never read anything longer than a 150-page Goosebumps book so eager to read a 750-page Harry Potter book? And why were they able to do it so effortlessly, when reading just one chapter of a schoolbook feels like a Herculean labor?

Because they loved it. Reading Harry Potter was as enjoyable to most kids (if not more so) than playing video games or watching cartoons. The pleasure of reading those books caused kids’ brains to squirt dopamine into their system, making them feel euphoric and self-confident. There’s something books provide that all their other forms of entertainment cannot – a deep, almost familial bond with the characters. Only books can create that on such a profound level. Remember Kathy Bates in Misery? That’s the dark side of it, but I don’t think anyone went bat-#$#@ crazy when Friends was cancelled.

The great thing about Harry Potter was the after-shock it created in the middle-grade and YA book market. Kids were addicted to the book. The pleasure they got from the suspense, humor, mystery, and triumph had shot buckets of dopamine into their systems and no other form of entertainment could match that natural high. So, the middle-grade and YA book market exploded with kids seeking their next fix. When the Harry Potter fans grew up, they were naturally attracted to edgier, more adult fare that reflected their changing selves, and the YA market skyrocketed, heralded by Twilight and now The Hunger Games.

Which brings me to my book series, Scary School. With these books, I had only one goal. I was not trying to write to the best middle-grade series ever. I wasn’t trying to win any Newberry medals for literature. All I wanted to do with the Scary School series was make kids laugh. That’s it.

With my background in comedy writing, I felt that I could maybe write the funniest (not the best) middle-grade book ever. Go big or go home, right? I wanted to have at least three laugh-out-loud moments on every page. Did I succeed? You’ll have to tell me, but the most often used words in the reviews of the book have been “hilarious” and “laugh-out-loud funny.” So far so good.

What will happen when your kids read Scary School will be something very magical. It may very well be the first chapter book your kid reads as well as the first chapter of a life of profound and meaningful achievement. It may also be something a reluctant reader gives a shot because it actually looks fun with that zombie skateboarding kid on the cover. Maybe the only reason your kid gets it is because I’m signing copies at the local bookstore, so you think it would be neat for your kid to have a signed book. Let’s play out that scenario:

I sign the inside jacket of Scary School Book One and write him or her a special message with a funny drawing. Your kid is much more excited to receive it than you thought he/she would be.

That night, you hear laughter from across the house late at night. Your kid is supposed to be asleep but is staying up in bed reading Scary School. You figure that’s okay, so you let him/her keep reading, and you keep hearing laughter until midnight. The laughter is forging an imprint on your kid’s brain that reading=fun.

After finishing Scary School, you child will seek out more books to try and recreate that boisterous experience.

In the process, the child will continuing growing up, always reading and seeking that next great story. While other kids are watching TV and living their lives in Beta Mode, your child’s brain will be in Alpha Mode 1,000% more often. The heightened brain stimulation for long hours will increase your child’s cognitive functioning far past his/her peers. Not only that, your child will be armed with amazing moral and practical lessons learned throughout the Scary School book series that helps him/her adjust to new situations, treat people with respect and kindness, and fuel him/her with a yearning to make the world a better place.

This leads your child into doing community service, building the next great invention, and becoming class president.

Harvard and Yale both offer your child full scholarships, but he/she chooses to cash in on his new invention money and attends Oxford because Scary School taught him/her the value of seeking adventure and meeting different kinds of people from all over the world.

You don’t miss him/her as you otherwise might have because in the future there’s holographic communication where it seems like you’re actually sitting and talking in the same room together.

After graduation, your child comes back home where he/she is probably a DA, a famous architect, a prodigious scientist, or CEO of that hot new startup. He/She comes over for dinner one night and puts a knapsack down on the sofa. It falls over, and amongst the futuristic gadgets, you notice an old, dusty copy of Scary School – that book your child read in one all-nighter back in middle school. That book purchased on a whim because the author happened to be signing at the store. You open it up, and read what is says where I signed the inside of the jacket:

Dear (your kid’s name), Have Fun at Scary School! – Derek the Ghost

***

For more info the Scary School series, fun and games, and even tour the school and meet the students and faculty, please visit www.ScarySchool.com Scary School #2 – Monsters on the March will be released June 26, 2012 online and in bookstores everywhere.

~end

Guest post created by by Derek Taylor Kent, author of Scary School
© 2012. All rights reserved.

