Blog Archives
A Trailblazer and the Fierce Heartbeat
Fantasy Hockey Trade follows two twelve-year-old teammates who accidentally swap bodies with NHL stars, turning their hockey dreams into an adventure that tests their friendship and deepens their appreciation for home. What was the inspiration for your story?
Fantasy Hockey Trade was born out of two passions: a lifelong love for hockey and a desire to speak directly to what kids face on and off the ice. Growing up playing and coaching sports, I saw how easily young athletes tie their entire identity, joy, and worth into status, skill level, or winning. I wanted to take every hockey-loving kid’s ultimate fantasy, ”waking up in the body of an NHL star” and flip it into a heartfelt lesson about gratitude and identity. Easton and Trevor discover that even at the highest levels of fame and glamour, life is empty without real friendship, humility, and the people back home who truly know you and love you for who you are.
How did you develop Alexis’s role as the trios moral anchor while giving her an identity beyond supporting Easton and Trevor?
Alexis was never meant to be a sidekick; she is a trailblazer and the fierce heartbeat of the line. Her confidence and skill on the ice, ”smoking the boys in sprint laps and lighting the lamp”command respect from teammates and rivals alike. That physical confidence matches her moral clarity. Alexis sees bullying clearly for what it is: the outward noise of insecure kids trying to become “joy thieves”. She isn’t afraid to step into the gap and confront wrongdoing head-on, proving to young readers that true courage is about standing up for others, holding teammates accountable, and refusing to let anyone dim your joy.
What did you want Nicky and Carson’s responses to their own bullying to reveal about accountability and forgiveness within the Gladiators?
I wanted to show that bullying isn’t solved by retaliation or revenge, but by truth, grace, and redemption. When Nicky finally breaks down and confesses, it shows that hurting people often act out because they are desperately looking for acceptance and belonging. True accountability happens when Carson and Nicky have to look in the mirror, own their mistakes, and discover that real strength lies in integrity and lifting others up, not tearing then down. Easton and Trevor’s willingness to forgive them and welcome them into a unified team shows that love always wins. Healing a team culture requires both sides: bullies who are brave enough to change, and victims who are strong enough to extend grace.
What did the glimpse into the character’s futures allow you to express about growing up that the Gladiators championship alone could not?
Winning a 12U youth championship is a wonderful milestone, but a trophy is just a fleeting moment in time. Looking into their future shows young readers that the lessons learned through “childhood adversity, perseverance, faith, loyalty, and standing together” are the foundation for a meaningful life. Whether their path takes them to the NHL or into other callings, the bond forged in kindness and mutual support outlasts any youth sports stat. It allowed me to reinforce the message that our childhood dreams never truly die if we stay grounded in love, trust the journey, and realize that how we treat people along the way is the real victory.
Author Links: Website | GoodReads | Facebook | X
Thrown into the fast-paced world of professional hockey, Easton and Trevor discover that being a superstar isn’t as easy as it looks. Along the way, they learn important lessons about teamwork, friendship, perseverance, and growing up. But as exciting as life in the big leagues may be, they soon realize they’re not quite ready to leave childhood behind.
Can they find a way back before it’s too late?
The Misadventures of Four Friends
Firecrackers follows a fourteen-year-old boy and his friends who investigate strange cries coming from a neighborhood house and find themselves in the middle of a real-life treasure hunt. What drew you to the classic idea of kids exploring their neighborhood and stumbling into a mystery much bigger than they expected?
I wanted to do something a little different: a humorous thriller. I thought the misadventures of four young friends focused on pirates, bi-planes, firecrackers, and mischief would present some pretty funny situations as they uncover the truth and outwit the criminal they call “Blackbeard” and his accomplices.
What qualities did you want each member of the group to bring to the friendship, and what do their homemade inventions, experiments, and elaborate plans reveal about how they approach the world?
All of them have a strong sense of adventure and loyalty. They are smart, energetic boys in a fairly open environment, left to explore and experience summer on their own but also as a team of friends. Nash approaches the world with a strong sense of friendship and humor. Stevie approaches it with an engineer’s innate ability to construct things. Leroy is a bit of an entrepreneur and outlaw. Bug is excitable, a bit younger, and less mature than the others. They approach the world with a lot of imagination, but they also must confront the very real dangers and mysteries surrounding Alice, Blackbeard, and the other “grown-ups” they encounter.
Why was the idea that “not everyone is who they seem” important to the story, and what do they learn about the difference between imagining who someone is and actually getting to know them?
