For those of you who don’t know how I make my money, I write children’s books. And lots of them. My first series was YA and Hyperion was the publisher. Those books, “You are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” and “We are SO Crashing Your Bar Mitzvah!” were written under the name, Fiona Rosenbloom.
Sadly, those books went out of print. This seemed strange to me since the books were extremely popular and I got actual fan mail, like every week! But, then I learned something crucial about 12 year old girls. They SHARE books. They bond over sharing one book. Here’s how that came to my attention.
INT. MIDDLE SCHOOL. DAY
Young Adult author, Fiona Rosenbloom sits next to piles of her book. A young girl approaches, Fiona pulls a book from the pile.
FIONA: Hi. What’s your name?
GIRL: Emily.
FIONA: Hi Emily. Is that the common spelling, or is it EMILIE?
EMILY: The regular way. But, um…could you make it out to me and some friends?
FIONA: Sure.
Fiona picks up her pen and begins writing: for Emily and…
EMILY: Just write for Emily and Shana, Margaret, Sarah, Olivia, Hannah, Nina, Mia, Maisie ummm…Pietra, Jocelyn and I guess…Laura. No, not Laura. Cross out Laura. We don’t like her any more. Did you write Laura already?
EMILY peers over to see what Fiona’s written so far. Emily sighs.
EMILY: Fine, keep Laura.
That’s ELEVEN books that Emily cost me. Goddamn Emily and her goddamn friends. That’s when I realized little kids are not sharers! We love that! Write for the non-sharers of the world. And so I did. The books, Frankly, Frannie are about a little girl who wants to join the workforce. Each book follows her into a different job.
My first stop on tour was Cincinnati.
I went to two schools. The first was St. Mary’s School – Hyde Park. These kids were great. It was Ayla’s 7th birhday and Nicholas’s 1/2 birthday. Not sure if you can see them, but they’re wearing tall hats. Super fun. Totally loved them. The second school was Summit Country Day School. I don’t think I have photos of that audience, but they were great, too.
Leave a Reply