Meet My Book: A New Friend for Marmalade, by Alison Reynolds

If you visit here regularly, you’ll know that I love to have authors drop in an introduce their book. Today I’m happy to welcome Alison Reynolds, who is here as part of her whirl-wind blog tour to celebrate the release of her latest book. Welcome Alison.

 

Hi Sally,
Thank you so much for having me here!
1. Give us the details – title, publisher, illustrator, release date.        A New Friend for Marmalade
A New Friend for Marmalade, The Five Mile Press, Heath McKenzie, March 2014
Little Simon US, July 2014

2. Why did you write the book?
The publisher commissioned me following the success of A Year with Marmalade, and I was thrilled to revisit Ella, Maddy and, of course, Marmalade! I wanted to explore the themes of friendship and tolerance. Toby is different to Maddy and Ella, and I wanted to show them giving him “a go” rather than being mean and excluding him.
3. How long from idea to publication?
About 14 months.

4. What was the hardest thing about writing it?
Introducing a new character, Toby. He wants to be friends, but instead his behaviour is annoying for the girls. I didn’t want Toby to be too annoying, nor Ella and Maddy to appear too mean.
5. Coolest thing about your book?
I love the look of it and how Heath has captured beautifully what was inside my mind in his illustrations.

6. Something you learnt through writing the book?
I learnt quite a few words to describe cats. I didn’t want A New Friend for Marmalade to sound too like A Year with Marmalade. So if anybody wants a list of cat words, I can send them an extra-long one.

7. What did you do celebrate the release?
Nothing yet as life keeps intruding. But definitely have a dinner and a few lunches planned in the near future!

8. And how will you promote the book?
I’m doing a blog tour with some fabulous prizes and arranging some signings.

9. What are you working on next?
I have what I hope is an excellent idea for a pair of picture books. I have a draft for them scribbled down on the inside of a Panadol packet.

10. Where we can find out more about you and your book?
I would love to meet people at
www.alisonreynolds.com.au
https://www.facebook.com/alison.reynolds.524
alrey@msn.com.au
Thanks for having me, Sally! Hope everybody likes the book.

I’m sure they will Alison – it’s adorable. And good luck with the rest of your blog tour (and the panadol packet stories!)

 

You can follow the rest of Alison’s tour by visiting the following sites during March:

11th Dee White – review and post

11th Chris Bell – post

12th Angela Sunde – interview with Heath

12th KBR – book giveaway

13th Boomerang Books – Post with Dimity Powell

14th KBR Guest post

14th KBR Review

14th Aussiereviews – Meet my book

15th Buzz Words – Interview

17th Ask the Bean Counter – Mr X

17th Pass-it-on Post and Review- Jackie Hosking

18th Ask the Publisher – Kay Scarlett

But wait, there’s more. If you follow the tour, you can win stuff. Alison has the following contests running as part of the blog tour:

Pet contest for all ages!

Marmalade the cat is full of personality. Do you have a pet with personality? Win a piece of artwork by Heath McKenzie. Send along a photo of your personality-plus pet to www.alisonreynolds.com.au or upload to https://www.facebook.com/alison.reynolds.524

Random book giveaways!

Just leave a comment on one of the posts in the blog tour, comment on facebook or even email me that you want to enter competition to win A New Friend for Marmalade.

Prizes for writers!

Win a jump the slush pile pass with a children’s editor or an adult non-fiction editor. Or you can win a picture book assessment from me. Just comment on a post. Remember the more you comment the more chances you have to win. Put CB if you want to enter in the children’s editor competition or NF if you want to be in the adult non-fiction competition or PB if you want to be in the picture book assessment competition. Or you can always put them all down