Nate Rocks the World by Karen Pokras Toz

If you were to blend Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, you might come close to what you find in Nate Rocks the World by Karen Pokras Toz.

Life is rough for ten-year-old Nathan Rockledge. He’s not very popular at school. He’s tortured by his older sister, Abby. His mother thinks she’s Julia Childs and Martha Stewart combined when she can’t cook or sew, and his father insists upon retelling stories from his own childhood over and again. But with his sketch pad and a healthy dose of imagination, he can become Nate Rocks, a hero who can do anything.

This is a fascinating and fun story that middle grade boys are going to love. Nate can’t catch a break. School is painful at best, especially when he gets paired up with Lisa Crane for a science project. Nate’s mom and Lisa’s mom are good friends, so he better be on his best behavior or someone is going to hear about it. He’s got a best friend, Tommy, but when they’re together things just don’t seem to go their way. His sister Abby is a royal pain in the neck, but their parents are always asking for his understanding while she goes through a phase. Even the family vacation can’t turn out right if he’s around.

What makes it all bearable is Nate’s ability to totally get lost in his drawing, daydreaming of how he becomes Nate Rocks and can do anything. He can help Captain Asteroid defeat the evil Dr.  Shadow. His great baseball skills can turn the Phillies into a championship team. He can even save the neighbor’s dog from a burning house.

Toz definitely has a finger on the pulse of this market. She knows what’s exciting to them and uses it to create a page-turner that will leave them wanting more. There were a couple of places I felt a bit lost in the transitions between Nate’s reality and his daydreaming, but overall the story flows smoothly. I could definitely see Nate Rocks the World as a movie–a very funny movie.

The author mentioned to me that she’s busy at work on the sequel. I can’t wait!

Rating:  🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

• Publisher:CreateSpace
• ISBN-10:1463510829
• ISBN-13: 978-1463510824
• SRP:  $7.99
• Also available in a Kindle edition

I received a FREE Kindle version of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinions. The author paid me to promote this book with a virtual book tour through Pump Up Your Book. That fee did not include a review. I received no monetary compensation of any kind to provide my opinion.

Writing for Young Adults by Stephen Masse, Author of Short Circus

Today’s guest blogger is Stephen Masse, author of the young adult novel, Short Circus.

Twelve-year-old Jem Lockwood has been fatherless for four years and finally gets a Big Brother, but just as the best summer of his life is about to begin, he discovers that Jesse Standish’s rented house is about to be sold. Jem does all in his daring imagination to make Jesse’s house unmarketable, and the neighborhood unfit for prospective buyers. This three-ring circus romps with Jem’s boyhood friends and older brother Chris, all recognizable kids who share in the rough-and-tumble delight of living in a northern Massachusetts city whose newspaper is delivered by kids on bikes, where kids play in the streets, and the local convenience store is owned by the family of Jesse’s girlfriend, Andrea. Sadly the city’s swimming pond has been sabotaged, and the city has to close it to all recreation after two boys are injured. Jem is sure he knows who did it, and helps carry out a plan to punish the evildoer. 

Since Stephen also writes books for adults, I asked him to discuss the similiarities and differences in writing for two markets. Here’s what he had to say:

I’d have to admit I’m not an authority on writing for young adults.

What I do know is that it’s always a good idea to read a manuscript to a few kids before publishing. It could be an imperfect test, since your voice or personality may carry a flawed story – but in general kids will stop you cold in the middle of a sentence if logic, character, plausibility or relevance are lacking. When reading an excerpt of Short Circus to my 12 year old cousin, she caught me on a few points that surprised me – mostly because I had been blind to them. But even when a book has been polished, edited, copy-edited and published, it would be complete folly to assume all kids in the targeted audience will enjoy it, or find it relevant. Short Circus has a market mostly for boys between the ages of 12 and 16 who have struggled with loss or abandonment of a parent, grandparent, or guardian. Having said that, I find it amusing that adults are getting a kick out of the book, too. One reader e-mailed me that “reading Short Circus was like taking a hit on the crack pipe of childhood memories.” 

To my mind, writing for adults and young readers is different only in the matter of choosing the subject and audience. The quality of the writing has to be excellent for either audience. Many classic stories are read by both children and adults. Obviously stories about children will be of more interest to children, and stories with adult themes will be of more interest to adults. The bottom line is for writers to trust their instincts and also trust their test readers.

Stephen V. Masse was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He wrote his first novelat age 13, handwritten into a school composition book.

Educated at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he studied creative writing, and was author of a weekly newspaper column, “Out of Control.” His first novel for children, Shadow Stealer, was published by Dillon Press in 1988. Short Circus is his second novel for children.

In addition to children’s books, Masse has written A Jolly Good Fellow, winner of the Silver Medal in the 2008 Independent Publisher Book Awards, as well as honorable mention in the 2008 New England Book Festival for best books of the holiday season.

You can read more about Stephen and his work at http://www.stephenvmasse.com/.

 

 

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