AAARRRGGGH! We’re talking absolute frustration. I’ve been working on this scene for hours, writing and rewriting. Trying different words, taking away a comma, then a sentence, a paragraph, hell the whole damn scene. My characters had given up on me and were all outside having a cigarette (because nobody is allowed to smoke in my books). This was me.

So of course, I put “frustration” into the keyword search for this week’s Friday Five. Up came a lot of super boring tomes on anger management and (oddly) dog training. Then the cover of The Most Magnificent Thing completely caught my eye.

Rosie Amber’s Friday Five challenge is to take ONLY FIVE MINUTES to browse an unfamiliar category and select a book based solely on the cover art.

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Book blurb:

A little girl and her canine assistant set out to make the most magnificent thing. But after much hard work, the end result is not what the girl had in mind. Frustrated, she quits. Her assistant suggests a long walk, and as they walk, it slowly becomes clear what the girl needs to do to succeed. A charming story that will give kids the most magnificent thing: perspective!.  

BUY LINKS:

Amazon US | Amazon UK

• Book Title: The Most Magnificent Thing
• Author: Ashley Spires
• Genre: Children (age level 3-7)
• Publisher: Kids Can Press (April 1, 2014)
• Price: $6.89/£4.49 Kindle (NOTE: one reviewer says the illustrations are frustratingly small on kindle and recommends the print version, $13.99/£11.20)
• Reviews: 142 for at total of 4.5 out of 5 stars (75% 5 stars)
• Pages: 32

My Analysis: If I only had that smarmy “read this kids; it’s good for you” blurb to go by, I’d never give this book a second thought. Luckily, Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature told a completely different tale. When my kids were small, we kept a boxes-N-junk corner full of old machines they could dismantle and reassemble into whatever they desired. At age three, my son made what he announced was his “Frillibator”, and for days everything he encountered/wore/ate/met had to first be frillibated. Later, it was piles of electronic and mechanical parts that the kids could mess about with. We didn’t have cable, but one of the first things they built in secret was a way to camp onto the neighbor’s signal. (As parents, we pretended to remain ignorant of what we knew came out of the closet every time we left the house…) So when I saw the little girl go through so much frustration to bring the vision in her head to life, I recognized her immediately. She was every child who listens to the spark of creation inside themselves and struggles to give it reality. That blurb was completely wrong. The creative child doesn’t need “perspective”. Like the little girl in this book, she only needs the space, the resources, and the time to listen to the vision in her head. We all need that. This little inventor gave that back to me, and now I’m getting back to work. 

BUY or PASS:   BUY — print version only. And I’m not alone… The incredibly talented children of Elmwood School in Ottawa turned The Most Magnificent Thing into a fabulous stop-motion video. Enjoy!

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Here is Rosie’s Friday Five Challenge. It only took five minutes and a couple more to write up, and was a ton of fun. I hope you’ll consider joining in. All Rosie asks is that you link back to her original post here so we can all join in viewing your challenge results.

AUTHORS – You often only have seconds to get a reader to buy your book, is your book cover and book bio up to it?

My Friday Five Challenge is this….. IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….

1. Go to any online book supplier,
2. Randomly choose a category,
3. Speed through the book covers, choose one which has instantly appealed to your eye,
4. Read the book Bio/ Description for this book, and any other details.
5. If there are reviews, check out a couple,
6. Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?
7. I’ll be back next week with another Friday Five Challenge, do feel free to join in.