They learn that not all “authority figures” are automatically worthy of their trust; genuine trust must be earned through direct experience.
Do you have more adventures planned for Nash, Bug, Leroy, and Steve?
I hope so!
Author Website
Nash and his mischievous friends embark on their summer adventures when old lady Alice is heard moaning outside her spooky house. As they investigate, a man they call “Blackbeard” misleads, bluffs, and threatens them. But as the danger to Alice rises, so does Nash’s determination to uncover the truth – until the boys discover it’s not just Alice who “Blackbeard” will kill to protect his treasure.
Join the fun and fireworks along the way.
But be careful: not everyone in the deadly game is who they seem.
Fantasy Hockey Trade
D.J. Wemple’s Fantasy Hockey Trade is a middle-grade sports adventure built around youth hockey, friendship, fantasy sports, and an unexpected body-swap premise. The story centers on Easton Montgomery, Trevor Mitchell, and Alexis, three close friends and teammates on the 12U AA Gladiators in Michigan. Easton and Trevor begin the novel as enthusiastic but sometimes insecure young players who regularly face ridicule from teammates Nicky and Carson, while Alexis is the confident friend who consistently stands beside them. Their decision to create a fantasy hockey league gives the story its initial competitive framework, with Easton and Trevor drafting NHL players Hunter Dangle and Cameron Wheels and treating the league as a chance to test their hockey knowledge. From there, the novel gradually expands beyond the familiar settings of practices, locker rooms, school, and friendship into a much larger fantasy adventure.
The central turn comes when Easton and Trevor accidentally spill an experimental substance on themselves and are later locked in a steamy sauna as part of a prank. They emerge having switched bodies with professional hockey players Hunter Dangle and Cameron Wheels. That transformation gives the book its most distinctive premise: two twelve-year-olds suddenly have the physical abilities, responsibilities, schedules, and public identities of NHL players, while the professionals occupy the boys’ younger bodies. Wemple uses the situation to deliver plenty of wish-fulfillment, including NHL games, roaring crowds, interviews, road trips, and the experience of performing at hockey’s highest level. At the same time, Easton and Trevor discover that professional success carries pressure and expectations that they hadn’t understood from the outside. Their growing desire to return home gives the fantasy plot emotional weight because what begins as the ultimate hockey dream becomes a way for them to recognize the value of their own lives, friendships, and identities.
I think the book’s strongest through-line is its emphasis on character and sportsmanship. Bullying appears repeatedly, but the story treats it as part of a broader examination of how teammates choose to treat one another and how young people respond when they’ve hurt someone. Alexis often serves as the clearest moral voice, telling Carson, “Fun doesn’t come at someone else’s expense,” and reminding the team that support can make them better players and better people. Easton’s father expresses the same idea from an adult perspective when he explains that “the only thing we can control in our lives is how we choose to respond,” encouraging kindness, humility, and self-control when others behave badly. Those ideas shape more than the conflicts with Nicky and Carson. They also influence how Easton and Trevor handle their time as professionals, how the bullies eventually confront their own behavior, and how the Gladiators come together for the championship.
Fantasy Hockey Trade develops into a story about belonging as much as hockey. Easton and Trevor find their way back to their own bodies in time to rejoin the Gladiators, bringing home lessons learned from competing as professionals without losing the excitement they feel for the game itself. The championship sequence gathers together the book’s recurring concerns with effort, trust, teamwork, forgiveness, and friendship, while the later glimpse into the characters’ futures gives their childhood experiences a sense of continuity. Hockey supplies the novel with its vocabulary, action, humor, and competitive energy, but the relationship among Easton, Trevor, and Alexis provides its emotional center. Wemple ultimately presents the rink as both a sporting arena and a place where young people learn how to compete, make mistakes, repair relationships, and grow into the people they want to become.
Pages: 302 | ASIN: B0H9V7477H
Firecrackers
Firecrackers by A.W. Baldwin is a lively middle-grade adventure mystery built around the kind of summer where four fourteen-year-old boys have too much freedom, plenty of imagination, and access to far more fireworks than anyone should probably trust them with. Nash and his friends Bug, Leroy, and Stevie spend their days staging pirate battles, building traps around their tree fort, launching homemade contraptions, and generally treating their Colorado neighborhood like their own private adventure park. Then Nash hears a woman wailing behind the old Harris House and spots what looks like a ghost. His curiosity pulls the boys into a mystery involving Alice, an elderly woman living there, two intimidating men they nickname Blackbeard and Son of Blackbeard, surveillance cameras, strange stones, and a secret that turns their pretend adventures into something very real.
