Upstairs Armadillo

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The Upstairs Armadillo Tells His Story

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.

My mother was the first one who saw the upstairs armadillo, but these aren’t the stories she shared with me. That was many years ago. The upstairs armadillo has had many new adventures since then. These are the stories he shared with me.

I wrote the first one soon after my tree sat down on my house. That was in the fall of 2020. Then things got busy. Over the winter I started writing “Modern Horse Training“. That took up all my writing time for the next year. “Modern Horse Training” was published in the spring of 2022. By then I was in the midst of designing my on-line clinics to fit into a post covid world, but I was eager to get back to the Upstairs Armadillo. I knew he was waiting – not all that patiently for me. He wasn’t hiding in my sock drawer, but I knew as soon as I started writing again, he’d make himself known.

I had so much fun writing “Never Get A Wizard Mad At You” that I began book two almost at once. And that lead to books three and four which were even more fun to write. I probably would have raced on to book five at that point, but the horses were calling and I needed to finish the Kenyon Bear series. “Wishing Well Magic” still needed to be illustrated. That took the better part of 2024. “Wishing Well Magic” came out earlier this year. So now it’s finally time for the Upstairs Armadillo to make an appearance.

“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.

When you visit my web site, go to the tab for Bear Hollow Press. That’s where you’ll find all my children’s books.

The Kenyon Bear Books are chapter books with lots of pictures. The Upstairs Armadillo books are longer chapter books. Think Paddington Bear, Knight’s Castle, Green Smoke, and of course C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books and you’ll have the right age range.

I hope you’ll share them with the young readers in your life. And do please leave a five star review to help others find the books.

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Introducing The Upstairs Armadillo

“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

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A New Book!

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.

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Why Now?

Why now? Why have I finally decided to share “my hobby” with you? Let me answer that by telling you a story. In the fall of 2020 we had a severe windstorm in my area and a tree fell on my house.

There’s a longer version to the tree story, but I’ll leave that for another time. The tree crashed through the roof and created considerable damage to the rooms underneath.

During the clean up, while I was sorting through papers, I came across a story my mother had written. It had probably been ten or fifteen years since I had looked at it. She wrote it when she was in her twenties. It was the start of children’s book about Charles Alexander and an upstairs armadillo. I have always known about Charles Alexander. He was something of a good-natured poltergeist (if such a thing exists) who was part of my mother’s childhood.

The story was only a couple of pages, just long enough to introduce the upstairs armadillo. It was started but never finished. The upstairs armadillo was waiting for me to tell his story.

I have learned that when a horse or a character wants you to tell their story, you stop what you are doing and write it down. So that’s what I did. Over the winter of 2021, I wrote “The Upstairs Armadillo”. The book wrote itself very fast. I so enjoyed the process, that I wrote a second Upstairs Armadillo book, and I was starting on a third when the weather warmed up. The horses and spring chores were back to demanding more of my time, so book three of the Upstairs Armadillo series was set aside.

I was expecting to get back to it over the winter of 2022, but I was asked by a mass market publisher to write a clicker training book for them. That took precedence. I signed a contract and in March of 2022 I began writing that book. I submitted the manuscript at the end of May, and then I heard nothing. The editor I was working with stopped responding to my emails. Finally, in July I was informed that the editor was no longer with the company, and they would not be publishing my book after all. I have no idea what happened, but I was actually relieved. It had felt a bit like selling my soul to work with this company, and now I was free to manage the book myself.

That book is “Modern Horse Training, A Constructional Guide to Becoming Your Horse’s Best Friend”. I published it on April 26, 2023.

During the year that I worked on it, I never forgot about the Upstairs Armadillo or the other children’s books I have written over the years. I pulled them out of the various drawers in which they were stashed and began reading. And that’s when I decided it was time to share them.

You’re going to have to wait for the Upstairs Armadillo. I’m going to begin with the Kenyon Bear Books.

I published these books in the late 1980s and then horses took over and for many years the children’s books sat very much on the back burner.

Tomorrow I’ll share the story about how the Kenyon Bear books came to be written.

I hope you are excited by my news and you’re eager to order the new book, but I am going to make you wait just a little bit longer to find out how you can get your copy.

Coming tomorrow: More Details!