Elizabeth's Favorites

Howdy all,
I just finished this story and I would love to get your honest feedback on it before I start sending it to publishers. It would work well in the 2-6'ish year old category. One of the best ways to see if you like it is to give it a 'test spin' and read it to your kids. You can also download the story and print it since it's pretty difficult to read books to children from a computer. Happy reading!


Elizabeth’s Favorites
By Brian Hodson

Every morning when the sun goes down it’s time for Elizabeth to wake up. She throws open her window and shouts, “Good morning squirrels! Good morning bees! Good morning beavers, ducks and fish! It’s a wonderful day to be a bat!” And every morning the squirrels, bees, beavers, ducks and fish say “Good night Elizabeth!” as they go home to get ready for bed.
Elizabeth is nocturnal; that’s what animals are called when they are awake when the sun is down and sleep when it’s light outside. Elizabeth puts on her favorite polka-bug-dotted dress and flies downstairs for breakfast. She grabs her favorite cereal, Fruity Bug O’s, from the shelf and pours herself a bowl careful not to let any fly away. Elizabeth’s mom makes her some toast and spreads loganberry jelly on it, Elizabeth’s favorite. She eats the last bit of cereal and licks the jelly from her fingers as she puts on her backpack to go to school.
If you were to ask Elizabeth what her most favorite class is at school, she would tell you that she has three; sonars, bugology and recess, because it’s OK to have more than one favorite. When the bell rings it means that school is finished for the day. Elizabeth’s mom meets her in front of the school to fly home together. This is one of Elizabeth favorite times because this is when Elizabeth gets to tell her mom about all the things she did in school that day; just the two of them, without being interrupted by her little brother.
When Elizabeth gets home she plays her favorite game with her friends, soccer. They can play at night because nocturnal animals have special ways of seeing in the dark. Elizabeth even scored a goal!
When the game is over it is time to fly home for dinner. Elizabeth smells something delicious. It was her dad grilling his famous bug kabobs with French flies. Elizabeth favorite bugs are the red ones with yellow stripes. Yum!
Elizabeth’s favorite day of the week is Monday, because after dinner, Elizabeth and her family have Family Night. They spend time together, talk about what everyone is doing, play a game and have a treat. This week it’s Elizabeth turn to choose what game they are going to play. Elizabeth chooses her favorite game, Hungry Hungry Bats.
The sun is getting ready to come up which means it time for Elizabeth to get ready for bed. Elizabeth takes a bubble bath, brushes her fangs and gets into her favorite pajamas.
Just before bedtime Elizabeth throws open her window and shouts “Goodnight squirrels! Goodnight bees! Goodnight beavers, ducks and fish! It was a wonderful day to be a bat!” And every evening the squirrels, bees, beavers, ducks and fish all say “Good morning Elizabeth!”, as they get ready for another day. Elizabeth’s dad reads her a bedtime story and tucks her into bed. Goodnight Elizabeth.

Zzzzzzz...What? Where did the last year go?

A couple of the books that I've read to help me become a better children's book author said to make you set time aside to write...and its true. I did not follow the advise and haven't written anything in a long time, and it has been over a year since I last posted to this blog.

I decided to pick up some of the stories that I left uncompleted and hopefully will have something I can post here for your reading pleasure.

Welcome to Books By Brian!

In the early months of 2008 I caught the I-want-to-start-writing-children's-books bug. With some inspiration from my son and after reconnecting with my inner-child I managed to produce some really great manuscripts. My stories eventually became mature enough that they needed to go find their way in the publishing world to see if anyone likes them as much as I do.

Here is a preview of what I've written so far.

A Squirrel in the Living Room Normally when a squirrel gets trapped in your house it wants to get out….but what do you do if it does not want to leave. That is what happened to this boy when he woke up one Saturday morning surprised to find his unlikely visitor standing in the corner of his living room. See how our hero attempts to evict his furry friend and the surprise the squirrel has for him.

The Evil Genius of Calambaroo In the rewarding field evil geniusing even the best evil genius can become bored. But what else can an evil genius do? The Evil Genius of Calambaroo has an evil secret hobby that he likes to do when no one is looking and finds that he should do what makes him happy!

Who cleans up after the Superheroes? Crash!…Pow!…Bang! Hurray! The town of Happyton has been saved again by the towns Superheroes…but what a mess they’ve caused! So, who cleans up after the Superheroes?