Rick: Ken, all of your books feature the main character of Grace Note. Tell us about her, where she came from, and who illustrated her.
Ken: Our girl character, “Grace”, did indeed have her origin story as a grace note — that was the magical story line of the Winter book in the Musical Adventures of Grace series.
The creative spark for Grace came from a question I asked my musically-talented son: What’s that little note on the music sheet page? Why is it so small…?
His reply — that’s a grace note; it’s usually insignificant in terms of hearing the music, but sometimes a conductor will have an orchestra play it louder as a way to add “color” to the music… and, as they say, the rest is history.
I, initially, was thinking about an underdog-type story (a small note that became a big note), but that morphed into the development of a story line where an insignificant grace note is changed into a little girl through the magic of a holiday concert…
The first 3 stories in The Musical Adventures of Grace series, sprang from that Winter event and were illustrated by Pam Frazier. But, nowadays, I use Jaime Buckley for most of my new character plots and spin-off stories.
Rick: On our site we switch out some of the Grace books by season. Right now you can find the Spring and Summer books about Grace. There’s also a Fire Prevention book available year round. Can you tell us a little bit about those books?
Ken: The Winter book gave me the opportunity to introduce Grace to the world as a new character; and the follow-up Spring and Summer stories allowed me to expand her world and bring new friends into the story mix. For example, the Spring book has Fortissimo and Harry (two brothers) moving into the house across the street from Grace. Spring also brings Arco the dog into their world, as Grace’s puppy.
The Summer story brings back Maestro Vik (from the Winter book) and has another adult, Curly-the-violin-maker, interacting with Grace & Arco.
As you can see, we try to sneak in some music terms & instruments for younger readers — with the ulterior motive of introducing a variety of music vocabulary into the story lines.
This was deliberate and organic – created from the advice I had received from music educators (who, in their STEAM teaching worlds, are trying to introduce music appreciation concepts earlier than the middle school years…)
The creation and production of the Burn Prevention & Fire Safety book served two purposes (1) a way to create spin-off health-related stories from the original Musical Adventures series, and (2) to begin a formal process that supported aspiring authors and first-time writers – a type of mentorship program.
For this book, my co-author, Paul Possenti, is a classmate of mine who became a Medical Director in a burn center. We developed an alliance over the paucity of patient education materials in the Burn Prevention / Fire Safety arena. We launched the book at the podium of the 2019 American Burn Association conference and presented it as a case study in community engagement.
Some of the testimonials we’ve received say the book will have an immediate impact on the work fire departments are doing…
It was a timely and fulfilling writing alliance, for many at-risk communities, and we have a new edition being produced, now.
Rick: Grace’s latest book about Covid 19 is providing a valuable service for parents with young kids. Tell us a little about what inspired you to write that, and where it is being consumed.
Ken: The upside-down world, resulting from this pandemic, essentially took away some traditional formats for authors to share their work with new readers. We can no longer host or be part of book signing events that allow prospective customers to touch and browse our books, in a live face-to-face environment. So, we have to find other venues or formats that let us be the creative advocates of our stories and characters…
In the case of my COVID book, I found (in communicating with my established customers) that there was some generic anxiety, among young parents, about how to explain our “new normal” and dramatic/mandated social behavior changes to the youngsters in the family.
So, “Grace Fights COVID-19…” and the Bug Squad idea was created, almost as a public service announcement for families with emerging readers.
We now have a tool parents can use to communicate (In kid-friendly terms) and explain what a coronavirus is, why it makes people sick, what we are doing about preventing that from happening to the people we love, etc.
I believe it’s the first kid-centric book that uses my characters to invite the young readers to “join the fight” by washing their hands and adopting socially distancing practices — for a better public health outcome.
We actually got a grant to distribute 185 copies of the Bug Squad book throughout communities.
So, I was part of an industrial Mask Giveaway and Food Drive community event, recently — A new way for an author to meet his reading audience.
I hope we’ll be able to participate in more of these public safety events. It’s a great way to show authors in a health & safety spotlight… one where you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see them.
Rick: You are a prolific gentleman. Coming next month you have yet another book coming out. Tell us about that one, and how that came to be.
Ken: I guess the pandemic gives us authors some additional germination time for new ideas…
My unique Musical Adventures model has the characters combine reading skills with the introduction of music vocabulary and uses their stories to promote health & wellness for the next generation of responsible citizens.
So, I wanted to explore other ways to use that musically-themed approach and the Musical Haiku Adventure book became a thing for me.
Now Grace is a poet, I guess. We’ll see if the reading world agrees with that new dimension of her personality…
Rick: And finally, there is a really exciting project on the horizon for you and this series. Tell everyone about who you are teaming up with, and what kind of books we can expect from this team in the near future.
Ken: I am really excited about this project. I have teamed-up with the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and their TeachRock.org effort. We will be using a new children’s book “Grace’s Rockin’Roll Adventure” as a vehicle to bring the history of rock and roll to younger students. And the unexpected element of this story is that Steven Van Zandt (of Bruce Springsteen’ band fame and a major character in the Sopranos cable TV show) will be the character who gives Grace her first electric guitar— as part of the story!
We are scheduled to be shelf-ready for the Fall of 2020, with this joint-project, and certainly will have it available for this upcoming holiday season…