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by Derek Taylor Kent
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by Derek Taylor Kent
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Have You Ever Wondered from T.P. Boje

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by T.P. Boje
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Have you ever wondered where you go when you die?

Haven’t we all at some point? I used to do it a lot as a kid. Is heaven for real and what is it going to be like once I get there?

What kind of a body will I have? What will I look like? Will all of my family come with me? Will I meet my grandmother there?

When I was a child I remember reading Astrid Lindgren’s “The Brothers Lionheart”. To those who don’t know it, it is a book about two brothers that both die and goes to the country Nangijala, a land in "the campfires and storytelling days". Here the brothers experience great adventures. Together with a resistance group they lead the struggle against the evil Tengil, who rules with the aid of the fearsome fire-breathing dragon Katla. It is really a very beautiful book and I remember how it made me look upon death in a totally different way. Like it could actually be a new adventure.

As I grew up I never thought much about life after death and if there really was one or not. I was busy living my life and thinking about my life here on earth. But then one day not many months ago a thought just popped into my head. What if we have to go to school when we die?

As it so often happens, the thought wouldn’t go away again once it had come into my head, and I started playing with the idea. If it is true that we leave our bodies here on earth, then we must have some new body on the other side, right?

And it would probably take some time to get used to that new body. And how about going through walls and doors and stuff? I mean if we become spirits then we would have to learn how to do all those things, right?

And what about flying? That is not something that comes to us easily. We would have to practice first, right? And someone would have to teach us.

So eventually I started imagining this school that we all had to graduate from in order to be let into heaven, and soon Meghan popped into my head and started walking around on that school - that just had to be run by angels. She soon made some friends and fell in love (as it often happens when you are sixteen).

And that was when the problems began.

Because the boy was still human, living on earth, so how could they ever be together?

That was when I realized that a book-series was born. And just like the book “The Brothers Lionheart” from my childhood, it was about how dying is only the beginning of the next great adventure.

~end

Guest post created by T.P. Boje, author of Beyond
© 2011. All rights reserved.

AUTHOR BIO
T. P. Boje is a mother of two, a stepmother of another two and a hardcore cartoon lover, Tim Burton enthusiast, and enjoys any movie the Coen Brothers have made (with the big Lebowski being her favorite strongly followed by Burn after Reading). She is also a writer of Y/A Paranormal Romance, fantasy and mystery. She is originally from Denmark but currently living in Florida, USA. Her books are translated into several languages.

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by T.P. Boje
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Ghosts in The Humming Room by Ellen Potter

The Humming Room
by Ellen Potter
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by Ellen Potter
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The first and only time I ever saw a ghost was back in college. I rented a room in the basement of an old house. One night I woke up and saw a diaphanous figure hovering by the far wall. Creepy, right? It should have been. Only it wasn’t. I watched it calmly, thinking, “Hmm, so that’s what a ghost looks like.” Then I went back to sleep. It was no different than witnessing a natural phenomenon, like the Northern Lights.

Ever since then I have felt a friendly curiosity about ghosts. In fact, every book I’ve ever written has featured a ghost, in one form or another. When I first started writing my latest book, The Humming Room, a retelling of The Secret Garden, I knew I’d be knee-deep in ghosts once more.

The first thing I needed for The Humming Room was a haunted house. I explored many ideas, but in the end I chose a defunct tuberculosis sanitarium for children. In part this was because of a story that I had found about a haunted sanitarium reputed to be swarming with young ghosts. Stranger still, this sanitarium had a “body chute” down which they would send the poor victims of the disease to be whisked away for burial. A hidden chute seemed like the perfect device for a house that is keeping many secrets.

Given my feelings toward ghosts, I guess it’s not surprising that the eeriest characters in The Humming Room are very much alive, while the ghosts themselves are pretty darn pleasant and normal. The three living children are wraithlike in their loneliness and wildness. The secret—the garden itself—also exists in the same murky half-life. Ironically, it’s the ghosts who bring the children, and ultimately the garden, back to life.

Every so often I do wonder why that ghost appeared to me all those years ago. Unlike the children in The Humming Room, nothing very dramatic happened to me after I saw it. Still I’d like to think that it was an early nudge for an aspiring writer. Years later, the memory of that hazy figure in the basement inspired me to let ghosts drift in and out of my books. They are rarely scary in my novels. They don’t throw things at people or make the room smell like rotten eggs. My ghosts appear and disappear without too much of a fuss, just like that ghost in the basement. And sometimes, like in The Humming Room, they are even the heroes.