What makes this middle grade mystery especially fun is Nash’s voice. He tells the story with the absolute confidence of a kid who knows his latest terrible idea is probably brilliant, at least until something catches fire. His running pirate commentary, Bug’s spectacularly bad jokes, Leroy’s hustling instincts, and Stevie’s enthusiasm for building things give the friendship its own rhythm. The boys feel like a genuine crew because they tease each other, get scared together, argue over what to do, and still show up when somebody needs help. Baldwin also understands how a fourteen-year-old imagination can transform an ordinary setting. A creepy house becomes a haunted fortress, a suspicious man becomes Blackbeard, and a homemade PVC cannon becomes legitimate pirate artillery. That blend of reality and imagination gives this humorous middle grade adventure much of its personality.
The mystery grows steadily as the boys realize Alice really is frightened and the danger surrounding her isn’t imaginary. Their investigation sends them sneaking around the Harris House, following clues, tracking vehicles, discovering disguised criminals, and eventually uncovering a cache of stolen diamonds and a connection to someone they thought they could trust. The story has an old-school kids adventure quality, with bikes, woods, forts, homemade inventions, and friends solving problems largely on their own. At times the repeated experiments, pranks, and close calls make the book feel deliberately episodic, but that structure also captures the loose rhythm of a long childhood summer. As the stakes rise, seemingly separate pieces such as the fireworks, pirate cannon, mysterious stones, and the boys’ obsession with adventure begin feeding directly into the main crime story.
Under all the explosions and pirate talk, Firecrackers is also a coming-of-age adventure about courage, loyalty, and learning that grown-ups can be complicated people. Nash’s developing friendship with Alice gives the ending unexpected warmth, especially after so much of the book has been fueled by suspicion and comic chaos. The final chapters bring the mystery to a satisfying conclusion while letting the boys remain exactly who they’ve been all along: curious, reckless, inventive, loyal, and ready to turn the next ordinary afternoon into a story worth telling. Readers looking for a funny middle-grade mystery, friendship adventure, or action-packed coming-of-age story will find plenty here, particularly if they like secret treasure, homemade forts, neighborhood legends, dangerous villains, and the occasional firecracker going off where it absolutely shouldn’t.
Pages: 139 | ISBN: 979-8-9984981-0-7
Think Like the D-Squad
Phil Weiss’s Think Like the D-Squad turns problem-solving into a conversation with four dogs. Sully notices, Baz tosses out ideas, Dash checks what holds up, and Phoebe steps back to question the whole approach. Dash narrates with a patient, dry sense of humor, while Baz supplies the delightful nonsense. A disappearing supply of birdseed, a bone trapped under a chair, and a sunny spot lost to a growing hedge give the dogs problems a child can picture. Each episode makes a thinking habit visible: pause before naming a cause, keep going past your first idea, look for evidence, and ask whether you’re trying to solve the right problem.
The book’s most useful lesson is that good thinking can happen in public and in company. Weiss returns often to the moment when a child has an unfinished idea but hesitates to say it. Baz’s guesses make room for possibilities; Sully’s mistakes show how a belief can change without becoming a verdict on the person who held it. Later chapters take on rumors, confidence, peer pressure, and disagreement. “How do you know?” becomes a question a reader can use with a friend, a video, or their own certainty. The dogs’ personalities keep these lessons grounded, especially when Dash catches himself dismissing a clue that conflicts with his careful notes.
Every chapter gives readers something to try, from noticing five overlooked details in a familiar room to finding a useful seed in a pile of silly ideas. Brief research sections explain some of the psychology behind the exercises, and the back matter includes discussion questions, a glossary, and a worksheet for working through a problem of your own. The repeated rhythm of story, explanation, and activity is easy to follow, though readers moving straight through eighteen chapters may notice the pattern. A mystery about Sully’s missing collection gives that structure an emotional thread. Its resolution lands gently because the book has spent so much time showing what it costs Sully to share something he cares about.
I’d recommend Think Like the D-Squad to curious readers ages eight to twelve who enjoy talking through puzzles, making things, or asking questions that don’t have quick answers. It should be especially welcome to a child who’s been made to feel that thinking slowly, thinking differently, or speaking tentatively means they have less to offer. Families and teachers could get a lot from reading a chapter together and actually trying its small challenge before moving on. The book treats thinking as something children can practice with others, and its best scenes let them see that practice happen.
Pages: 424 | ASIN: B0HJWJLJ4L
Fairy Tales
The Changeling follows a self-assured gray cat who must outwit fairies, reverse a tangled chain of enchantments, and rescue his beloved human’s baby before magical bargains throw two kingdoms into lasting chaos. What inspired the setup to this story?
The idea of a changeling story dropped into my brain many years ago, probably around 2003. I actually did an entire research paper on changelings for a Library Science class to get background information and understand changeling mythology. The story originally started as a picture book in which a fairy was defending himself in a fairy court because he had given himself away as a changeling. I really couldn’t get it to work, and every time I workshopped it, it was suggested that I expand the idea into a full-length novel. I resisted the idea as long as I could until a story wormed its way into my brain. I started to read tons of fairy tales – The Green Fairy Book, The Violet Fairy Book, The Yellow Fairy Book – to get an idea of how fairy tales work, and specific details I might be able to use in mine. Smokey, the cat, is based on my beloved Kula, who was devoted to me and me alone. I drew on many of his cat behaviors and mannerisms to create Smokey’s character.
How did you balance traditional changeling folklore and fairy-tale conventions with the novel’s distinctly comic tone?
The traditional convention is the use of an omniscient narrator to tell the story without much character development or emotion. Although my original picture book was in first person, I couldn’t figure out how to write a novel that way. Who would tell the story, and who could be everywhere to witness everything? Subsequently, my early drafts as a novel were in third person. As a Children’s Librarian, I constantly read current fiction for kids and young adults. At the time I was trying to write THE CHANGELING I was reading the Bartemeus trilogy by Jonathon Stroud. I loved the sarcastic voice of the djinnie Bartemeus, which Stroud did so well, and wanted to create that kind of humor in my story. The humor came with the change of having Smokey tell the story, who could easily access any point in the kingdom and know everything going on. In first person, his personality came to life naturally and added the comic tone I was hoping for.
The princesses ultimately prove themselves worthy heirs through ingenuity and courage. Was challenging traditional ideas about royal succession part of the story from the beginning?
No. The princesses didn’t exist in early versions. A mentor whose opinion I greatly value, Anne Ursu, suggested I write the story from the point of view of a princess. I didn’t follow her advice since at this point I had fallen in love with Smokey and was determined on having a cat be my narrator. Her advice stuck in my brain, however, and I came to the conclusion that I could include a princess to help unravel all the enchantments, because I didn’t know how Smokey could do it alone as the events became more entangled. The other princesses were added as I figured out whose baby would be taken and why.
Choice becomes increasingly important as characters reconsider family, duty, power, and even the lives they want to lead. What drew you to that theme?
I’ll be honest and say the current political atmosphere, although I don’t think I realized that at the time. People in charge make decisions without giving a lot of thought about what they are asking or who it affects. Luckily, I found ways to make those decisions comical, for example, when the servants became invisible except for their gloves. While writing the story, I was not aware of the developing theme, but as I neared the end, I thought quite a bit about choices and repercussions and was pleased I had provided choices at the end for all involved and to give Smokey a happily ever after. Plus, it has led to the sequel I’m working on. In Book 2 of the series, which I am calling The Kingdom of Cats, Princess Rose will narrate the story for Anne.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Jennifer Sommer | Amazon
Beneath the Canopy
Beneath the Canopy brings Nazi-occupied Netherlands to life through the eyes of two twelve-year-olds who are close in geography but living remarkably different versions of the same war. Johanna is carrying responsibilities far beyond her years as she tries to protect her younger sister and keep her family together. Rein, largely left to fend for himself, scavenges, steals bread, dodges soldiers, and leans on humor and nerve to survive. Moving between their perspectives gives the novel an immediate, intimate quality. History is happening all around them, but what matters most on the page is often painfully simple: finding food, staying warm, getting home, protecting someone you love.
Lynda Riggers has a real feel for the details that make wartime deprivation understandable on a human scale. Johanna’s compulsive counting becomes both a character trait and a way of measuring a world she can’t control. Rein’s hunger, bravado, loneliness, and fierce attachment to his brother give his chapters a different rhythm, sometimes funny and sometimes devastating. The book is especially effective when those ordinary childhood impulses collide with the realities of occupation. A loaf of bread can feel like treasure. A pair of wooden shoes can become an act of grace. A childhood crush can briefly make the war recede. Those moments give the story warmth without softening what these children are living through.
