Tag: Jack Henseleit

GOTCHA! – Out Now!

Exclamations galore!

Way back in 2021, I sent my publishers at Hardie Grant an email titled “Pitchin’ Pictures.” Attached to the email was my very first draft of A Recipe for Magic Potion, and if I can give myself a compliment, it was a very good first draft. The book’s title was already locked in, and only a few stray “ands” and a line about old waxy honeycomb got cut during the editorial process. All it needed was some beautiful art from Natasja Horne and Magic Potion was ready to launch as my picture book debut.

But I also attached another manuscript to that email, titled The Little Bobby. The book was based around a simple idea that had amused me greatly: what if I wrote a piece of crime fiction for the youngest possible audience? And so I had crafted a series of five very silly criminal escapades, with the child reader invited to help the titular Little Bobby crack each case.

Between each case the book also took some time to follow the Little Bobby as he wandered through town, which I pictured as a quaint and whimsical English village. The rhythm of this interstitial text very clearly apes the style of one of my all-time literary heroes, the great Allan Ahlberg, and specifically his wonderful work on the Jolly Postman series. Here is how the book began:

I also thought it might be nice for the book to feature courtroom trials and criminal rehabilitation, to add a few shades of grey that are otherwise lacking in the standard childhood conception of cops and robbers. Writing that out now sounds absolutely bonkers, but in that very first draft I think it actually worked out to be kind of sweet:

Anyway, to cut a piece of kidlit crime fiction short: The Little Bobby was not picked up by my publisher. This was an incredibly reasonable reaction, as the available spots on a publisher’s list are finite, and splitting the difference between “fun and unique concept” and “commercial viability” is a very delicate balance. But rejection is always still a bummer, and The Little Bobby slunk sadly to the bottom of my writing folder, never to be seen again.

Well… kind of.

In early 2023, Scholastic Australia reached out to me to see if I had any fun ideas that might be a good fit for their list. I think they were looking for something in the vein of Cross Bones, but I (riskily) pitched them The Little Bobby instead. And, to my enormous delight, they dug it!

They did request some changes, though. The most exciting part of the book is obviously the burglaries, where the reader gets to join in and solve the mystery. Could the book spend less time following the Little Bobby on his wanderings, and instead squeeze in a couple more of those captivating crimes?

“Yeah,” I said. “I definitely think it could.”

And so this, at long last, is GOTCHA! — my brand new picture book. Of the original prose, only one (recurring) couplet remains; the rest is all brand new, born from the ashes of The Little Bobby into this sleek collection of five ELEVEN mini-mysteries for young readers. I’m so proud of this concept for finally reaching fruition, and for arriving with double the cases I originally imagined. I think it’s an absolute blast.

I also can’t go any further without mentioning the amazing artwork from James Hart, who went above and beyond in bringing these kleptomanic creatures to life. James is one of the crown jewel creators in Scholastic’s crown, so having him assigned to this project (amid all his other prolific output) was a tremendous vote of confidence. You can read a little bit about GOTCHA!‘s evolving cover art on James’s blog over here.

So that is the long and winding story of my latest story. GOTCHA! is my twelfth published book, and it landed in bookshops at the start of April. You can go and solve these mysteries, right now! Buy it for the child in your life who likes a good puzzle, or for anyone who might appreciate a cast of crazy animals dressed as characters from an Agatha Christie novel.

GOTCHA! isn’t really the same book as The Little Bobby, but it was interesting for me to write this post to try and track how one morphed into the other — and also nice to share a little bit of the original Bobby, now that it’s been completely overwritten. This is by far the biggest change any of my books have undergone from first draft to finished product, so hopefully it was interesting for you to follow along too.

And that’s the post. Go and buy GOTCHA! — out now!

A Recipe for Magic Potion – Out Now!

But not a witch in sight.

A long time ago, back in the hazy lockdown days of 2021, I had an idea for a picture book. I was thinking about the childhood days I’d spent making mud pies and dirt cakes, and how funny it would be to do a self-serious recipe book explaining how to make all of the (completely inedible) treats I’d made in our kindergarten kitchen, or in the backyard at home with my little sister. But, as is always the way with a great new idea, I decided to Google the concept, to make sure that no-one else had written it first.

And they had. Mud Pies and Other Recipes is a charming little book written by Marjorie Winslow, first published 30 years before I was even born. Even today, it’s still really funny and well-written. So Marjorie had beaten me to the punch. The idea was kaput.

