Guest Post & Giveaway: Hillary Homzie and Laney Nielson, authors of the new middle-grade Swirl novels

Sweet Treats for the Holidays

Pumpkin Spice & Peppermint Cocoa

Guest Post by Hillary Homzie and Laney Nielson

Thank you so much for having us on Word Spelunking! We definitely agree that life is sweeter with books and cupcakes. And we think it’s even sweeter with pumpkin spice and peppermint cocoa! In October, Hillary launched Swirl, Sky Pony’s new line for tween readers with the novel, Pumpkin Spice Secrets and now Laney’s Peppermint Cocoa Crushes is also out—both are here in time for the holidays.

It was fun cooking up these stories featuring friendships, crushes and lots of middle school activities. Sweet drinks and yummy flavors inspired us too! To celebrate, we’ve matched our books with some recipes we think readers might enjoy.

First about the books…

Pumpkin Spice Secrets

Sometimes secrets aren't so sweet...

Just as Maddie picks up her pumpkin spice frappe from the coffee shop counter, she spills it all over the cute boy behind her. Talk about mortifying! Luckily, the boy -- Jacob -- is also friendly and easygoing, and soon Maddie is deeply in crush.

But before she can tell her best friend Jana about him at lunch the next day, Jana announces her huge new crush -- on Jacob! Maddie doesn't want to cause trouble, so she keeps her feelings hidden. Jana will get over him soon, right?

Add major school stress to Maddie's secret, and it's a recipe for disaster. Can she stay true to both her friend and her heart... without it all turning into a sticky mess?

The major stress part is debating. Maddie is one of those kids who doesn’t like public speaking. In fact, she has a tendency to listen to other people and not speak up. Hillary admits that when she was younger, she fell into the not-speaking-up camp. In fact, she’s still working on it. So a big theme in this book is learning to speak up and communicate how you feel. Debate plays a part in helping Maddie to do that. Friendships are a whole lot easier when you express yourself truthfully.

Peppermint Cocoa Crushes

Friends, cocoa, crushes... catastrophe!

Sasha is so excited. 'Tis the season for snow, gifts, peppermint cocoa, and the Holidaze Spectacular -- the school's variety show competition with an amazing grand prize! She and her best friends, twins Karly and Kevin, are working on a dance routine for it, and Sasha is sure they'll win. She's also sure that her crush -- Kevin -- likes her back. She just needs to find a way to tell him.

But then nothing goes as planned. Karly disappears into quiz bowl, things with Kevin are going nowhere, and Sasha's head is spinning between rehearsals, homework, and volunteer commitments. Everything is falling apart! Can Sasha repair a friendship, figure out her crush, and still make the most of her moment in the spotlight?

We think that readers will appreciate some of the delightful surprises in this book. What you need to know is that it’s full of holiday cheer, but it’s also realistic in that life is definitely not perfect. Sasha’s mother wants her to imagine a STEM related future and Sasha imagines a more artistic path. The mom in Peppermint Cocoa Crushes is fairly recently divorced and Sasha and her family must adjust to a new reality. And yet, life is ultimately very sweet.

And now for some fun recipes featuring our favorite ingredients…

Pumpkin Pie Milkshake

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Peppermint Hot Chocolate

Easy Peppermint Fudge

If you enjoy these sweet treats, be on the look out for Cinnamon Bun Besties by Stacia Deutsch and Salted Caramel Dreams by Jackie Nastri Bardenwerper, two more Swirl novels coming early 2018!

Cheers,

Hillary & Laney

Win a copy of Pumpkin Spice Secrets and Peppermint Cocoa Crushes!

The folks at Sky Pony Press have generously offered a copy of each book for one winner.

-US/CAN only

-ends 11/24/17 at 11:59 pm ET

-one winner get a copy of both books

-winner will be emailed and must claim prize within 48 hours

-word spelunking is not responsible for lost, damaged, or stolen prizes in the mail

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WAGGERS Blog Tour {Review, Interview, Giveaway]

I'm so doggone excited to have the WAGGERS Blog Tour stopping by today with my Review, an Author Interview, and Giveaway...

WAGGERS

by Stacy Nyikos

illustrated by Tamara Anegon

12/2/14

hardcover, 32 pages

Sky Pony Press

When Waggers is adopted, he tries to be good; he really does! But it isn’t Waggers’s fault that his tail goes crazy when he gets excited. How much harm can a tail do, anyway? Well, his new family is about to find out. In the kitchen, the cookies smell so good that Waggers’s tail makes the dough hit the ceiling. And when Waggers helps the kids defeat a monster in the living room, there may be a sofa casualty. After his tail accidentally scratches the paint off the car in the garage, Mom and Dad aren’t so sure their home is the right fit for such an excitable pup. Could this be the last straw, or can Waggers and his family find a way to stay together?

Goodreads / Amazon / B&N / Indiebound

WAGGERS is an adorable doggy tail tale about a cute pup named Waggers who tries REALLY hard to be good, but has an out of control tale that makes one big mess after the other for his new adopted family.

Stacy Nyikos has created another perfectly charming and fun picture book that is sure to delight little readers. The tale of WAGGERS is full of humorous, happy, and surprising moments that will tickle the funny bone and warm your heart. Stacy’s storytelling is accessible, sweetly simple, and engaging; she clearly knows her audience! Waggers’ good intentions and misadventures are not only entertaining, but also relatable, and little readers will be able to see themselves in this well-meaning doggie. The notion that everybody is good at something and everybody has talents, shines brightly in WAGGERS!

