Nobody likes a Rat - The MG Fantasy Adventure Begins

So, as of two years ago, I’m now the parent of a most magical and fantastic being (class: human child), only now returning to this blog as my thoughts and ideas are finally coherent enough to share.

Following the seismic change of parenthood, I found it difficult to shift gears from pretending to be a bunny riding an airplane to drafting a dark adult fantasy set in a mythically nightmarish pirate world. Liberati: The Lost Island is first book in my new pirate fantasy series which I had started following the completion of my YA Norse fantasy trilogy the Saga of Torin Ten-Trees. It is a project I was—and am—confident I will one day finish. However, the creative alchemical ingredients I had available to me over the past two years (mostly rainbow-coloured and smelling of strawberries) were not suited to such a grim and bloody tale. Therefore, I set down my cutlass and flintlock for a time to explore a space more attuned to my lived experience, the imaginative realm of middle grade fiction.

Nobody likes a Rat - Character Art by Rossy Does Drawings

I had an idea that I had jotted down in a journal several years prior about a whimsical adventure through a mysterious island with an enchanted sugar-water spring. Enter the lonely but lovable rat Nibble and suddenly I had a protagonist. No sooner had I touched my pen to paper (or, more actually, my fingers to the keyboard) than was I whisked away on a writing journey packed with wit, whimsy and wonder.

And so Nobody likes a Rat was born, a middle grade fantasy adventure about a lonely rat who escapes the danger of his suburban life to a magical place called Sugarspring Island full of criss-cross creatures such as bobins (bee/robins), squarrows (squirrel/sparrows), and sneagulls (snail/seagulls). I am both thrilled and relieved to share that the final draft is now out on query as I pursue the goal of publishing this book and perhaps even extending the story into a multi-book series.

In the stretches of time that I did not have the focus to draft or edit, I delved into industry news and trends for middle grade fiction. Having edited several books and anthologies, as well as having published in the board game industry, I was surprised to learn of the waning health of middle grade sales and readership over the last two decades. In an effort to understand why, I emptied the library of every best-selling middle grade fiction story featuring anthropomorphic animals I could get my hands on from recent years. Though I admit that I did not see every single one through to the end, it was enlightening and certainly at times perplexing as a child who grew up on such series as C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, T.A. Barron’s Merlin, and, in quintessential 90s style, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Much has changed, some for better and some perhaps otherwise. More on that later!

As I return to this blog, I will be sharing some of my thoughts in future posts regarding what I read and what I hope to achieve with Nobody likes a Rat. As always, feel free to share your thoughts and/or book recommendations in the comments!