Orange Monster

I’ve come up with this Mummy I’m Scared series idea because little children do not know everything (not that adults do) and having seen my little girl being scared because she thought there was a monster upstairs when it was just Daddy hoovering and my younger cousin convinced he was going to be eaten by a dragon – after some investigation this turned out to be a digger.

1)Mummy I’m Scared of the Sound Up There – hoover as a monster 2)Mummy I’m Scared of the Sound Out There – Lawn mower as a monster 3)Mummy I’m Scared of the Sound Over There – Digger as a monster

I recall having seen a children’s picture book along this theme before but can not remember it’s name – I think I need to track it down before I start writing just to make sure I’m not accidently copying! I think from memory though the premise was slightly different as in the child was scared of the diggers and things but missing the friendly monsters that where hidden in the pictures.

In these books I want the child to hear/sea something that sets their imagination racing and then the discovery of what it actually is though the child still knows they are really monsters but they are now ‘safe’.

From last years story ideas I wrote a Rainbow Dolphins story which turned out to be full of geology, biology and war :/ The story ended up being called The Rainbow Dolphins and the Amonids. This year I have come up with another story about the Rainbow Dolphins involving creatures called Bryozoans – these are corel like creature/plants.

This made me realise there are a lot of stories to be written about the dolphins in all their glitter! But also probably about the place they live – like I know they have pets which look like rainbow rabbits who will no doubt have their own adventures!

Basically what I have done is created a world complete with its own eco-system, societal structure and history. The whole ‘world’ is bounded by a mineral ‘coral’ and is at the deepest bit of the sea running on geothermal energy.

The stories I base here I’m going to call the Bounded Sea rather than The Rainbow Dolphins. Not sure the stories will have universal appeal but my little girl likes the first one and really for me that is what matters!

An age ago I picked up rose petal and thought it looked like hedgehog and this lead me to write a story called The Rose Petal Hedgehog. The petal is sad it is a petal and stuck to a plant and wants to be a hedgehog so badly that when it falls off the bush and lands in the leaf litter it turns into a hedgehog all be it a very small one. It then goes off with a family of Hedgehogs!

Around the same time me and my husband saw what we thought was a mouse running across the road in fits and starts. We stopped our van to wait for it but it didn’t seem to want to get off of the road – so I got out and went to shoe it off the road. To my amazement it turned out to be a leaf, my husband didn’t believe me and I ended up having to pick the leaf up to show him!

I forgot about the incident until I was writing down story ideas this year and I thought what about the Leaf Mouse?

This resulted in my normal brainstorming and I know have several titles I think would fit this group of stories – again most of them happen to have been incubating for a long time from things I’ve seen and things my little girl has said or information I’ve picked up!

Anyway here’s the list:

1)The Rose Petal Hedgehog – written 2)The Leaf Mouse 3)The Conquer Dog 4)The Road Cone Penguin 5)The Football Badger

These are animal stories sort of along the lines of Beatrix Potter but with themes modern day children can relate too.

I thought I’d best start by listing all of the titles including the two I’ve already written!

1)Ester Rabbit – written 2)Christina Clucklesworth – written 3)Sheila Sheep 4)Wendy Weaselson 5)Cassandra Snailing

I already know what Sheila Sheep is going to be about – a ballet dancing, opal mining sheep who’s name is really Zoe. She tried to skirt meals to look better dancing but finds she then can’t dance or do her work. These seem like heavy topics but I’m hoping to address them in a child friendly way – with kids as young as 8 becoming anorexic I think that such topics do need to be tackled in children’s books

I thought I’d best list the Hetty Peglar titles specifically!

1)Hetty Peglar’s Tump – written 2)Hetty Peglar’s Skeleton Dance – written 3)Hetty Peglar’s Pumpkin Ball – written 4)Hetty Peglar’s Dragon Fly – written 5)Hetty Peglar’s Spooky Reunion – written 6)Hetty Peglar’s Batty Bat – Balinda – written 7)Hetty Peglar’s Goulish Guest 8)Hetty Peglar’s Witchy Watch 9)Hetty Peglar’s Vampire Victory 10)Hetty Peglar’s Mummy 11)Sidney Spider Drops in From Down Under

Hetty Peglar – these are stories about a slightly inept witch and her adventures including wacky friends and nutty pets! There were five Hetty ideas last year and another four this year – I also used last years ideas as a base for the picture book a day challenge.

