Katie Grace Has Arrived!

Do you have young children, aged 5-9? Perhaps they would like to meet Katie Grace. I just published the first book in the Katie Grace series a few days ago. You can find "Katie Grace Makes a New Friend" as an ebook on Amazon.com for Kindle. You can also find it in pretty much all formats at www.smashwords.com. 

I truly hope your children, and other children you know, will enjoy meeting Katie Grace. I also hope that they will grow and learn along with her.

So, what is the first book about? Read on.

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Buy at smashwords.com

There is a new girl in Katie Grace's first grade class. Maddie, one of Katie Grace's friends, thinks this girl is "weird, definitely weird"...and so is anyone who tries to be friends with her. What makes things harder is that the new girl doesn't seem to want to be friends anyway.

What is a girl to do? Should Katie Grace go along with Maddie and avoid being called "weird" herself? Or should she try to make friends with the new girl no matter what Maddie says? And why does it take so long to see any change for the better?

Buy at amazon.com

Katie Grace's mother uses some of the parables of Jesus told in a fun, conversational way, to help her daughter discover and make good choices.

Kids will enjoy the fun times Katie Grace has with her friends. They will relate to the struggles she has with peer pressure and with waiting for change to happen. Parents can use this book to help their children discover important lessons about being a good friend, and the need for patience as they wait for good changes to happen.

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Sound good? You can purchase "Katie Grace Makes a New Friend" for only $0.99 by clicking one of the ebook cover images in this post. Or, you can click one of the links below.

• Purchase at Amazon for Kindle and Kindle readers.
• Purchase at Smashwords for all formats.

If you and your children enjoy Katie Grace, please be sure to tell others. I'd certainly appreciate it if you would drop by either www.amazon.com or www.smashwords.com and leave a review.

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Two other Katie Grace books will be coming in the near future.

Katie Grace and the Me Firsties - Katie Grace has a bad case of the "Me Firsties". She always wants to be first in everything, from getting to the car first to being first in line at school. She wants to have the most...the biggest. 

Unfortunately for Katie Grace, the "Me Firsties" get her in trouble with her friends. Katie Grace learns about being truly sorry, and being forgiven. But when her brother breaks something that is special to her, will Katie Grace choose to forgive as she has been forgiven?

Katie Grace's mother shares several of the parables of Jesus to help her understand about forgiveness and not always trying to be first.

Katie Grace and the Sticky Fingers - A lost pet and a lost paper for a school project give Katie Grace a large dose of worry. That worry, though, turns to rejoicing when the lost is found.

When Katie Grace finds herself with sticky fingers that take money from her mother's purse to buy treats for her friends, she loses something even more important. Will her parents be able to forgive her? Will God forgive her?

Katie Grace's parents share the three "Lost" parables to help her understand that God...and they...will always rejoice when the "lost" one is found.

First Katie Grace eBook is Coming Soon - Advice Needed on Cover

In early January, I wrote a post about a new series of children's books that is in the works. These books are about a first-grader named Katie Grace. You can read more about the idea behind this series here. The first one is almost ready to publish as an ebook. Two others are still in the editing stage with a fourth still being written.

#1

I've been working on a cover for the first book. The teenager who is doing the illustrations does a nice job with the black and white drawings inside the book. The cover illustration, though needs to be in color. We are both learning how to work with that. 

I realize none of these covers are professional quality, but I frankly don't have the money to have a cover professionally made. Even so, I want to put together the best non-professionally made cover I can come up with.

#2

I have been experimenting with Photoshop, and I know I have only scratched the surface of what the program can do. I'd like to find a way to eliminate totally the white area around the girls. For those of you who know how to use Photoshop, I tried using the magnetic lasso tool to do that, and have almost been successful. Unfortunately, the lasso keeps cutting off Katie Grace's braids, so for the time being, I have to let go of that idea.

#3

 
Here are three possibilities that I have worked up so far. Keep in mind that I already know the illustrator needs to do more with the picture of the girls to brighten it up. Aside from that and assuming the picture is brightened,... 

• Which cover do you like best?
• Is there one you like if a few changes were made? 
• Perhaps you like a certain element from one cover and a different element from another cover. 

Or should I scrap them all and start over? 

Please leave any feedback you may have in a comment. I gladly welcome ... and really need ... any suggestions you may have.

Introducing....Katie Grace!

Allow me to introduce to you...Katie Grace, a bouncy, bright, yet sensitive seven-year-old girl who in many ways resembles my own daughter. She is the main character in a new series of children's books that I am working on.

This is a rough sketch of Katie Grace and her friend. The illustrator, I Ketut Suraksa is a teenager who lives at the children's home where I work in Bali.

Let me back up a bit. In November, I participated In NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. Thousands of authors and around the world participated in this event.The idea was to write a novel of at least 50,000 words during the month.

As it turns out, after thirty days I ended up with four small books that comprise the start of a series for early readers.

As Katie Grace experiences the everyday trials and challenges of first grade, her parents help her find her way through the problems. In the first four books, they use some of the parables of Jesus, told in a child-like manner, to guide her to a good response.

Along with Katie Grace, children can discover: