The Next Big Thing: Blog Tour

“The Next Big Thing: Blog Tour” has landed here! Thanks to Michelle Edwards for tagging me and for helping to keep this thing going. Here are my answers to The 10 Questions:

            1. What is the title of your book?

The Honeybee Man, written by me, illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker

        2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

From a jar of Brooklyn honey I found in a local teashop. Beekeeping was still illegal in NYC at that time (about 5 years ago) and anyone who was keeping bees was doing it extremely quietly. Until I found that honey, it had never occurred to me that anyone could or would keep bees in an urban environment, or that there city flowers would make for edible—let alone tasty—honey. Immediately, I wanted to know all about it.

         3. What genre does your book fall under?

It’s a picture book that’s what I guess you’d call a non-fictional fiction story.

 4. What actors would you choose to play the parts of your characters in a movie?

Walter Matthau, if he weren’t dead. I’d probably pick Walter Matthau to play the role of any man of a certain age, in any movie at all.

         5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A story inspired by a real Brooklyn apiarist and his delicious honey

        6. Who is publishing your book?

It was published by Schwartz & Wade.

          7.  How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About a week, although later revisions seemed to take forever.

          8. What other books would you compare this to within your genre?

There are certainly some terrific picture books about bees out there: The Beeman by Laurie Krebs and UnBeelievables by Douglas Florian, for example.

         9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Anything I write for kids I write for my nine-year-old daughter. And the topics that interest and inspire both her and me are the ones that often fall beneath the radar in a big and busy city such as New York.

        10. What else about this book might pique a reader’s interest?

        Along with Laurie Krebs' The Beeman, it was recently chosen to be read to 2^nd grade New Yorkers as part of the Cornell Extension Service’s Agricultural Literacy Week. I’ll be reading it at schools around the city the week of March 18.

Thanks for stopping by and learning a little more about the book! And now, I’m tagging Lesley Alderman and her newly released book, which I can’t wait to read:

"The Book of Times is an endlessly fascinating survey of time. Packed with compelling charts, lists, and quizzes, as well as new and intriguing research, the book examines a wide swath of life—love, war, crime, art, money and media—through the unerring meter of the clock."