“Never Get A Wizard Mad At You” Book One in the Upstairs Armadillo Series
This is a very different sort of book from the Kenyon Bear books. Those stories are designed to be read aloud to young children. They are chapter books with lots of pictures. The upstairs armadillo books are adventure stories with lots of magic, and lots of fun surprises – but no pictures. Those you get to create in your head as you read the book.
The Wizard’s favorite pet, an upstairs armadillo, is missing. He must be found! The hunt is on, though Emma, Jane, and Anthony don’t yet know it.
Somehow the upstairs armadillo has ended up in Emma’s sock drawer. She’s not sure what he is or how he got there. And she doesn’t realize that she and her sister Jane have accidentally invited the upstairs armadillo’s favorite friends to a tea party.
Her bedroom quickly becomes overcrowded when a goat, several sheep, a giraffe, a hare, and a whole alphabet full of other animals pop in for cake and games. Their parents must not find out!
Charles Alexander, their resident poltergeist, refuses to help. When the family dog sniffs out the tea party, chaos follows. The hunt for the upstairs armadillo takes the children tumbling down meerkat tunnels, stumbling across penguins in Antarctic, splashing about in beaver ponds, and trekking across a desert on the back of a camel – all while being pursued by a very angry Wizard.
Order Now through my web site: theclickercenter.com
“Never Get A Wizard Mad At You” is available in Paperback and Hardcover: 165 pages
It is also available as an ebook through Amazon Kindle
Never Get A Wizard Mad At You Book One in the Upstairs Armadillo Series
I am delighted to announce that I have a new book out.
My mother was the first one to see Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo. I don’t remember how old I was when she first told me about them, maybe six or seven. It was before we converted the attic over the garage into a bedroom. I remember that because we used the attic as a painting studio. I drew dragons, wonderful fiery red, fierce dragons, while my mother told me stories about Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo. They lived in her house when she was little.
That was many years ago. Fast forward to 2020, the covid year. In October my area was hit by a wind storm that went on for hours. One of the trees behind my house got tired and sat down. Unfortunately, when the tree sat down, it lost it’s balance and fell against my house. It took the roof out. I came home in the evening to find it’s branches poking into my office and the rain pouring in. What a mess!
Everything had to be taken out. Most of the furniture was beyond saving, but somehow the stacks of papers and boxes of files that were stored in that room escaped unharmed.
When I was sorting through them, I found a large envelop that I had forgotten I had. It must have been twenty years or more since I had last seen it. It contained a story my mother had written about the upstairs armadillo and Charles Alexander.
I read the story. It wasn’t very long. It was really just the beginning of a story. That night I fell asleep thinking about the upstairs armadillo and Charles Alexander. In the morning I began writing.
I learned a long time ago that when stories come to you, you need to let them. If you say you’re busy and you’ll get to it later, the story will go away and it won’t come back. It will find someone else.
The upstairs armadillo had waited a long time for someone in my family to tell his story. So I sat down at the computer and began to write. This book and the others in the Upstairs Armadillo Series are the result.
They aren’t the stories my mother told me. That was many years ago. Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo have had many new adventures since then. These are the stories they shared with me.
“Never Get A Wizard Mad At You” is Book one in the Upstairs Armadillo series. You can order it on my web site: theclickercenter.com. And of course it is also available through Amazon and other on-line book sellers. On Amazon the book is available as an ebook through kindle unlimited. That means for kindle subscribers you get to read the book for free. If you’re curious about the sort of children’s books that I write, this is a great way to find out.
I love the Upstairs Armadillo stories. I hope you’ll share them with the young readers in your life. And do please leave reviews for the books so others can find them.
This blog is about clicker training horses. That’s what you expect to see here, so why am I writing about children’s books? The easy answer is everything is connected to everything else.
I’m guessing many of you reading these posts have read C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books.
My favorite quote from Lewis is this:
“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly.” C.S. Lewis
I don’t know how old I was when I first read that quote, probably eight or nine. I have remembered it always because I never stopped reading children’s books.
I was three the first time Lewis’ “The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe” was read to me. Four when Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” was read to me. The magic in those books wound it’s way into my heart and has remained there always.
Another great quote from Lewis is this one: “No book is really worth reading at the age of 10 which is not equally – and often far more – worth worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.“ C.S. Lewis
These days the world is in a terrible muddle. Everywhere you look in the news there is conflict, there are disasters, there is such great sadness. So another great quote from C.S. Lewis is Puddleglum’s speech to the Witch Queen of the Underland, in Chapter 12 of “The Silver Chair”. Those of you who are familiar with the books will know who Puddleglum is. He’s a Marsh Wiggle, a creature who always believes that the gloomiest, worst possible outcome is also the most likely. For those of you who haven’t yet read Lewis’ children’s books, he is one of the great characters in all literature.
Puddleglum from “The Silver Chair”
Here’s the quote:
“One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world that licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.” C.S. Lewis: Puddlegum’s speach to the Witch-Queen of Underland in Chapter Twelve: The Queen of the Underland – The Silver Chair.