Except, I kept thinking about it. When I remembered my own childhood again, I realised I hadn’t actually made that many mud pies. The main thing I liked making was potions — magic potions. And even though the picture book I wanted to write wasn’t a fantasy… wouldn’t it be interesting if I could make a little bit of that childhood magic actually feel real?

A Recipe for Magic Potion is that idea come to fruition, and I’m proud to say that it’s my brand new (and debut) picture book. When I pitched it to my publisher, I described it as “the least ironic thing I’ve ever written,” and I think that holds true — all of the books I’ve written so far are special to me in their own way, but this is the only one where the text makes my chest flutter a little bit every time I read it.

The really strange thing about the book is that it kind of wrote itself. At some point in 2021 I created a Word document for the project, and then months later I opened up that doc again, ready to get to work — only to discover that I’d already written 90% of the text on some other night. Being an author is always a strange job (especially in those dark pandemic years where I did all my writing in the middle of the night) but discovering an almost-complete manuscript that I had no memory of writing was certainly one the strangest moments I’ve had so far.

Wonderfully, the project was ultimately illustrated by Natasja Horne, who is an absolute master of mosses and mushrooms and murky green forests. Much like my work with Chris Kennett, I was astonished that the “rough” page designs Natasja was sending in were not in fact the final illustrations — and then was still amazed when the finals were filled with more luscious colours and hidden insects than I ever could have imagined. There’s a scene in the book where the children are surrounded by flowers (see the third pic in Natasja’s post above) that is just so beautiful, it makes me want to head out on a new adventure every time I see it. Natasja well and truly knocked this project out of (or into) the (overgrown) park.

Which is all to say: A Recipe for Magic Potion was released on April 3 in Australia, which means you can get your hands on a copy right this minute. Buy it for the children in your life who need a reminder that screen time isn’t everything, or the kids who love adventures so much that they’d like one before bed as well. And, be sure to savour that little dose of actual real magic at the end — I hope it hits home for you like it still does for me.

That’s all for now. Happy brewing!

CROSS BONES 3 – Out Now!

Dead Living Men Tell No 3 Tales!

Avast, ye landlubbers and scallywaggers — a new book has made landfall! It’s Cross Bones 3: The Hottest Dogs, the third (and final?) book in the series of punny pirate adventures illustrated by Chris Kennett and written by ME.

Cross Bones 3 was a joy to write; it might actually have been the easiest time I’ve had writing a book since The Vampire Knife, way back in 2015. Part of that ease came from the many clues and narrative titbits that Chris and I have been setting up across the previous two volumes — the story was always building to a grand, catty conclusion, and so when the moment came the end of the story was ready to come gushing out. I think swapping the oceans and rivers of the first two books for a huge, windswept desert also helped, as the brand new location brought with it an opportunity for brand new jokes. I’m still amused by the sequence early on where Ed wastes all the fluids aboard on a water-themed feast, which immediately leads into another amusing sequence where the thirsty dogs hallucinate in the heat. It’s just as silly as ever, but with a nice new (Danger)lick of paint.

It was also convenient that I visited Morocco in the middle of 2022, just before I wrote the book, so images of gigantic sand dunes and towering desert fortresses were fresh in my mind. I really love North Africa (I already visited Egypt way back in 2010) so it was exciting to write a book inspired by that wild part of the world.

Cross Bones 3 wraps up the big mystery we began back in book one, with the dogs finally reckoning with the true identity of their secretive Spymaster — but is this really the end for our hairy heroes? The answer is… probably yes. I wouldn’t have minded opening up a new can of worms and writing a fourth adventure, but these chunky books are already competing for space in a very crowded genre, and from a marketing perspective it might be best to commit to a trilogy rather than outstaying our welcome. But, who knows! If we do get offered a fourth book I’m sure Chris and I will be able to chase down our tails a great new idea. The series has also just launched in Italy and Spain, with Denmark on the way, so we’re incredibly excited that readers from around the world will soon be voyaging off with our daring dogs.

What I can confirm is that this definitely won’t be the last time you hear from me and Chris, as our next project together is already underway. The full announcement won’t be for a while, but if you’re a fan of our particular mix of ridiculous stories and even ridiculous-er cartoons, rest assured that we’ll have some more wild books for you (somewhat) soon!

That’s all for now. I’m so proud of this series, and I’m so glad we got to create this conclusion. I hope you like it!

