Children’s Books
“The Day I Became a Potato Pancake” Is Out NOW!
What if – by some miracle of modern science – you were transformed into a walking, talking, sentient potato pancake? How would it affect your relationships with other people? How would it affect your rapport with your best friend? That’s the premise of The Day I Became a Potato Pancake, a Hanukkah-themed graphic novel which was written by yours truly and illustrated by the incredible Beilin Xu.
And today is the book birthday of The Day I Became a Potato Pancake, because that book was published TODAY by Behrman House!
Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly said about this book: “This speculative, character-focused graphic novel highlights aspects of Jewish identity and culture through multiple lenses to craft a goofy yet nuanced read.”
Read the full PW review HERE.
The Day I Became a Potato Pancake also appeared on a recent Publisher’s Weekly list of Jewish Holiday Books for Children.
And it’s mentioned in Booklist’s Fall Youth Preview for 2024.
Here’s the official publisher description of the book:
A fun-packed graphic novel with Hanukkah-themed, science fiction adventure.
Naomi and her best friend Ben love playing with the cool inventions Naomi’s scientist mother always works on, like the holographic simulation room where they can fight dinosaurs. One day, using special finger-print copying gloves, she and Ben break into her mom’s top-secret lab (otherwise known as the garage) to see what other cool stuff they might find. There they find a device called the Transfogram, an experimental machine that transforms you into whatever you’re thinking about at the moment. While eating potato pancakes, Ben reaches for the button to see what it does– and next thing he knows, he’s transformed into a life-size walking, talking potato pancake!
While Naomi’s mom finally concocts an antidote, Ben discovers that he enjoys being the center of attention at school, and he delays changing back to a human. But the clock is running out and if he doesn’t take the antidote soon, he’ll remain a potato pancake forever.
To make matters worse, there’s a mysterious figure watching Ben’s every move. It’s an alien, called a Dreideltopian, who collects Hanukkah-themed objects from around the galaxy for his museum, and now he wants to collect Ben!
To order The Day I Became a Potato Pancake on Amazon, go HERE.
And to order the book on the Behrman House site, go HERE.
Shirtless Lou Fan Art!
Some time ago, I wrote a LEGO Star Wars book called The Official Stormtrooper Training Manual, which was published by Scholastic in 2016. I decided to write it from the POV of a stormtrooper. So the idea is that an ordinary, lunkheaded stormtrooper is narrating the book. On the spread which deals with the “AT-AT” vehicles, I wrote the following joke (among many others):
“The AT-AT is often the first thing sent into a combat zone. The LAST thing sent onto a combat zone is a stormtrooper named ‘Shirtless Lou,’ who has the words WE WON painted on his belly.”
And I didn’t think anything more of the joke after that. After all, it was just one joke in a book filled with them. BUT…
Before long, there was a Wookieepedia page devoted to Shirtless Lou. Here’s how the folks at Wookieepedia described this hapless stormtrooper:
“Lou, nicknamed ‘Shirtless Lou,’ was a human male stormtrooper of the Galactic Empire. He was considered to be the last thing sent into combat zones, as he had the words ‘WE WON’ painted on his belly.”
And among the customer reviews for The Official Stormtrooper Training Manual on Amazon, there was one review that was largely about Shirtless Lou. Here’s an excerpt from that review:
“The text is full of silly jokes that crack my 5 year old Star Wars superfan up. There’s a reference to ‘Shirtless Lou,’ the last stormtrooper to go into battle, that made him laugh so hard that I
ordered the Batman-in-swimsuit minifigure and swapped that torso with a stormtrooper so he could have his own Shirtless Lou, and he plays with him all the time. Shirtless Lou is always doing something silly during stormtrooper training and causing Captain Phasma all kinds of headaches.”
Pretty cool, eh?
(Now, if all this sounds weirdly familiar to you, that might be because I wrote a blog post on May 4, 2023, in which I talked about the Shirtless Lou Amazon customer review and the Shirtless Lou Wookieepedia page. You can read it HERE.)
But now there’s a NEW chapter in the saga of Shirtless Lou, because Graham Allen put up some Shirtless Lou fan art on cohost.org. You can see it on that website if you click HERE.
And I’ve also pasted Graham’s Shirtless Lou fan art immediately below. Just FYI: if you’re wondering what those glyphs on Shirtless Lou’s stomach are, they’re the words “We Won,” written in Aurebesh, a writing system which is used to represent Galactic Basic Standard, the most commonly-used language within the Star Wars universe. Thanks for the wonderful drawing, Graham!
What’s next? A Shirtless Lou comic book? A Shirtless Lou prose novel? Will Shirtless Lou turn up in season 2 of Andor? Who knows?
“Minecraft: Trouble Brewing” is Out NOW!
As I mentioned in my last blog post, I recently wrote a Minecraft children’s book called Trouble Brewing. Well, I’m happy to report that Trouble Brewing was published today by Penguin Random House. It was illustrated by the amazing Alan Batson.
Here’s the official publisher description of Trouble Brewing:
Minecraft is one of the best-selling video games of all time! And now learning to read has never been more fun for players of the game. Readers will get a great introduction to Minecraft’s mysteries and wonders when two players, Emmy and Birch—and their tame wolf Byte— find themselves trapped underground and must brew rare ingredients into powerful potions to survive the dark!
In other mining and crafting news, another Minecraft book I wrote, titled Mobs in the Mansion, was reprinted in a multi-story anthology called Minecraft: The Ultimate Collection, which also came out today.
Minecraft: The Ultimate Collection reprints five Minecraft adventures, all in one big book. The first four of those adventures were written by Nick Eliopulos, and the fifth one – Mobs in the Mansion – was penned by yours truly. All five tales were illustrated by Alan Batson.
Here’s the publisher description of Minecraft: The Ultimate Collection:
Players new and old can join Emmy, Birch, and their tame wolf Byte, as they explore mysterious biomes and encounter scary mobs in this collection of five exciting Step Into Reading Step 3 leveled readers. Features the stories:
• Survival Mode! (Minecraft)
• Mobs in the Overworld! (Minecraft)
• Escape from the Nether (Minecraft)
• The Sky’s the Limit (Minecraft)
• Mobs in the Mansion! (Minecraft)
And to see all of the books I’ve written for Penguin Random House (including these Minecraft books), click HERE.