Tie-In Books
Happy New Year from Li’l Nosferatu!
Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to 2026! And welcome to my “year-end wrap-up” blog post for 2025. Look, before you say anything: yes, I’m writing a “year-end” post the day after the year ended. Which is probably against the rules, but as I’ve learned over the years, I don’t like rules. Rules are stupid. Also, I was busy yesterday.
So. Here are some of the best things that happened to me in 2025:
I wrote many, many books. Most of them were for kids. Some of them were for adults. Here are the titles of some (but not all) of those books:
The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions.
The Fantastic Four Little Golden Book.
Stitch: Out-of-This-World Numbers.
Also, in January of 2025, I began working as a writer and narrative designer for an upcoming video game called Shadows of Dawn, which is being developed by Next Player Games. Currently, I’m still working on the game with the good folks at NPG.
And as you may recall, back in 2023, I wrote two episodes of the animated preschool series Hey! Fuzzy Yellow. In 2024, one of the episodes began airing and streaming. But starting in 2025, both episodes (“Boomerang Jelly Car” and “Sculpture Jam Abstract”) began airing and streaming. I wrote the scripts and the song lyrics for both episodes. As of this writing, Hey! Fuzzy Yellow still hasn’t begun airing or streaming in the US, but it’s available in various countries in Europe, Central America, and South America.
I also wrote the script for a Passover-themed children’s audio drama, titled “Mort the Misinformed Morsel of Matzah,” which was released in the spring of 2025 as part of Yoto’s 5-Minute Spring Holiday Stories collection. The title character, Mort, was even voiced by a friend of mine, Eli Schiff!
And there are several other projects I worked on throughout 2025, some of which will come out this year. I announced one of them, 96 Facts About Chappell Roan, in my previous blog post. (That book comes out on January 13th.) But I’ll announce some of my other upcoming projects ASAP. Please keep checking this site for more info!
BTW, I wouldn’t have worked on any of the aforementioned projects without the book editors, video game producers, and TV showrunners who gave me these writing gigs in the first place. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who hired me in 2025 (or really, anyone who hired me at any time, ever). And I mean that.
You may also be wondering about the “Baby New Year” photo which adorns this blog post. See, to usher in the new year, I’ve put a “2026” sash around a puppet I built. I call him “Li’l Nosferatu.” If you’re obsessed with me (and why wouldn’t you be?), you’ll notice that I’ve occasionally posted pics of Li’l Nosferatu on social media during the past couple of years. For today’s purposes, Li’l Nosferatu is playing the part of Baby New Year.
Someday, I’ll explain the backstory behind this puppet, because there is indeed quite a bit of backstory there. Basically, I built the puppet for a project which never came to fruition. But more on that some other time.
And to anyone who’s reading this, I just wanted to wish you the best for a wonderful new year!
It’s Two-Book Tuesday!
Guess what? It’s Two-Book Tuesday! That’s because I wrote two children’s books which came out today. They are:
- The Bad Guys Joke Book, which is out now from Scholastic, and which was designed by Stacie Zucker with Sophia La Torre
- The Fantastic Four Little Golden Book, which is out now from Penguin Random House, and which was illustrated by Eda Kaban
Here’s the official publisher description of The Bad Guys Joke Book:
Get ready to laugh out loud with Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Ms. Tarantula, Mr. Piranha, and Mr. Shark! Packed with puns, funny fill-ins, limericks, and so much more, this joke book is the perfect companion to the Bad Guys Movie 2.
And here’s the official publisher description of The Fantastic Four Little Golden Book:
Marvel’s iconic first family of super heroes, the Fantastic Four, arrive to save the day in their first ever Little Golden Book! When a team of four daring space explorers get bombarded by mysterious cosmic rays, they return to Earth changed forever. Given incredible powers, Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing band together to keep the world safe from super villains and alien invaders.
These action-packed full-color pages will introduce these heroes’ amazing powers and their friends and foes! Kids 2 to 5—along with Marvel fans and collectors—will love this Little Golden Book based on The Fantastic Four.
For more info on The Bad Guys Joke Book, click HERE.
For more info on The Fantastic Four Little Golden Book, click HERE.
To buy The Bad Guys Joke Book, click HERE, HERE, and HERE.
And to buy The Fantastic Four Little Golden Book, click HERE, HERE, and HERE.
Hey, Check It Out: I Wrote a Joke Book!
As you may know, in addition to my work as a children’s book author, I’m also a television comedy writer. And for quite some time now, I’ve wanted to write a children’s joke book, which seemed like it would be a nice way to combine those two disparate sides of my career: the “kid lit” side and the “joke writer” side. Call it a short-term goal. Well, a few months ago, I got a chance to realize that goal.
That’s because I wrote a children’s book called The Bad Guys Joke Book, which will be published by Scholastic on July 1st, 2025.
Now, I should mention a couple of things, just because I don’t want to give you the wrong idea here: This book is not set in the world of the Bad Guys books written by Aaron Blabey. It is set in the world of the Bad Guys animated movies (and Netflix specials) which are based on those books.
You also might’ve noticed that the book is coming out on July 1st, just a few short weeks before the Bad Guys 2 movie opens. (That movie comes out on August 1st.) Does this book tie into that movie in any direct way? I’m afraid I can’t quite answer that question at this early date. You’ll have to read the book to find out!
And in the meantime, here’s the official publisher description of the book:
Get ready to laugh out loud with Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Ms. Tarantula, Mr. Piranha, and Mr. Shark! Packed with puns, funny fill-ins, limericks, and so much more, this joke book is the perfect companion to the Bad Guys Movie 2.
The Bad Guys Joke Book is available for preorder HERE, HERE, and HERE.
But if you click the link to the Scholastic Kids site – aka the third “HERE” link directly above – you’ll have to scroll down on that link to find The Bad Guys Joke Book, which is listed on that website as “Bad Guys Movie 2 Joke Book.” That’s the way it’s listed on most other book-related websites as well. I think the folks at Scholastic phrased it that way in the listings on these websites in order to make it clear that this joke book is set in the continuity of the Bad Guys movies, and also to remind readers that it’s coming out roughly around the same time as the second Bad Guys film. After all, as the official publisher description says, this book is the perfect companion to that movie!
I couldn’t agree more.