Family Road Trip Games – Out Now!

My non-fiction debut!

I’ll be first to admit I have a really weird job. Every night I sit at my desk and play around with story ideas, throwing in vampires and pirates and ghosts and ghouls and seeing what sticks. The goal is to find an idea that excites me enough to write it all the way through to the end — and hopefully excite a publishing team as well.

Normally I write spooky fairy tales, or grand pirate adventures: high-stakes narrative fictions that aim to get kids hooked on reading. But early on in 2022, probably while pining for the travel opportunities I’d missed during the pandemic years, I decided to do something completely different.

“I know a lot of travel games,” I thought to myself. “And I know a lot of great trivia questions too. What if I wrote them all down?”

So I did. It was exciting. When I finally sent it away, the publishing team at Hardie Grant Explore got excited by it too. And now it’s a book!

As mentioned in the Insta post above, I really like games. My favourite social occasions are the ones spent shuffling cards or deducing hidden identities; if you ever ask me who my personal heroes are, I’ll enthusiastically tell you about a German man named Reiner Knizia who has designed over 700 games, including what I believe are some of the greatest games of all time. (The Quest for El Dorado is my #1 — but let’s not get distracted.)

I love games so much that I never want to be caught without one, which is how I came to know so many travel games: more than 60 of them, in fact! My definition of a travel game is one that requires no components whatsoever: all you need are the rules in your head, so you can start playing them whenever and wherever you like. Bored in the backseat of a car? Feeling weary on the last leg of a long hike? Searching for an activity at home that doesn’t involve screen time? Look no further than a travel game!

I’m also so, so proud of the trivia section at the back of the book. My favourite sort of quiz question is one where the answer is surely somewhere in my head, and so the challenge is to sort through and find it — like, which three countries begin with the letter V? Family Road Trip Games contains over 200 questions just like that, designed to be savoured and mulled over by a group on the move. Keep an eye on my Instagram if you want to sample some more questions for free, as I’ll be posting some more of them there soon.

Anyway: this book is on sale NOW! Buy a copy for your glove box to add some spice to your next road trip, and then come back here and let me know which game you liked best. I also think it’s a pretty nifty gift book, as getting bored in transit is a fairly universal experience — so please feel free to buy a copy for your friends and family as well!

And that’s all for now. Happy reading, and bon voyage!

CROSS BONES 2 – Out Now!

A skullduggerous sequel.

Ahoy there, mateys! Keep a sharp lookout today, for a brand new book is ready to launch: Cross Bones 2: The Dog With Two Tails!

The Cross Bones series is a celebration of classic adventure fiction, and this second volume delves into the “jungle” subgenre, trading the high-seas high jinks of the first book for a treacherous river cruise. On this quest our intrepid dogs will explore torchlit temples, clash with big jungle cats, and even compete in a horse race commentated by frogs. You know — those three classic tropes!

Canine cartoonist Chris Kennel Kennett is also back on board, and if you thought his work on book one was good, then strap yourself in — you ain’t seen nothing yet! Chris truly went above and beyond on this second volume, filling the pages with thrills, spills, and so many rabbits. I’m not sure how many rabbits it was reasonable for me to ask Chris to draw, but I definitely must have got my numbers mixed up at some point.

I’m so proud of this silly sequel, and especially the ways it tips its fedora to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which is my favourite sequel (or prequel) of all time. If you enjoyed book one then I genuinely think you’ll love this one too — and if you haven’t read book one yet, you’re in for a treat, because now you can read these two adventures back to back! Wow-ee — you sir are luckier than 128 rabbits’ feet!

I’m also very happy to confirm that Cross Bones 3 is in full production: the words have already been written, and Chris will be starting the drawings very soon. There’s a clue to the plot at the end of book two, but I’m afraid I’ll have to desert you here before I give away too many details. We’ll be hoping to launch the third adventure in March 2024, so you’ve got plenty of time to catch up on books one and two — hooray!

And that’s all she wrote. May your sails be trimmed and your butts be scuttled. I’ll see you again in August!

CROSS BONES 1 – Out Now!

WOOF!

This update is all in the headline. My new series launches in Australia TODAY, so if you’re interested in buying 219 pages of fully-illustrated junior fiction, featuring pirates and ships and icebergs and piranhas and a creepy wolverine and a secret spy and SO MANY JOKES, then you can go and do that RIGHT NOW!