The Easter/animal stories where not a series when I did the ideas last year but in the run up to Easter when I actually wrote Ester Rabbit another book idea appeared Christina and now this year there are another three ideas.

The Rainbow Dolphins were also a one off idea but there is now another rainbow dolphin adventure – I think these will have to be re-named to the Bounded Sea.

That leaves the Little Books of Poetry – The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry already existed when I went into the idea challenge last year and then during November last year I wrote the The Little Book of Festive Poetry, performed some of the poems at performance poetry event and managed to get the drawings done before Christmas so that at least my little girl could enjoy them! This year there are another two Little Books one o which is now written and just needs the illustrations!

I will go more into detail with these in later posts! One thing I noted was that there was no other House Dragon ideas this year – this suprised me if I’m honest but perhaps they are waiting their time and will appear in another year or two!

The Little Books of Poetry

1)The Little Book of Sparky Poetry (currently in progress!) 4)The Little Book of Easter Poetry

Hetty Peglar

7)Hetty Peglar’s Goulish Guest 8)Hetty Peglar’s Witchy Watch 9)Hetty Peglar’s Vampire Victory 10)Hetty Peglar’s Mummy

Mummy I’m Scared

12)Mummy I’m Scared of the Sound Up There – hoover as a monster 13)Mummy I’m Scared of the Sound Out There – Lawn mower as a monster 14)Mummy I’m Scared of the Sound Over There – Digger as a monster

Easter/Animal Stories

24)Sheila Sheep 25)Wendy Weaselson 26)Cassandra Snailing

The Rose Petal Hedgehog Books

3)The Leaf Mouse 27)The Conquer Dog 28)The Road Cone Pengiun 29)The Football Badger

Rainbow Dolphins

30)The Rainbow Dolphins and the Bryozoans

1)The Little Book of Sparky Poetry (currently in progress!)
2)Polyps – The Colony
3)The Leaf Mouse
4)The Little Book of Easter Poetry
5)The Flamenco Flamingos
6)Bimbling Bombling Bumble Bees
7)Hetty Peglar’s Goulish Guest
8)Hetty Peglar’s Witchy Watch
9)Hetty Peglar’s Vampire Victory
10)Hetty Peglar’s Mummy
11)Bubble Bubble – all the different places you find bubbles
12)Mummy I’m Scared of the Sound Up There – hoover as a monster
13)Mummy I’m Scared of the Sound Out There – Lawn mower as a monster
14)Mummy I’m Scared of the Sound Over There – Digger as a monster
15)The Pengalings – different coloured penguins
16)My Feet Are Singing
17)The ‘Shrooms
18)The Worms
19)Ceiling Snakes – Air Ducts
20)The Door That Wanted to Be a Musical Instrument
21)Happy String
22)The Lolly Sticks
23)The Line Family
24)Sheila Sheep
25)Wendy Weaselson
26)Cassandra Snailing
27)The Conquer Dog
28)The Road Cone Penguins
29)The Football Badger
30)The Rainbow Dolphins and the Bryozoans

It has occured to me I could have just put this list up on the second day without mucking about – sigh :/

I have the rough poems for this sorted already – like with the other Little Books I have decided to go for ten poems. There are however no illustrations done yet and the poems are very no finished and polished 🙁

It would have been nice to have this finished for today but never mind – it means it will hopefully be sorted for next year – Jean (my five year old) as always thought the poems where great 🙂 All the poems center around the British Holiday of Guy Forks Night or Bonfire Night ro Fire Works Night – it all begain with the grisly exacution of a Catholic who may or may not have tried to blow up the Houses of Parlament way back when. Of course this was only foiled by one of my ancestors who was worried about some of the people who might get hurt by it :/

So far the poems cover everything from checking for hedgehogs to toasting marshmallows! With lots of bangs and whoops!

21)Happy String
22)The Lolly Sticks
23)The Line Family
24)Sheila Sheep
25)Wendy Weaselson
26)Cassandra Snailing
27)The Conquer Dog
28)The Road Cone Pengiun
29)The Football Badger
30)The Rainbow Dolphins and the Bryozoans