Banana Peelin' with Janee Trasler

I debated whether or not to post this week due to the events on the east coast .  I know that some of our friends are without electricity still, and this seems slightly indulgent…blogging, carrying on. I think many of us are feeling survivor’s guilt.

But I decided that a main goal of this blog and this series is to get a smile and maybe even a chuckle or two out of its readers.  And what better way to take someone’s mind off the ickiness that is catastrophic climate than someone else’s embarrassing moment? Let’s give it a shot, shall we?

This being the first post of November, a month traditionally reserved for giving thanks, my goal was to focus on gratitude.  Well, this week’s author Janee Trasler, has this amazing book that really makes you appreciate our fancy, modern conveniences, like…grocery stores. Caveman: A B.C. Story, (clever ain’t it?), follows a caveman and his buddies around on what appears to be just your average cave person day. Although there are only 26 words in its entirty (as it is an ABC book), they really pack a punch, especially when paired with the hilarious illustrations. It is one of our silliest books in the house.

I am grateful for so many things today: the safety our friends on the east coast, the health of my own family and friends, the grocery store, two buckets a bucket full of Halloween candy waiting for me on the kitchen counter… but I am also so thankful to have the wonderful Janee Trasler on the blog!

Having just left my job in corporate graphics, I was excited and eager to start my new career in children’s book. I was also greener than green eggs and ham.

Visit the library? Take a class? Actually read a picture book? Pshaw. When you’re walking around with that much blind optimism, you never even see the banana peel coming.

Within a week, I had my masterpiece! It was well over a thousand words, had 64 stanzas, and every other line ended in a rhyming “oo” sound. I packed up my single-spaced manuscript, mailed it to an agent, and waited for my contract.

I have to hand it to the agent (who did not even represent picture books, by the way). Somehow, he managed to send my “masterpiece” back to me without a big “SNORT!” written anywhere on it.

One picture book workshop and a trip or two to the bookstore later, I knew enough to be acutely embarrassed.

I learned so much from that slip. Now, I read a ton of current picture books, I watch the trends, and I’d never dream of sending anything out the door without running it by my critique group first (waves madly at the PBJeebies).

If I’d really researched the market before just barreling in the way I did, I’d probably have run screaming. It takes a lot of guts and hard work to get a book published; luckily, I was too green to know it.

 Janee has been generous enough to offer a copy of Caveman, to one person who responds to this question in the comments:

What is ONE modern convenience for which you are forever grateful?

The winner will be chosen via Radom.org and will be announced the beginning of next week! Good luck!