Cross Bones has been a joy to work on from start to finish, and I’m so proud of the book that Chris and I are sending out into the world. And, if you want to hear some crazy stories about how we created this crazy book, a crazy man named Ken Williams asked us a bunch of questions about it for his podcast, Reading With a Chance of Tacos! You can search for it wherever you listen to podcasts, or just click that link to go straight there.

And that’s the post! Go grab yourself a copy of this beautiful, funny book, then come back and tell me what you think. (Hurry! I’ll be waiting.)

YARRRR!

Coming Soon: CROSS BONES!

Arrrrr!

I wrote a new book! Heck, I wrote a new series! It’s coming out soon! You can pre-order it now! There aren’t enough exclamation marks in the world to sum up how exciting this is!

Phew. Okay. Let’s take a breath and tackle this as logically as we can. Let’s answer five questions together, one at a time, so that everyone is up to speed:

1. What’s your new book called?

Great question! My new series is called Cross Bones, and the first book in the series is called A Dog’s Breakfast. Hooray!

2. What’s your new series about?

Great question! Cross Bones is a series about five dodgy, doggy pirates, who also happen to be very best friends: Magnus Thunderump (the captain), Daisy Dangerlick (the first mate), Eduardo Muttonchop (the cook), Spot (the cabin boy), and the mysterious Rover Goodpup (the Spymaster). The sea dogs are setting sail on a new adventure in the hope of un-burying some buried treasure — but first they’ll have to survive all the terrible dangers the ocean can throw at them, like a pirate octopus, and a pirate beaver, and an entire sea filled with nasty, gnashing teeth. (Also, just between you and me, that Rover Goodpup seems a bit suspicious. I wonder if we’ll find out why?)

Don’t be too scared, though — for the most part, Cross Bones is a silly pirate caper, filled with jokes and misadventures. It was heaps of fun to write, and I hope it’ll be heaps of fun to read as well.

3. Who drew the pictures?

Great question! Incredibly, the pictures in this book are drawn by Chris Kennett (@crikeyboy), who is one of the most brilliant kid-lit illustrators working in Australia today. Chris has illustrated every single page of this new series, and through his talent and hard work, every character and scene looks even better than I imagined it. Actually, if I’m completely honest, Chris is almost too good to work with, because now I feel bad about making him draw “100 sea monsters” or “1,000 pirate ships” or whatever crazy thing I think of for the sea dogs to do next. (I’m a bit worried I might make him sprain his wrist.)

But really, look at that cover. How lucky am I to work with an artist who can draw a cover like that? (Oops, that’s an extra question — just ignore that one!)

4. Who is your favourite pirate?

Great question! From real life, I always loved the story of Edward Teach (Blackbeard) swinging into battle with fire and smoke pouring out from under his hat. From movies, I loved the swagger of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. But my favourite, favourite pirates are the heroic trio from the Griffin Pirate Stories, a series of school readers written by Sheila K. McCullagh in the 1970s. Roderick the Red, Gregory the Green, and Ben the Blue are the pirates who made me love pirates, and I have the fondest memories of the adventures they shared together: meeting griffins, finding magic candles, and always hunting for even more rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. It is such a delight to me that now, more than 20 years after I read those books, I get to write my very own pirate story too.

5. This all sounds too good to be true! When can I buy your new book?

Great question! The very first Cross Bones book (A Dog’s Breakfast) launches on July 20, 2022 — but you can pre-order that book right now! Click on this link to head to the Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing website, which has a great big list of retailers who’ll help get you the book as soon as possible. Alternatively, swing past your local bookshop and ask them to order the book for you instead!

Pre-ordering this book is an especially good idea because the first print run will feature the special edition die-cut porthole cover! I have absolutely no idea how many of these covers are going to be printed, but pre-ordering the book is the best way to guarantee you end up with one in your mangy paws. Have you ever tried to look at something while reading the first page of a book but had your line of sight blocked by a pesky solid cover? That won’t be a problem with this bad boy, believe me!

That’s it! That’s all the news! But it turns out there are still some exclamation marks left! Thanks for reading, friend — take some of these remaining marks with you, and have a great day!!!!!

The Giant Key – Out Now!

The end is nigh.

And just like that, it was over.

