I’m in the process of publishing a picture book called I Own All the Blue, for ages three to seven. After reviewing hundreds of portfolios and websites I finally clicked with an illustrator and I’m thrilled to be working with Bess Harding to produce this book.
I Own All the Blue is a modern fable I wrote about two years ago. As a parent, I’ve noticed with surprise how vehement children are about enforcing certain conventions of our society, such as which colours and styles of clothing are allowed to be worn by boys and which are exclusively for girls.
I Own All the Blue is a tongue-in-cheek challenge to the idea that specific colours are exclusively for specific groups. It’s a book that promotes sharing, and I hope it will help to generate a little bit of thinking and questioning of some of the strange rules we enforce on each other for no real reason.
My newsletter subscribers will have exclusive previews of the book in progress, page by page – and will have a chance to read the whole of the text. I know how frustrating it is to pick up a children’s book that looks promising only to find that the last page goes against your principles. Or trying to gauge the content from a 10% Look Inside on Amazon. So I know and understand that you want to vet the entire book before you invest in it.
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I’m also currently writing a chapter book for ages three to nine, called The Convoluted Key. Stayed tuned 😉
Elle Carter Neal is the author of the middle-grade chapter book The Convoluted Key, picture book I Own All the Blue, and teen science-fantasy novel Madison Lane and the Wand of Rasputin. She has been telling stories for as long as she can remember, holding childhood slumber-party audiences entranced until the early hours of the morning. Elle decided to be an author the day she discovered that real people wrote books and that writing books was a real job.