Tag Archives: Christian Children’s Authors

Blogging at Christian Children’s Authors

Christmas Eve was my day to post at Christian Children’s Authors. I spoke about the new edition of my book, A Christmas Kindness, which was released by 4RV Publishing this fall. You can find my post at https://christianchildrensauthors.com/2020/12/24/celebrating-a-christmas-kindness/

It is also listed in this year’s Annual Critters Readers’ Poll. If you wish to vote for it, please visit http://critters.org/predpoll/novelchildrens.shtml

Be on the lookout for my 2021 goals post soon!

Jonah: The Fearful Prophet by Janice D. Green

A moving retelling of the story of Jonah can be found in Jonah: The Fearful Prophet by Janice D. Green.

The story of Jonah may be one of the most well-known in the Bible. God instructs Jonah to go to the evil city of Nineveh. Instead, Jonah disobeys God and takes a ship heading in the opposite direction, which leads to unfortunate circumstances. Eventually, Jonah obeys God, but he’s not happy when Nineveh is spared. It seems Jonah still has some learning to do. Thankfully, God is patient.

It just so happens that we are studying the book of Jonah in Bible study, which reminded me of this new book by Green. Some children’s books that share the story of Jonah stop too early. They end with Jonah obeying God and the town of Nineveh being spared from destruction, which tells only part of Jonah’s tale. Green brings readers through what happens after Nineveh is spared–how God patiently taught Jonah an important lesson.

The colorful artwork by Kimberly Merritt is the perfect complement to Green’s story. It captures the raging waters, the angry sailors, Jonah praying while in the belly of the whale, his walk through Nineveh and many other aspects of what happened to Jonah. I hope these two work together on future books.

Jonah: The Fearful Prophet also includes discussion questions and activities, which make it perfect for Sunday school or family time. You can also purchase a separate coloring book to accompany the story.

A beautifully told Bible story that children will enjoy over and again is what you’ll find in Jonah: The Fearful Prophet.

Rating: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

ISBN-10 : 0983680884
Paperback : 36 pages
ISBN-13 : 978-0983680888
Publisher : Honeycomb Adventures Press, LLC (June 30, 2020)

I received a copy from the author. This review contains my honest opinions, which I have not been compensated for in any way.

2019 Goals Review

It’s that wonderful time of year again where I review goals and put together a business plan for the next year. I’ve been a bit of a slacker in staying on track with my 2019 goals. It has been an interesting year.

Here were my overall goals for the year.

  • My calendar will be time blocked better this year, making me more effective and efficient
  • I will submit at least one finished project to an agent
  • I will actually take a vacation this year where I don’t do work–well, real estate work anyway

How did I do?

On the time blocking front, I did well until April. Then life got busy with work and family and it went by the wayside. Honestly, I’ve never been a time blocking fan, so I am not surprised. I also made it a bit complicated by having two calendars. I’m going to look at using a theme for each day like Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square.

I submitted one finished project to an agent at the WriteAngles Conference, but that wasn’t the intention of the goal when I wrote it. I’ll give myself half credit for that.

Totally bombed on the non-working vacation part, but I did work less than usual. Half credit again.

These were my writing goals listed in January. How did I perform on this front?

GOAL 1: Submit Clever Tom to an agent

I researched agents and pitched it during a couple of online events, but didn’t submit it the way I intended. I plan to see if one of my current publishers will accept it. Not a cop out as much as realizing securing an agent is most likely a longer term goal considering what I want to accomplish with real estate in 2020.

GOAL 2: Participate in STORYSTORM

Not only did I win STORYSTORM in 2019, I finished early. Tara Lazar does a phenomenal job of running this every year. I’m thinking 2020 will be a skip year for me. I have plenty of ideas to work from over the last few years worth of wins, so creating those stories is my focus.

GOAL 3: Contribute to Guardian Angel Kids 

Never happened and I feel so bad. I’m just really not a short story kind of person (says the person who writes picture books for children). This will remain a goal into the new year.

GOAL 4: Write 10 chapters of Amelia’s Mission

This year saw three additional chapters written for Amelia’s Mission. I completed an editing project that took up a good deal of writing time, but it was worth every minute. I can’t wait to see Dust of Lies released at the beginning of 2020.

GOAL 5: Maintain my blogs

This is always where I excel, because I love blogging. Even though there were weeks when things didn’t go as planned, overall, I stuck with it and posted to my blogs and contributed to the two blogs where I am a member. I’ve decided to talk more about books at An Imperfect Christian Mom  so I can reduce the number of blogs I am maintaining. Other than that, I think I’ll be able to stay the course into 2020.

What goals did you set this year? What are some of your accomplishments?