The Witching Hours is a funny old series. The first five books are mostly episodic — which is to say, their stories are self-contained. You can start reading about Anna and Max at book three or book four and you’ll mostly understand what’s going on. But after five huge adventures, it didn’t feel like The Giant Key could be just another episode. It had to tie back to all those previous stories, and address every mystery I’d ever left unsolved. It had to be gigantic.

It could perhaps be said that I took that last part a bit too literally.

The Giant Key is a big, wild, bombastic book. It has several weird, hallucinatory chapters, as well as the most wicked magics that have ever been seen in the series. I’m also pretty sure it has more characters in it than the other five books combined. To research the dastardly enchantments I read Algernon Blackwood’s story The Wendigo, as well as the wonderfully witchy Malleus Maleficarum. Come to think of it, I might have even re-read Roald Dahl’s The Witches while I was writing book six, but I’m sure you won’t notice any scenes inspired by a novel as famous as that.

Looking back, I’m grateful that I got to spend one last book with Anna and Max, in a fairy tale world that existed long before I was born. The folkloric monsters that I used in The Witching Hours feel like toys that have been handed down across generations, and I’m so thrilled that I got the chance to play with the vampire, and the troll, and the genies, and the mermaids, and the dragon, and the giant. I hope I took good care of them.

Anna and Max are fairly archetypal too, but there are little bits of me in both of them, which is why I’m sad to leave them behind. I’ll always kind of know what they did next, and what other monsters they met, but none of those thoughts will ever be published in book form. Maybe if I get nostalgic enough I’ll write a new short story and post it here on an anniversary date, just for myself and whoever else is reading this blog. Who knows!

Luckily for me, those folkloric monsters aren’t the only things I want to play with in the grand toy box of fiction. Now that Anna and Max have reached their happy (?) ending, there are brand new worlds for me to explore, filled with more of the things I loved reading about when I was a kid — and, if I’m completely honest, the things I still love reading about today. I think it’s going to be quite fun.

But you don’t have to worry about that yet. Unless you devoured the whole thing literally today, there is one last book of The Witching Hours to read. Beware the graveyard on page 18. Remember that on page 41, the library wall might not be as secure as you think. And really, the less said about page 92, the better!

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading, and stay safe. Happy witching!

The Witching Hours in the USA

Helpful tips for far away readers.

Howdy, United States readers! This is a message for you and you only. If you’re not from the US, look away now!

As you may know, my first book (The Vampire Knife) was released in the US in September 2018. Unfortunately for any readers who enjoyed book one, the rest of the Witching Hours series has had a much trickier time reaching the States. I don’t have any control over how my books are sold overseas, but here is the best info I have for tracking the rest of the series down!

Firstly: as of Fall 2020, a publishing house called Trafalgar Square has signed on to distribute book two (The Troll Heart) in the US. Hooray! Their email address is <orders@ipgbook.com> and the phone number for their customer service team is (800) 888-4741. If you pass that information on to your local bookshop or library, then hopefully they’ll be able to source you a fresh new copy of my terrifying second tale.

Secondly: if you Google with tenacity, and if you don’t mind paying for shipping, there are a number of Australian bookshops that will happily send you some of my books in the post. Book three (The Genie Rings) is quite hard to find anywhere, but Abbey’s currently has books 1-4 in stock, and Boomerang Books always seems to have a good range. I can’t maintain a live list of which stores have my books and which stores don’t, but for now, all of my books are still in circulation if you search hard enough!

[EDIT: Thirdly: a very kind reader has emailed me to let me know that eBooks can also be accessed in the States! Books 1-3 are all available on Google Play. Thanks a bunch, MacKenzie!]

I hope this information helps you track down some more of my scary stories. Good luck, and happy witching!

An Update on Book Six

Gigantic news?

Hello! How are you? Quite a year we’re having, isn’t it?

I often forget that I have a website, and as a result of this, I also forget to share helpful information. But I remembered my website tonight, and so here is some information you might be looking for: the sixth (and final!) Anna and Max book, titled The Giant Key, is scheduled for release in Australia on February 1, 2021. It would have been released earlier, but things got a bit weird this year, and we really don’t need any monstrous fairies making things even weirder.

But next year… well, in 2021, Anna and Max’s lives are going to get very weird indeed. I wish I could tell you about the hidden study, or the bone doll, or the thing that happens when Anna steps into the lake. But I can’t. It’s top secret. You’ll just have to be patient.

The Giant Key is coming. I hope it will be worth the wait.

Happy witching!

Witches 24