The Earth
 
What is Earth, really?
It is something sweet,
Some parts you can eat
Earth is full of life
Some life is furry,
Some hop, others scurry
None are boring or lame
We should all be treated the same
(Dogs and cats can’t
get all the attention)
I mean, what if me and you
owned a baby kangaroo?
(I’d name mine Darryl)
But now the Earth is in peril
The ice is melting,
More animals dieing
So, down with global warming
And up with recycling

For the Earth is something sweet
And something worth saving.

We have a passel of lost pens in our home. Some of them hail from faraway places that we’ve never been to, or tout people we’ve never voted for let alone met, or promote drugs that we’ve never been prescribed.

This should explain why we were using a pen emblazoned with VIAGRA on it during the 57th Street Children’s Book Fair in Chicago last weekend, where hundreds of our little customers and their parents picked it up to sign our email list. Or glanced at it in horror. Please accept our apology.

Certainly, you can sympathize. Go through your home now and I know you’ll find something from a lobster shack in Maine that you’ve never been to.

I didn’t realize the faux pas until a mom handed me the pen and said it wasn’t working. (Just put your own joke here.)

So I quickly took it from her hand, hid my horror at the site of the VIAGRA label, and handed her another pen.

After she left, I sighed and looked at the replacement pen, which was labeled GUINNESS.

No, not as in Book of World Records.

Most of us have driven past an injured animal on a roadway and wished there was something we could do to help. But how many of us would actually stop?

Here’s a woman’s amazing story, and how her act of kindness for a suffering cat brought her an unexpected reward.

Sally Geer was driving to work on  country road in southern Michigan when she saw a cat crouched beside the road. As she drove by, she realized that something was terribly wrong with the cat’s face. She turned her car around to get a closer look. The injury was horrific: The cat’s eyes had bulged out of her head, presumably from being hit by a car.

I was recently reminded that life imitates art, and that I am decidedly more juvenile than I had thought.

The “art” being our first book, Spies Inc., in which a middle-school boy is sent on a spy mission by bully Biff Vermin to steal a top-secret cupcake frosting recipe from The Lunch Lady. I won’t give away the entire plot because YOU CAN BUY IT HERE WWW.STORYBUILDERSBOOKS.COM,  but here’s an excerpt: 

All the kids in school knew about the frosting, but none of us had actually tasted it. The Lunch Lady used it only on cupcakes that went to grown-ups. “I’m going to be a famous TV chef some day, geekhead, and that frosting will be my claim to fame,” Biff said, scowling.

 After promising to have the recipe by the end of the day, the boy sneaks into the school kitchen, where he dons a disguise and tries to swipe a tray of cupcakes out of the school.

Now, fast forward to a small-town shop in northern Michigan called The Cherry Hut. Here is the actual text message exchange between me and my neighbor, Margaret, who is also an adult and who, like me, has  dismissed Botox in favor of exclamation points.

MARGARET: I smell the cookies baking!!!!!! Sweeeeeet!

ME: Get the batter recipe!!!!

MARGARET: I will beg after I get my cookie or they won’t sell them to me.

ME: Say this: “I can taste butter, right? Or is it lard?”

MARGARET: Yes…good line…and cherries?

ME: We already know there are cherries, pecans and white chocolate. JUST GET THE RECIPE!!!!!

I added that last sentence for effect, but suffice it to say, another summer has ended without the recipe for the best cookie on earth that we have aptly named Lard-Butt Cookies. That’s a combined 7 trips to the Hut, and 7 conversations with the owners (actually 8 if you include last winter’s phone call when I inquired about them mailing me the cookies.)

Stop judging me. I know you wannabe Iron Chefs are saying I should just recreate the recipe at home from scratch. I know plenty more are saying we should just ask for the recipe. Duh? Then what am I supposed to talk to my neighbors about all winter? The weather?

Margaret still has one more chance. Her family will stop at The Cherry Hut on their way home at the end of this week. Here’s what I plan to text her:

ME: OMG!!!! Don’t forget to get the recipe!!! Those cookies are so, like, AWESOME!!!! Do you really think they use lard???? I will totally freak. Isn’t that pig fat???