~end

Guest post created by Ellen Potter, author of The Humming Room
© 2012. All rights reserved.

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by Ellen Potter
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* part of The Humming Room tour - check out the other stops for more details on this book and goodies

Giveaway: with zombies

Wanted:
Dead or Undead
(The Zombie West Series, #1)
by Angela Scott
Trace Monroe doesn’t believe in luck. He never has. But when a fiery-headed cowgirl saunters through the saloon doors, wielding shotguns and a know-how for killing the living dead, he believes he just may be the luckiest man alive.

Trace wants to join "Red’s" posse, but she prefers to work alone—less messy that way. In order to become her travelling companion, Trace has to agree to her terms: no names, no questions, and if he gets bit, he can’t beg for mercy when she severs his brain stem. He agrees, knowing only that Red is the sharpest shooter he’s ever encountered. The fact she’s stunning hasn’t escaped his attention either.

What he doesn’t know, is that Red has a very good reason to be on top of her game. She not only has the answer for how they can all outlive the plague taking over the wild, wild west, she is the answer.

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Offer ends: April 6, 2012 --> postponed as of today 3.10.12

NOTE: this giveaway will reopen in a couple months, those entered thus far will be included

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Spirited with Linda Joy Singleton

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by Linda Joy Singleton
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SCENE FROM "PHANTOM OF THE PROM" short story in Leap/SPIRITED anthology:

We get to work right away—and, man, is there work. It’s like Wilshire Castle has been vacant for centuries, although Pen tells me it’s only been a decade. “Since the tragedy,” she says in a hushed tone as she hands me a broom.

“What tragedy?” My sixth sense must be off, because I’m not picking up any otherworldly vibes. Only dust, which makes me sneeze.

“I can’t believe you don’t know.”

“All I heard is it might be haunted.”

“Ignore those ridiculous rumors,” Penny-Love scoffs. “Ghosts aren’t real.”

I could prove otherwise, but why shock her with reality? Most people are content to live their earth lives without ever seeing a ghost. Not me. Spirits are my normal, and even though I complain sometimes, I love my special connection to the other side.

“So what was the tragedy?” I ask.

“The dude who built this castle, Jeremiah Wilshire, murdered his wife. Everyone knows he buried her on this property, but no one’s ever found the grave, so he wasn’t even arrested. He lived alone for years until he fell down the stairs and died here.”

My shivers return. Dizzy, I lean on the broom for balance. Darkness sweeps me somewhere else, back to another time in this ballroom, only the walls are newer with gilded-framed paintings, and high above the center of the ballroom, a chandelier glitters like cascading diamonds. A young bearded guy in a tux holds hands with a freckled red-headed girl wearing a lacy white gown. Bride and groom, I realize, warmed by the honey-sweetness of their love for each other. The groom draws his bride close, and she leans her head against his shoulder. They dance beneath the silvery shine of the chandelier.

“Sabine!”

The broom slips from my fingers at the snap of Ransom’s voice.

~*~
CHARACTER INTRO – Sabine Rose
My story PHANTOM OF THE PROM stars characters from THE SEER series. The heroine, Sabine Rose, is a reluctant psychic who keeps her abilities undercover while at school but shares with a trusted group of friends. She's fallen in love with a mysterious guy, Dominic, who is being mentored by her grandmother in otherworldly arts, and he has an amazing ability to communicate with animals.


Inspiration for Sabine Rose
The inspiration for Sabine came in a dream, as if the character were a real person sharing her life with me. For research into psychic abilities, I read biographies of psychics and attended psychic fairs. Sabine's collection of nightlights comes from a comment made by a real psychic about not liking the dark so always keeping a nightlight on.

~end

Guest post created by Linda Joy Singleton, author of Phantom of the Prom from the Spirited anthology
© 2012. All rights reserved.

AUTHOR BIO
Linda Joy Singleton is the author of more than 35 books, including THE SEER series,DEAD GIRL trilogy, and BURIED: Goth Girl Mystery. Free short stories, a contest, book excerpts, and writing advice can be found at www.LindaJoySingleton.com.

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by Linda Joy Singleton
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Spirited anthology
edited by Kat O'Shea
Release date: March 28, 2012
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fyi:
All proceeds from the sale of SPIRITED will be donated to 826 National.
Print book available only from the Leap Books store.

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