The novel also makes room for complicated questions about survival, loyalty, prejudice, courage, and kindness. Rein’s relationship with Heinrich, a Nazi officer who helps feed him, is particularly compelling because Rein has to hold two truths at once: this man belongs to the force that has brutalized his country, and this same man has shown him mercy. Johanna’s journey has its own moral and emotional weight as responsibility pushes her toward a maturity she never asked for. Around them are Resistance members, collaborators, frightened civilians, starving families, displaced people, and children trying to decide what kind of adults they can trust. Riggers keeps returning to individual choices, showing how enormous history is experienced through small decisions that can save a life, betray a friend, or offer a little dignity.
What gives Beneath the Canopy its deepest resonance is knowing that its fictional story grew from the lives of real people. By the time liberation arrives, survival doesn’t erase what Johanna and Rein have endured, but it gives them the chance to imagine a future again. The final pages understand that home can mean more than a building and that freedom can arrive carrying grief alongside joy. The author’s note adds another layer by revealing what became of the people behind the characters, including losses that remained unanswered for decades. It leaves the reader thinking about how family stories survive, how trauma travels through generations, and how easily history disappears when nobody keeps telling it. Beneath the Canopy turns history into something we can feel, reminding us that the past stays alive when we remember the people who had to survive it.
Pages: 222 | ASIN : B0HHNSW6M4
The Changeling
Jennifer Sommer’s The Changeling is a lively middle-grade fairy tale that draws on changeling folklore, fairy bargains, leprechauns, enchantments, royal succession, and traditional storybook magic while giving the material a distinctly comic personality. The novel is narrated by Smokey, a self-assured gray cat whose devotion to his human, Maeve, provides the emotional center of the story. When Maeve’s newborn son, Malachy, becomes part of a secret bargain involving Queen Eglantine and Fairy Queen Oona, Smokey finds himself trying to undo a complicated chain of magical exchanges and retaliatory spells. His determination grows naturally from the bond established early in the book, when he explains that one human is enough for him and that he remains devoted to Maeve. Sommer uses that loyalty to give the increasingly elaborate fantasy plot a clear purpose: beneath the fairies, palace intrigue, magical flowers, and talking cats is a story about protecting the people one has chosen to love.
Smokey’s voice is the book’s strongest distinguishing feature. He observes human behavior with the confidence of a cat who considers himself considerably more perceptive than the people around him, and his commentary keeps even dangerous situations buoyant. The humor ranges from feline observations and wordplay to elaborate comic episodes involving invisible servants, a royal court transformed into cats, prank-loving wagwits, and an unfortunately persistent magical case of flatulence. Yet Smokey is more than a vehicle for jokes. His frustration when Maeve can’t understand his warnings about the changeling gives the story genuine tension, and his developing relationship with Lady Camellia adds warmth without pulling attention away from the central rescue. Sommer also gives the supporting cast clear personalities, particularly the resourceful princesses, whose search for the ingredients needed to restore their baby sister allows them to become active participants in solving the kingdom’s problems.
The novel’s many enchantments are tied together by a recurring concern with decisions and their consequences. Queen Eglantine’s original bargain comes from her fear that she has failed to provide the king with a male heir, while King Geoffrey’s temper repeatedly worsens his conflicts with Carabosse. As the story progresses, characters have to reconsider assumptions about duty, family, power, and what makes someone worthy to rule. The princesses prove themselves through ingenuity, persistence, and loyalty, and Geoffrey’s eventual recognition of their abilities gives the succession plot a satisfying resolution. His declaration that his daughters “have proved themselves more worthy heirs than I ever was” marks a meaningful change in both the king and the values of his kingdom. Importantly, that change grows out of what the girls have actually accomplished over the course of the novel, so the conclusion feels connected to the adventures that precede it.
The Changeling works as an affectionate and humorous fairy-tale adventure built around loyalty, resourcefulness, family, and choice. Its large cast and intersecting enchantments give the story an episodic quality, with each new magical complication creating another problem for Smokey and his allies to solve. Those episodes gradually converge as Malachy is recovered, Fleur is restored, the royal family changes, and several characters discover that an enchantment can open a path toward a life they freely prefer. The Christmas epilogue brings that idea home through Smokey, Camellia, and their kittens, with Smokey reflecting that “Choices are peculiar things. They can cause havoc on a kingdom, but sometimes, sometimes, things turn out just as they should.” It’s an apt closing thought for a book in which magic creates the trouble, but character, affection, and deliberate choices finally determine what happens next.
Pages: 216 | ASIN: B0GSH6B7JG