I feel younger already.

1 Comments on LARD-BUTT COOKIES, last added: 8/5/2010

Clyde

Hello everybody, 

We just heard from our illustrator. He’s almost done drawing the “Dog Book,” which will NOT be the title. 

 We think you are going to love it. We’ll post a sneak peek of a few pages very soon on Facebook. Did you know that Storybuilders Books can be personalized? That means if you order the Dog Book (once again, NOT the title!) we’ll put a photo of your dog on the back cover! How cool is that? You’ll have a book to remember your dog forever. 

NOW FOR A CONTEST UPDATE: 

First Place Winner of the title contest wins a free copy of the Dog Book with their dog’s photo on the back cover and their name inside each book as the author of the title. 

Second Place Winner - two of you will also get a free copy of the Dog Book, which you can also personalize with your dog’s photo on the back cover. 

Here’s the list of titles we’ve received so far: 

Furry Angels; Dog Wonders of Our Hearts; Livin’ a Dog’s Life; Puppy Pals and Doggy Tales; Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales; Dog Spirit; My Life As a Dog; Best Friends Forever; The Dog We Call Our Friend; Dog’s Life; A Day With The Dogs; All About Man’s Best Friend; Puppy Lovers; Every Dog Has a Gift; A Big Little Life; A Dog Like No Other; Live For Dogs, Laugh at How Cute They Are, Love Them Forever;  If You Only Knew; Dog Tales; Our Amazing Friends; Man’s Best Friend; Those Luvable Furballs; Our Cuddly Furries; Dog’s Mind in Action; Puppy Luv; It’s A Dog’s World; Everything and Anything You Could Know About Me; Puppy Life; A Girl’s Best Friend; Tiny But Mighty; Dog Days; The Dog Days of Life; Dogless in Seattle; Dog Tails; What Really Happens When You Are At Work; You Don’t Know Everything About Dogs; What People Don’t Know About Dogs; Do You Know How Much We Love You? What Our Bark Really Means: Feisty But Lovable; Why We Really Chase Mailmen; Dirty Dog Tricks: How I Hid Your Shoe and Other Stories of Bad Puppies Being Little Terriers of Terror; Dog or Best Friend? You Answer; Not That Different From Us; It’s a Dog’s Life; No Matter What I am Here For You; Got Dogs?; Have You Hugged Your Dog Today? Wanna Smile? Pet a Dog; Angels…or Devils…Among Us; Love Me, Love My Dog; 

Stay with us on Facebook. Why? Because our next book, the “Music Book” also needs a title! Hmmm….but what should be the prize, other than a free book? We’ll have to think hard on this! It was written by Glenn Gamboa, the pop music critic at Newsday in New York. He’s interviewed all your favorite pop music stars, including, drum roll please, The Jonas Brothers!!!! In this book, Glenn tells a story about what it’s like to go to a pop music concert, and what it’s like to interview famous musicians. 

Now, back to the dogs!

Strike that, reverse it. Thank you.

Here at the Storybuilders Factory, we’re eating chocolate and getting ready for Printer’s Row Lit Fest in Chicago, June 12 and 13.

If you’ve never been to it, pack up the kids, shut off the screens, and you’ll discover that it’s much more than mulling about stacks of books. It’s a fantastically huge celebration with games, singing, music, freebies for kids in beautiful Chicago. Check out this link because they will be listing all the cool activities for kids very soon. http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/printers-row/printers-row-lit-fest.html

Storybuilders will be there, too, with a Prize Wheel. You can win a Storybuilders book, coupon for $5 off a book, secret spy decoder ring, bookmarks, and lots more. Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of pure imagination.

Best of all, we’ll showcase our next book that stars your dog. Creating this book has taken a bit longer than expected because invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.

10. Mother’s Day is not a day. It covers the entire weekend from Thursday 6 p.m. through 9 a.m. Monday.

9. Instead of escorting spiders, ants, mosquitoes, earwigs, etc…out of our home, I will kill them on the spot. 

8. You are not allowed to cry over said insects bereaved family members or wonder aloud about how said insects’ parents feel.