Tamara Anegon has wonderfully captured Stacy’s story with her bright, whimsical illustrations. Every funny mess, loving moment, and unexpected event is brought to life through captivating pictures that little readers will just love!

WAGGERS is a super fun, giggle inducing picture book that will put a smile on your face!

What three words best describe your picture book, Waggers?

affectionate, rambunctious, big-hearted

What inspired Waggers? Have you ever known a real life Waggers (of the furry or human kind)?

Oh man, and how. Four years ago we adopted a dog from the pound. She's a mutt, part German Shepherd, Rhodesian Ridgeback, Lab, and who knows what else. We named her, Desi, which is a shortened version of the name they gave her at the pound, Destiny, but with a little Cuban flair. I don't know why this works, but it suits her perfectly. Maybe, secretly, she's all the rage on the dog nightclub scene. You never know. We swore one of our other dogs was a banker. And another owned a chain of lodges in Virginia. Clearly, there are side effects to having a writer in the family. Our dogs have lots of secret, adventurous lives.

But back to Desi. What she definitely has is a crazy, crazy tail. I've never seen a tail on a dog like the one she has. I wish there was a machine to measure how fast and strong it is, sort of the way they measure the speed of a baseball pitch. Desi's tail would set records. It took her a while - and multiple decapitated plants - to harness the strength of her tail and use it for good instead of evil. Now it's a chocolate milk moustache shaver and dust bunny relocator...most of the time. There are still a few walls in my house that have lodged complaints about excessive wagging, but Desi has pleaded squirrel mania. She can't control herself around squirrels. The walls have begrudgingly given in. but the squirrels are just getting fiestier by the day. A showdown is in the making. I hope my house survives.

As you've probably guessed, it wasn't much of a leap to go from the antics of my dog to those of Waggers. In fact, Waggers sometimes seems a little calmer than Desi.

Grab a copy of Waggers and answer the following:

favorite line?

Mom and Dad were finally swayed. How much harm could one tail do?

favorite illustration?

My favorite illustration is the face off between Waggers and the squirrels. Waggers is so intent on stopping those blasted squirrels, but the squirrels don't even realize Waggers is watching them, until he half destroys the house. The look they give him from the window - Buddy, what is your problem? - is one I have seen on many a squirrel who faces down Desi. It's the best illustrations ever.

favorite kind of mess Waggers makes?

My favorite mess is the cookie making mess. I could see that happening so fast with my kids and our dog. It's also a really yummy mess to clean up.

Share the following: what was the last book that...

made you laugh out loud?

Bud not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that book!!! It's serious. It's funny. It's heartening. It's an amazing story. Amazing!

made you cry?

Like everybody else in the world right now, The Fault in Our Stars. Such raw, honest writing.

scared you?

Um, well, I avoid scary books. I avoid scary movies. They invade my dreams for months! So, maybe the scariest book was...nope. I can't do it! I'm getting scared just thinking about scary books!

inspired you?

Jefferson's Sons by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley was the most recent book that inspired me. I did my PhD at the University of Virginia, which Thomas Jefferson founded. While there, I taught for the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute, which recruits minorities into graduate work in political science to create a more diverse faculty across the U.S. That Jefferson had a large family with one of his slaves was long-contested. Today, it's fact. Bradley did nothing short of genius in making that story accessible to a young audience. My youngest daughter reread the book for six months. It is amazing, inspiring writing.

you absolutely loved?

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. I know. Not what you were expecting, right? But I love this book because it, too, is not what anyone was expecting. The first time I read it was at an exhibit of Caldecott winners and honorees at the Chicago Museum of Fine Arts. I was 25. My girlfriend and I literally walked half of Chicago afterward so I could get a copy. It was the first book I read to my first child (followed by Captain Underpants). We LOVE funny.

If you were to create and bake a cupcake inspired by Waggers, what would it look and taste like, and what would you call it?

If I were to create and bake a cupcake inspired by Waggers, it would be a mess of chocolate covered in sprinkles that have been wiped off and wiped back on at least three times. I would call it the Tower o' Trouble. Despite its shaky appearance, it would be fantastically delicious.

Thanks again to Stacy Nyikos for appearing.  For other stops on the Waggers blog tour please check http://www.stacyanyikos.com/blog.html

website * goodreads * twitter * facebook

Stacy Nyikos is the award-winning author of many mischievous books for children. She’s not sure how that happened. She didn’t get into trouble as a child. Well, if you don’t count borrowing sandwiches from her dad. He wasn’t eating them anyway. Stacy holds an MFA in Writing for Children at Vermont College, which she didn’t borrow. They gave it to her. Really. Ask her kids. Or her dog. Just don’t ask her husband. He’s misplaced a few sandwiches. When she isn’t chasing stories—or sandwiches—Stacy can be found scribbling in the wilds of Oklahoma. She is currently working on a new adult novel about her grandfather’s adventure canoeing from Indiana to New Orleans – over 2,000 miles of paddling – in 1939.

Win a copy of WAGGERS!

I have one copy of this adorable picture book for one lucky cupcake.

DETAILS

-US only

-ends 12/17

-must be 13+ to enter

-winner will be emailed and must claim prize within 48 hours

-Word Spelunking is not responsible for lost, damaged, stolen prizes

a Rafflecopter giveaway