I'm so excited to have the Diary of a Mad Brownie Blog Tour stopping by today! Check out my interview with author Bruce Coville and enter to win a copy of this charming middle-grade book below...
Diary of a Mad Brownie
(The Enchanted Files #1)
by Bruce Coville
June 30, 2015
Random House Children's Book
Told in diary entries and other “documents,” this magical, modern-day comedy by the master of funny fantasy, Bruce Coville is a story filled with laugh-out-loud humor and heart.
Angus is a brownie. No, not the kind you eat! He’s a tiny magical creature that loves to do chores. Angus has just “inherited” a new human girl, Alex. To say that Alex is messy would be an understatement. She’s a total hurricane-like disaster—and she likes it that way, thankyouverymuch! Living with each other isn’t easy but Angus and Alex soon learn there is a curse that binds them. What’s worse, it threatens Alex’s family! Working together, Angus and Alex will set out to break the curse . . . without killing each other first . . . hopefully.
AMAZON / B&N / INDIEBOUND
PRAISE FOR DIARY OF A MAD BROWNIE
* "Smart, amusing, and a lot of fun" —Booklist (starred review)
"With magic, mischief, and mayhem to spare, this sweet story of an unlikely friendship ought to delight readers of any age." —Publishers Weekly
"A knee-slapper." —Kirkus Reviews
* "It’s not easy to merge such disparate elements as traditional Scottish lore and modern American life, but Coville brings it off with wit, style, and respect. The first volume of the Enchanted Files series is smart, amusing, and a lot of fun" —Booklist (starred review)
What three words best describe your book, The Diary of a Mad Brownie?
Antic, madcap, well-researched (I cheated with a hyphen on that last one)
Can you give us your best one sentence pitch to convince readers, especially reluctant readers, to give this book a try?
If you think the idea of "The Odd Couple" with a 12 year old girl in the slob role, a 150 year old Scottish brownie as the neat freak, seasoned with a lot of magic and a bizarre family curse sounds like fun, then this is the book for you.
Can you tell us a bit about your characters Angus and Alex? What makes them unique and interesting?
Angus is a short-tempered brownie who has a compulsive need (as is true of his kind) to keep things neat and tidy. When thwarted in this, he is given to some awesome bursts of temper. What he longs for most in his heart is home and family, for he has been sent by means of a curse to live in America (which he thinks of as a "barbarian wilderness") where he knows no one and must make a new life for himself.
Alex is probably the worst person for Angus to be assigned to, as she is a dedicated slob, and takes a certain perverse pride in the messiness of her room.
Yet together they must find a way to remove the "Curse of the McGonagalls" before it destroys Alex's family.
And therein lies our story . . .
Fill in the blanks:
I’m really awesome at procrastination.
I’m really embarrassed to admit how awesome I am at procrastination.
The last great book I read was A SUITABLE BOY by Vikram Seth. (I've read dozens and dozens of good ones, but this was the most recent one that I think of as truly great.)
If you were to create and bake a cupcake inspired by The Diary of a Mad Brownie, what would it look and taste like, and what would you call it?
One side would be perfectly frosted, as if done by Martha Stewart herself. The other side would have frosting slopped over the edges, and be decorated with haphazard sprinkles. I'd call it "Split Personality Cupcake."
Thank you so much for stopping by, Bruce!
BRUCE COVILLE is the author of 101 books for children and young adults, including the international bestseller My Teacher Is an Alien, and the wildly popular Unicorn Chronicles series. His works have appeared in over a dozen languages, and won children’s choice awards in over a dozen states. He has been, at various times, a teacher, a toy maker, a magazine editor, a gravedigger, and a cookware salesman. He is also the founder of Full Cast Audio, an audiobook publishing company devoted to producing full-cast, unabridged recordings of material for family listening. Mr. Coville lives in Syracuse, New York, with his wife, author and illustrator Katherine Coville.
Win a copy of
Diary of a Mad Brownie!
Thanks to Random House Kids, I have one copy for one winner.
DETAILS
-US/CAN only
-ends 8/11
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