7. Don’t correct my grammar. I worked at the Chicago ‘effin Tribune, for God’s sake.

6. Do not, under any circumstances, say, “Mom look!” unless you are skydiving or graduating from high school.

5. I do not know where anything of yours is located.

4. I will change the TV channel at the drop of a dime to “The Dog Whisperer” or HGTV.

3. The words “Harry” and “Potter” are banned.

2. Play with those &%$ Zhu Zhu pets that I went insane trying to find for Christmas.

And my Number One  rule on Mother’s Day……

1. Ask Daddy.

A shout out to MOMS — let’s make this list gigantic and laugh! Add some rules. Your day starts tonight.

 I’m talking to you. Steve Ravenscraft, the designer of Spies Inc., can out design any other designer, any day of the week, in any medium.  InDesign, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash -  the whole Adobe Creative Suite. What’s that? You’re backing down now?  Well, maybe you should go home and take your baby crayons with you.

Disclaimer: I’m not encouraging any actual physical violence to break out over this blog post.

What I am encouraging is for you to check out his designs at www.ravengraphics.com or better yet, take a mini-tour of Spies Inc. at www.storybuildersbooks.com

A friend of mine, a photographer and designer, was looking through Spies Inc. this week and summed up Steve’s design like this: “It’s like you’re looking through a virtual world in a book.”

What we love about Steve is that he is meticulous, a perfectionist if not obsessive, about the end product.

Check this out:  I asked him for a simple spy disguise – glasses or a mustache – so we could disguise kid’s photos – and here’s what he gave me.

Need I say more?

Inventory is low

Some people are hesitant to start their own business because they feel the risks involved are not worth taking. I had no trouble getting started, but now, as I get closer to launching my publishing company, I’m feeling opening night jitters. 

Then, out of the blue, I remembered that I had started and ran an  innovative, wildly successful and personally profitable business before. I know I can do it again.

Just Crackers! operated out of my desk at a scrappy Ohio newspaper where vending machines didn’t exist and appetites were ravenous. My idea was brilliant. I had managed to collect a stash of packaged crackers from eating establishments throughout town – single servings of Club Crackers, saltines, oyster, and others. If I had soup, chili or salad for lunch, I brought back inventory. There’s no way I would eat all of them, I had thought, why not open a store for my co-workers?

Word spread quickly through the newsroom. I branded my company with an innovative name, organized inventory according to color and taste in my right-hand drawer and took advantage of starving reporters, copy editors and one unusually hungry photographer who stopped by. A lot.

Just the other day, a former customer asked me if Just Crackers! was still open. Without any regrets, I said: “No, but how about a book?”

Spymaster AZ-D55 ProSync Decoder

If my daughter’s classroom is a barometer of how other kids will feel about Spies Inc, then Storybuilders has a lot of good things to look forward to. I read from the book Monday to Mrs. Hansen’s third graders at Husmann Elementary in Crystal Lake. I felt so much joy listening to them giggle and watching their faces hang on to each word. Little groups of them rushed up to me afterward. “Where do I get this? Can I get my picture on the back? How do I do that?  Can we pass it around? Can we write in this one now?”  Can I just say back that “third grade rocks!” What a great age.

 Since it was my volunteer day, I stayed a while, watching them read the book as I soaked it all in.   Not as a publisher marketing a book, but as someone who months ago wrote that her mission was to “create books that kids can’t wait to get their hands on.” I’d say we’re on the right track.

It’s exhilarating working on my business, Storybuilders, but some days I have a hefty amount of fear.   Should you do it? Should you start your own business? Should you take that invention to the market? Leave the security of your job?  There are strong internal drivers that compel people to create their own business, according to Daniel Isenberg, in his blog post for the Harvard Business Review.

 I started Storybuilders  because I had a lifelong dream to own a business AND the timing was right: Laid off, no credit card debt, low mortgage,  husband still employed, kids young.

Just answer yes or no. I scored 15 on the test. What did you score? Anything you would add to the test? Keep in mind that this is just a test that could give you some insight.

