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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Children's Chapter Book Wins Rave Reviews


Night Buddies and the Pineapple Cheesecake Scare
Written by Sands Hetherington
Illustrations by Jessica Love
For more information visit http://nightbuddiesadventures.com   
Children’s Chapter Book (ages 8 to 12)
ISBN-10: 0984741712
ISBN-13: 978-0984741717
List $7.99 Paperback 128 pages
Also available in Kindle and Nook
Publisher: Dune Buggy Press
Available wherever books are sold and online.

Reviewed by World of Ink Reviewer Ann Stallard
Rating 5 stars

Overall Thoughts and About the Book:

The Night Buddies series is an after lights-out adventure story that delights young readers and middle graders who relish roller coaster fantasy and fun, filled with unforgettable characters and an astonishing and inventive collection of magical whatchamacallits.
The first book in the series “Night Buddies and the Pineapple Cheesecake Scare” introduces young readers to a bright-red crocodile with the goofy name Crosley. Add in the fact Crosley wears a yellow jumpsuit and is a member of Night Buddies Amalgamated whose job is to rescue kids from lying in bed awake and take them out on adventures. Now throw in a young John who isn’t ready to go to sleep yet and you have the beginning of the story.

John learns Crosley is more than just a red crocodile, which is unique enough. Crosley is also allergic to water and breaks out doing the Black Bottom dance for hours. Now through in the fact Crosley and John are both totally goofy about pineapple cheesecakes. It’s no wonder why Night Buddies Amalgamated made them a team and sends them on a mission to find out why there is worldwide shortage of pineapple cheesecakes. They’re all vanishing at the world’s only pineapple cheesecake factory across town and Crosley sees this as huge emergency. This new Night Buddies’ assignment for tonight--to investigate the problem and set things right. Of course, Night Buddies call it a “Program” and it won’t be easy. It definitely won’t be dull!

The story is filled with well-drawn fascinating characters embellished with some excellent illustrations by Jessica Love. The fonts change with emotion and circumstances, a fact that makes every page a little artwork that keep the child’s eye involved in the book. And just to make sure the youngsters reading this book have the inside information for a mystery, a glossary of ‘Night Buddies Uncommon Words’ is supplied – explaining ‘Jeeks’, ‘Wuff’, ‘Snerk!’ etc.

About the Author:

Sands Hetherington credits his son John for being his principal motivator. Sands raised his son as a single parent from the time John was six. He read to him every night during those formative years. He and young John developed the Crosley crocodile character in the series during months of bedtime story give-and-take. Sands majored in history at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and has an M.F.A. in creative writing and an M.A. in English from UNC-Greensboro. He lives in Greensboro.

About the Illustrator:

Jessica Love grew up in California, with two artist parents. She studied printmaking and drawing at UC Santa Cruz, then went on to study acting at The Juilliard School in NYC.
Jessica currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, toggling back and forth between her work as an actor and her work as an artist.

What Other People Are Saying:

“This little book is a winner!” —Grady Harp, Hall of Fame Amazon Reviewer
“Hetherington seems to have the right ingredients for a classic children’s whodunit—talking animals, an unsolved mystery and a brave hero willing to face unforeseen foes…” —Kirkus

“Stating that Night Buddies and the Pineapple Cheesecake Scare is a creative, imaginative and delightful tale is simply giving it its just desserts. Yerk! Yerk! Yerk!” — Drew Aquilina, International award-winning cartoonist and author, Green Pieces: Green From the Pond Up

“Night Buddies is a terrific story my second and third-graders would love to have read to them, complete with its colorful dialect. Thanks for the sneak peek!” — Lorie Thompson, Principal, Haskell Elementary School, Los Angeles Unified School District

“Two unlikely friends-one human and one crocodilian-embark on an adventure to solve a mystery: where did all the pineapple cheesecakes go? Have fun reading this lively story.” — Diane Witt, Retired Public Elementary School Teacher (30 years), Boulder, Colorado

~Book tour by VS Grenier, award-winning author and editor and founder and partner of World of Ink Network,
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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for hosting and sharing the review of Night Buddies and the Pineapple Cheesecake Scare by Sands Hetherington.

    ReplyDelete

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