Be A Weekend Viking

 

I attended the Michigan Nordic Fire Festival this weekend with family and friends and had such a MARVELOUS time!  I am now wishing to pursue axe throwing and archery and loudly cheer for combat demonstrations and fire dancers.   It was definitely such a fun time, I think I need a picture book about a Viking child.  I just am not sure yet of the details.  Ideas keep swirling around in my head and I know I will come up with something great.  Yes, I will :) 

#BeAWeekendViking

Cat Storytime for all ages

 There is a somewhat new book by Emily Gravett called 10 Cats that I absolutely love, so I developed a toddler storytime around the title.   Yes, I put "all ages" in the title of this post because I firmly believe that storytimes can be adapted to suit all ages!  And really, we had all ages wanting to make the cat headbands.

I started with our opening song and Roly Poly and then went into  Cleo's Colors which I have been using at the beginning of each storytime.  I made velcro/felt board pieces out of the pictures at the end, and have kids come up when I get to the page with their picture.  They love it, and it was easy to put together.

Next I shared 10 Cats and the kids really enjoyed it as much as I had hoped.  On each page, we hunted for the different cats and talked about the mixed paint colors.  I went into another color rhyme after this.  It's something short I pulled out of the air under pressure to find a simple rhyme for littles.  It goes:

Kitty cat, kitty cat, loves to wear a matching hat.

Can you find the green  hat?   (the color changes for each cat)

I had 5 cats of different colors with 5 matching hats.  I would put up one cat and then call for the matching hat, which the kids had.  When I had a big group, I had half of the kids bring up their cat one at a time and then the other half would match their hat.   The kids LOVE to get up and put anything on the felt board, and the engagement is great - plus the applause when they do it!  Who doesn't love applause?  I used canva to create the cats and hats and will try to share it here. Cats and Hats on Canva   If you are able to access it, let me know!   The rhyme is something silly I made - please use it if you wish!

Lastly, I read I am Cat which has bright, lovely illustrations and also perfectly nails cats.  You could really finish off with any cat book if you need something more engaging for your kiddos.  My groups like this book and acting out being a cat.

We finished up making our cat headbands.  We used dot markers that I purchased from Amazon.   

Please note, I keep adding links, but I do not have an Amazon affiliate account and do not get paid for including them or if you click on them! 

The dot markers worked great because if the dots overlapped, then you could get the mixed colors.  Besides, they ended up looking much like the cats in Gravett's book!

Five Rascally Raccoons available February 21

 From Julianne Dumas @ goodreads: "I have just finished reading Cassie's new book "Five Rascally Raccoons". This is a charming story set to a musical rhyme with wonderful illustrations. The antics of the raccoons are surely to delight young children. The book also includes interesting facts about raccoons and as a special bonus; a raccoon drawing that children can color, and a child or adult can cut out and put together. It will make a terrific addition to a young child's library of books."

I invite you to take a look!  As with all of my books, they are FREE with Kindle Unlimited.  

You can't get rejected if you self publish

 I saw this meme and laughed and laughed!  Because it is so not true.  Oh yes you can get rejected!  Perhaps not by publishers, but by friends, families, and strangers alike.    Hopefully they will be using constructive criticism that will help you hone your skills, but that's not always the case either!  At this point however I accept any critiques :) 

Do you like reviewing books?

 If you love children's books and like to share your opinion, check out the Good Reviews in the GoodReads community.   Authors can post their books in the group where anyone can read and review them.  There is a post just for Children's Books which is where I recently posted one of mine.  I have never done it before and am not sure what kind of feedback I will receive, but at this point, I want any feedback LOL   Or should I say constructive criticism?   

I looked through the posts and it appears not many are getting any response, so I might just jump in there this weekend and see what I can review for people.  I know the value of honest feedback.

Venturing into the realm of Podcasts

I admit, for work I have had to dip my toes into the Podcast world, but I never really thought too much about it.  It was just another recording, like TV show news segments and such.   And there really aren't any podcasts that I listen to on any regular basis except for the Real Brady Bros when I go for walks.  Yes, the Brady Bunch Bros - something about listening to them chat is comforting.

In any case, recently I decided to go ahead and try podcasts as a means to talk about my books and experiences in publishing.  The experience was fun, and that is definitely due in part to the wonderful hosts.  If you would like to take a listen, I've included the links here.  In one I am talking about my adult book about my grandfather Charles Franklin Chamberlain and in the other I chat about my children's books.

For the Love of Books: Cassie Veselovsky Writes Sign Along Bingo Books 

Indie Reads Alound Episode 131 Helen Veselovsky "Charles Franklin Chamberlain : Drawn to France" on YouTube or Spotify .  You can even open the link on your computer. 

For an added bonus, this podcast is from October 2023 when I was a guest D.J. on Dedication, a Bay City Rollers show.  Yes, I love the Rollers!

Happy Listening! 

 

What books to choose?

It is time to start booking local author events and craft shows.  I want to have have a good inventory with me.  The problem comes when attempting to choose what books I should bring or of my 50- some titles! 

First, I try to keep in mind what books actually have sold in person.  They tend to be the everything but the Bingo books.  To this day people are still confused and believe they are books based on the game (B-63) but no... they are based on the song and I have yet to come up with a clever way to get that word out!  I think I need to go through and rename them "a Bingo Song"  LOL  oh, that would be a lot of work.

The second thing I consider is the top selling list on Amazon KDP.  There is a report which will tell you in order what items are selling.  I want to be sure to include a couple of the titles at the top.

The last thing I consider is the time of year.  For spring events, I want spring type books like Eat what Bugs You and Bunny.  Then possibly other books that have spring type pictures like Over in the Outback and Gnome or at least feature the great outdoors in greenery glory. 

I just placed my order and the books should arrive next week, well in time for my first event.  Time will tell if I selected wisely!