When I was 8, I asked my mom to buy me some tights. Green tights. No, I wasn’t looking to get into ballet or pose for a Jolly Green Giant ad as little Niblet. I was looking to be Errol Flynn.
I’d watched The Adventures of Robin Hood on TV and I wanted to be a dashing outlaw in the forest with a bow and arrow. I even had my mom get me a toy bow with one of those arrows with the rubber suction cups on the end so I could shoot at a window and make it stick. Mom stopped me from that, so I shot at rose bushes and a stuffed monkey instead. (How monkeys got into Sherwood Forest remains a mystery.)
Anyway, I was totally into adventure stories, pirates, knights, and all that.
I’m a bit older now and still love classic stories and movies about adventure, pirates, and knights.
I’ll give you a couple:
Morgan the Pirate starring Steve Reeves.
Prince Valiant starring Robert Wagner.
The Black Shield of Falworth starring Tony Curtis (no, he never said, “Yonda lies da castle of my fodda.”) This movie was based on Men of Iron, an 1897 novel by Howard Pyle. I loved the Classics Illustrated comic book version as a kid.
And now I have three grandsons who, thank God, love to read.
So I wrote them a book. And then decided to publish it, because in this digital-visual-artificial world of ours, I want to encourage reading among the young, especially boys.
This is my first venture into Middle Grade (8–12). It’s about a kid named Justin Brubaker who is sucked into a game app back to medieval England, where he is tasked with killing a fearful monster called the Brymwolf. Along with a Saxon lad named Cuthbert and his pet pig, Walter, the quest encounters all manner of strange creatures, and a forest outlaw who teaches Justin how to fight.
I put in an Easter egg or two for adults, just for fun. Like a “boggard” (a shapeshifter from mythology) whom Justin names “Humphrey.”
Because fun is the best thing to have when you write. It shows up on the page. And goodness knows we need fun to sustain us through the inevitable rough patches of writing a whole book.
It is my hope that parents and grandparents might consider this as a gift for the kids in their lives. Thus:
The print edition can be ordered here.
The ebook can be ordered here.
You’re a writer. Are you having fun yet?