“Never Get A Wizard Mad At You” Book One in the Upstairs Armadillo Series
My new book begins when the upstairs armadillo is discovered in Emma’s sock drawer.
The upstairs armadillo is not a character I invented.
My mother was the first one to see Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo. When I was little, she would tell me stories about Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo. They lived in her house when she was growing up and together they created a great deal of mischief.
That was many years ago. Fast forward to the fall of 2020. During a wind storm 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 onto my house.
I came home in the evening to find it’s branches poking into my office and the rain pouring in. What a mess!
The tree that sat down on my house.
Tree being craned off of the house.
Repairs underway
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 looked at 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.
The result was “Never Get A Wizard Mad At You” Book One in the Upstairs Armadillo Series.
It is available through my web site: theclickercenter.com And through Amazon. Get it as an ebook through Kindle Unlimited.
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 announcements – that’s the “it” I’m referring to in the title. I do them all wrong. I know this. I’ve read various “how-to’s” for launching a new book in this digital age. I’ve received plenty of the emails that are meant to make me feel as though I am missing out on the greatest secret, the best bargain, the most amazing opportunity if I don’t hit the “buy now” button in the next five minutes. They’re counting down the minutes even as I hesitate. If still need convincing, here’s what they’re going to add to this amazing, one time only offer.
We’ve all gotten these emails. As an author, many of them are telling me how I can turn my books into best sellers if I will only follow their sure-fire, guaranteed-to-succeed formula. Of course, I want success for my books. I want them to be read.
When I was in the home stretch with “Wishing Well Magic”, I succumbed to one of these offers, just to see what I was missing. Ugh.
That’s all I can say. I would rather sell zero books than sell them that way.
So I am going to market the Kenyon Bear books in the only way I know how. I’m going to do it in the same way that I shared clicker training with all of you. I’m going to begin by believing in the books. I believed in clicker training – not in the way that people mean when they say they believe in the tooth fairy. I knew clicker training worked. I had the evidence not just in my own horses, but in all of my clients’ horses. I knew it was different. I had seen Peregrine stop locking in his stifles after eight years of struggling to make his body work. He didn’t outgrow the problem. He changed how he used his back. Clicker training gave him the agency to own those changes.
I knew clicker training connected me to my horses in a way that was completely different from anything I had experienced up to that point. It was a difference that was hard to describe. How do you describe the colors of a rainbow to someone who has been blind their whole life? Does their understanding of your metaphors come anywhere close to what you experience?
But enough of you became curious about clicker training and gave it a try. I know some people made a mess of things and gave up on it, but many more of you figured it out. You went out to your barns with your pockets filled with treats. Just as I did so many decades ago, you introduced your horses to clicker training. I shared and you shared, and pretty soon people all around the planet were clicker training their horses.
Clicker training is different. It doesn’t look anything like regular horse training. We use treats! We let our horses say “no” to us. We start with protective contact. We hold targets up for our horses to touch. We train in ridiculously small steps – and we change our horses’ lives.
My children’s books are very similar. They don’t fit the mold of what a children’s book should look like. My characters aren’t super heroes out saving the world, but then neither was Winnie the Pooh or Paddington Bear.
I’m not a parent. I didn’t write stories to teach children lessons I wanted them to learn. I write stories I would have wanted to read when I was little – stories that never betray the magic.
You trusted me when I told you clicker training was worth exploring. I’d like you to trust me again with the Kenyon Bear books. These are books children want to read over and over again. They are books they will tuck under pillow as they fall asleep. How do I know? Because when the first three books were published in the 1980’s, that’s what parents told me.
I set the children’s books to the side so I could concentrate on clicker training. That work is on going. There is always more to be learned. You gave clicker training a try for your study-of-one horses. Now I want you to give the Kenyon Bear Books a try for the study-of-one young readers in your life.
“Wishing Well Magic” is book five in the series. It is about Indy – short for Independence. Indy is a bear with Ideas – ideas that end up getting him in a lot of trouble.
You can order the new book through my web site: theclickercenter.com or from Amazon. When you order through Amazon, do please leave a review. Your five star reviews attract the attention of the algorithms which in turn means more people will find the books.
There, I’ve done everything wrong. I’ve written a long post about the books which was actually more about clicker training than it was about the children’s books. I didn’t offer you special deals. I’m not doing anything the marketers are telling me I need to do to beat the Amazon algorithms.
What I am doing is writing really good stories, stories I would have read and loved when I was little. So if you have young readers in your life, or, like me, you still read with pleasure books that the library puts in the children’s book section, do check out the Kenyon Bear Books. All five books in the series are now available at theclickercenter.com or on Amazon.
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