1. I don’t like being told what to do by people who are less capable than I am.
2. I like challenging myself.
3. I like to win.
4. I like being my own boss.
5. I always look for new and better ways to do things.
6. I like to question conventional wisdom.
7. I like to get people together in order to get things done.
8. People get excited by my ideas.
9. I am rarely satisfied or complacent.
10. I can’t sit still.
11. I can usually work my way out of a difficult situation.
12. I would rather fail at my own thing than succeed at someone else’s.
13. Whenever there is a problem, I am ready to jump right in.
14. I think old dogs can learn — even invent — new tricks.
15. Members of my family run their own businesses.
16. I have friends who run their own businesses.
17. I worked after school and during vacations when I was growing up.
18. I get an adrenaline rush from selling things.
19. I am exhilarated by achieving results.
20. I could have written a better test than Isenberg (and here is what I would change ….)

If you answered “yes” on 17 or more of these questions, look at your paycheck (if you are lucky enough to still get one). If the company that issued the check isn’t owned by you, it is time for some soul searching: Do you have debts to pay? Kids in college? Alimony? Want to take it easy? Maybe better to wait. Do you have a little extra cash in the bank and several credit cards? Do you have a spouse, partner, friends, or kids who will cheer you on? If so, start thinking about what kind of business you want to set up. It doesn’t matter what age you are: research by the Kauffman Foundation shows that more and more over–50s are setting up their own businesses. Talk to people who have made the plunge, learn how to plan and deliver a product or service, think about that small business you might buy, talk to people with whom you would like to work, and talk to customers.

“I like to take risks” is not on the list. People don’t choose to be entrepreneurs by opting for a riskier lifestyle. What they do, instead, is reframe the salary vs. entrepreneur choice as between two different sets of risk: the things they don’t like about having a steady job — such as the risk of boredom, working for a bad boss, lack of autonomy, lack of control over your fate, and getting laid off — and the things they fear about being an entrepreneur — possible failure, financial uncertainty, shame or embarrassment, and lost investment. In the end, people who are meant to be entrepreneurs believe that their own abilities (e.g. leadership, resourcefulness, pluck, hard work) or assets (e.g. money, intellectual property, information, access to customers) significantly mitigate the risks of entrepreneurship. Risk is ultimately a personal assessment: what is risky for me is not risky for you.  By Daniel Isenberg, The Conversation http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/02/should_you_be_an_entrepreneur.html

I can’t understand why my kids don’t want to feed or play with our real pet but they treat our virtual pets like gods. The latest to pop up on our Mac are FooPets.

What are FooPets? OMG! I can’t believe you even have to, like, ask!  They are “the world’s most realistic, interactive, virtual pets!” Apparently they are even MORE alive than our real pet – a realistic, interactive golden retriever.

CECE: Mom! Look! My FooPet just brought me her food bowl! She wants to me to feed her! (click click)

ME: Oh honey, that’s adorable. OH LOOK! Your real dog passed out by her empty water bowl from dehydration. Shucks. I guess you forgot to feed her again.

CECE: I know what you’re doing, Mom. You’re trying to make me feel guilty.

ME: No I’m not. But did you know there are children starving in India who would love to have that waffle you’re not eating?

Natalie, my sensitive little girl, adopted a FooPet this morning. A kitten she named Sprinkles who purrs, meows and paws around on a patch of grass. We were just about done adopting her when Natalie had to rush off to school.  Then our computer started MEEEOOOOWWWIINNNNG.  Sprinkles was hungry.

NATALIE IN TEARS: SSSSHhhheeee sssouuunds ssooo saaadddd.  I I I ccaaaan’t stand heearrrriinnggg Sprinkllllesss meeeeooowwww.

ME: Me either, honey.

My point is that I’ve wasted a ton of time reading marketing advice when all I needed to do was follow the FooPet formula, which is EXAGGERATE GREATLY.

The tagline under the FooPets logo is “They’re Alive!”

Really? Then the tagline under my Storybuilders logo will now say “Free baby hamster with each purchase! You can feed it!”