When I was little we had duck and cover drills in school in the event of a nuclear bomb. Nowadays, students have duck and cover drills in case there’s an active shooter in their school. The threats have come closer and become more real. It’s a grim world. So I’m with Puddleglum. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.
That’s the connection between clicker training horses and children’s books. It’s the connection between the magic of being able to talk to our horses and the reality of clicker training.
When I was little, there were never enough of the kind of books I loved to read. I read the Narnia series over and over again, but I wanted more, so I began to write my own stories. I have a collection of them tucked away that I am have begun to publish.
I’ve begun with the Kenyon Bear Books. The first book, “Teddies to the Rescue” was written in 1985 and was published originally in 1986. It began as a Christmas present for my mother.
In 2023 I reissued the book. “Teddies” is a chapter book with pictures. My illustrator, Mark Kenyon was a gifted artist. His mother made the bears, so yes, there was a family connection with Kenyon Bear.
When we were first talking about creating a book, we discovered that we were both drawn to the pen and ink drawings from our favorite books that we read when we were little. These are not modern books with characters looking like they came from a Disney movie. These are books for children (and adults) who love to dream.
From “Teddies To The Rescue”
“Teddies to the Rescue” is book 1 in the series. Next came “Edgar the Bear Who Wanted to be Real”, and “Sara’s Story, the Bear Nobody Wanted”. Those were the original Kenyon Bear Books published in the 1980’s.
Last year I added “Kenyon Bear’s Christmas” with drawings by Christa Culbert.
And now finally, I am delighted to be adding “Wishing Well Magic” to the series.
Sue Hall, a long time client and friend did the drawings. So I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Kenyon and the rest of the bears imagined by four different artists. Each one has brought their own sense of whimsy and magic to the drawings to create a world children will love.
If you have little ones you are reading to, these chapter books make great bedtime stories. If you are giving them to a young reader, don’t be surprised if you find the book tucked under their pillows as they fall asleep. That’s where all the favorite books belong.
So do visit my web site, theclickercenter.com or order them on-line through Amazon. Help me turn “Wishing Well Magic” and all the other Kenyon Bear Books into best sellers.
Book Four in The Kenyon Bear Series of Children’s Books
Written by Alexandra Kurland With Drawings by Christa Culbert
The story begins with some grim news. The shop owner tells Kenyon that she is going to retire and close the shop right after Christmas.
Kenyon Bear’s Christmas is an illustrated chapter book. It is a perfect story to share with young children as they count down the days before Christmas.
To learn more about all the Kenyon Bear Books visit the Bear Hollow Press section of my web site: theclickercenter.com
Help me celebrate the publication of Book 4 in the Kenyon Bear Series of Children’s books. “Kenyon Bear’s Christmas” has just been published! Order your copy today!
It’s the old question – if you were stranded on a desert island what three things would you want to take with you?
Here’s my answer:
A horse, of course.
A very thick notebook.
A very reliable pen.
With those three things I could be very happy. I would never be bored. Writers write and I am a writer. I always have been. Until very recently, the books you knew me by were training books for horses. But long before I wrote my first training book, “Clicker Training for your Horse”, I was writing children’s books. Three of them, the first in the Kenyon Bear Series were published in the late 1980’s. Then my life took a turn when I started to explore clicker training. I became fully absorbed in developing clicker training for horses.
For me writing about horses began with my personal training journals. For years I recorded every training session, every visit. I have stacks of notebooks recording the daily lessons. Those lessons weren’t so much what I was teaching my horses, but what I was learning from them.
Out of that grew the books, DVDs, blog posts, on-line courses, podcasts, conference presentations, etc. that you know me by today. That’s been a journey that has stretched over decades. I put the publication of children’s books on hold. My time and energy had to go towards clicker training. Horses need an alternative to the force-based, command-based methods that is the norm in the horse world. But I never stopped writing children’s books.
There are two more books in the Kenyon Bear Series. The next one will be published this fall. And then there is a new series which I am so eager to share. I’ll save the details of that for another time.
Over those decades many things have changed. When I wrote the first of the horse books, “Clicker Training for your Horse”, I always thought of it as my “space beacon”. “I’m here. Is anybody else out there who thinks about horses the way I do?”
It turns out there are a lot of people out there. They have helped spread clicker training around the planet.
The need is still great, but with more voices speaking out for horses, I can indulge in doing what writers do. They write.
And thanks to changes in the way books are printed and distributed, I can share what I write with you.
So I have just published the third book in the Kenyon Bear Series: Sara’s Story – The Bear Nobody Wanted.
It is a book to be shared with the young readers in your life. It’s a chapter book with pictures. It is a great bed time story to read aloud to the little ones in your life. It is a book your young readers will treasure and read over and over again as they grow up.
It is filled with laughter, with fun, with scary times, with friends discovered, with adventures, with daring rescues and a happy, though bittersweet ending.
Sara’s Story is a perfect book for the summertime holidays. Keep your young readers reading with the Kenyon Bear Chapter Books.
To Learn More visit my web site: theclickercenter.com
You’ll find all three of the Kenyon Books there.
You can also order them through Amazon which saves on your shipping cost. If you order through Amazon, do please leave a five star review. Your good reviews help others find the books.
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