Writing a good story is hard work. Perhaps that explains the brilliant answer I came up with when asked in a job interview whether I preferred writing or reporting. “Reporting,” I said. “I hate to write.” Luckily, I was interviewed by a veteran editor with the Chicago Tribune who laughed and hired me.

I consider myself a gifted, tortured writer. I sweat, struggle, and pull my brain apart until the sentences flow to my satisfaction. That’s why I was always fascinated watching John Keilman, the author of our first book, write stories when we worked together at the Tribune.

Watching John link sentences together for a story is like watching a pianist take command of the keys. He’s energized as if he was born to write.  He doesn’t fumble for words; he effortlessly grabs the one he wants and uses it with perfection. I am so grateful and proud to have Storybuilders’ first book authored by John. Below is a fun chat I had with him on why he agreed to do it.

Carolyn:  John, you’re a bigshot Chicago Tribune reporter. Why did you agree to write a children’s story?

John: I have two small kids at home, and I know how hard it is to get them to read anything (much less write anything). So I thought it would be fun to see if I could come up with something they would enjoy.

Carolyn: Dash Danger is ultra-cool. What was your inspiration? Did you look in the mirror and say, ‘Yeah…I’m Dash.’”?

John: Dash was kind of a James Bond-Hardy Boys-Incredibles-combination. He clearly wasn’t based on me. I’m more of a Biff Vermin type.

Carolyn: Pick one from each category: Cat or dog? Fried or scrambled eggs? Biking or running? Journalist or popular cool children’s book author?

John: Cat (what other animal combines sneakiness and savagery in such an adorable package?)

Scrambled (does anyone under the age of 70 eat fried eggs?)

Running (biking in the flatlands of Illinois is just too boring)

Popular cool children’s book author (that way my kids might actually read something I’ve written)

0 Comments on A chat with the author of Spies Inc. as of 1/1/1990

Before then, I had always hated the pressure Oprah put on us with her “find your passion” decree. Great, I thought, now I feel guilty that I don’t scrapbook. A good friend wondered whether going to the movies qualified. What about chips?

With two young girls, a husband and a full-time job, I told myself I didn’t need that kind of pressure. Plus, I was afraid to leave the security of what I had been doing for 16 years. So I ignored Oprah’s calling to do what I love and continued working at a job that I sort of liked.

Have you ever noticed that if you consistently ignore your inner voice it will eventually get your attention? Sometimes it’s oh-so-polite and whispers, “This is the way.” Then there are the moments when suddenly Glenn Close is yelling, “I will not be ignored, Dan!”

The latter is the moment I had when an editor showed up in my suburban bureau to tell me they were closing my office. At once, I was stunned and grateful. After all, I had a stellar career with the Tribune and I thought layoffs were over. I was grateful because I was free, if not forced, to reinvent myself.

So here I am. For the first time in my working life, I feel consistently fulfilled with what I am doing, day in and day out. That’s a pretty profound statement. I founded a publishing company called Storybuilders, and tapped many of my extremely talented former colleagues to write children’s stories that I am publishing.

I am thrilled to reconnect with full-time motherhood, to wake up with my girls without the rush of having to get myself ready for work. My husband and I had worked opposite shifts so that we wouldn’t have to use daycare. I didn’t realize how much I missed him until I was home full-time.

So how did I find my passion? The secret, for me, was the gift of an uncluttered mind. No more deadlines, editor demands, obsessing over news or fearing that I forgot the word “allegedly” in a story. The newspaper business was a great ride but now it was time to put it to bed.

About a month before I was laid off, a colleague asked me what I would do if I could do anything else. It took two seconds before I answered: I would start my own company that created something good for the world and was successful.

Finding your passion is sometimes as simple as paying attention to your daydreams. In my case, it was an entrepreneurial spirit and the desire to create something out of nothing and to make it grow.

Oprah was right. There. I said it.

Part story, part writing journal, kids will love this spy adventure with a twist. Get your photo on the cover! It’s way cool….and just weeks away from being published and ready to purchase. Stay tuned.

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