I love spunky children's books. I embrace brilliant colors, whimsical characters, and humorous pictures that influence invaluable life lessons too like maybe don't feed dragons spicy salsa. I even like this about viewing cartoons at my age. I never ceased watching them. I candidly adore reading my grandchild these kinds of books. And cartoons are always a good source to turn to when feeling like just escaping the real world and imagining yourself in some far off place, completely and utterly different than the world we currently live in. And so that is why I love it so much. Apparently other adults do too. 

In fact, the very first book I ever wrote was a children's book called, The Adventures of Little Eugene. The book was a story poem regarding a little moose, who ended up getting lost in the forest. In his travels trying to find his parents at home, he comes across both good and bad other animals. It was a good educational book with lots of fun scenery, and just a fabulous little positive message concerning friends.

Being a huge advocate of children, It also aspired me to address the concept that the world we currently reside in, is not all peaches and cream. And yes there are going to be some bad days and good days, but you will regularly have to keep an eye open sort of speak when approaching strangers, etc. 

So, I had some parts in the book that had scary, but realistic situations, where Little Eugene had to use his noggen to get out of some harry circumstances. So, in essence, the book was realistic to some degree too. Anyway, at the time I had no illustrations done. However, today it's a little more easygoing to produce a book, but the same challenges with finding illustrators are always there and can be a bit challenging, especially if you are deciding to self-publish. That is another story for another day though. 

In conclusion, I learned a large amount of working for a publisher at the time. Children's books are a lot harder to get published than most people think. I also learned that so many adults today love these books as much as kids do. Anyhow, enough about my book: 

Eva Chen has hit the mark with her Juno Valentine series but is branching out into children's literature in a huge way with Roxy the Unisaurus Rex, available October, from Macmillan.

Yeah, Roxy, the Unisaurus Rex looks as cool as she sounds. The romper can exclusively reveal the cover for this delightful new picture book, and its the bright, happy spot on the shelf that your kid will lunge for. A huge pink, orange, and yellow rainbow in the background give Roxy the jumping-off point to swing her majestic, unicorn-horned T. rex head out into the world. She has wings, she has a flowing shampoo-commercial mane, and her name is in big bold pink letters at the bottom of the cover: ROXY. I love her already. The animated glitter action won't happen in your home library, but you can imagine.

The premise of Chen's new book appears pretty simple: Let's blend everything children love into a character that can train them the art of self-expression. But it is so much bigger than that. Putting synchronically the best parts of a dinosaur and a unicorn, both often departed for children by gender stereotypes, Roxy becomes a character for absolutely everyone. She has a glittery horn but loves to eat steak. She wears a sparkly tutu but has a mouth full of sharp teeth. You get it. And of course, Roxy will find a friend on her adventures that helps teach her the importance of staying true to yourself. Sound very familiar.

Macmillan:

The story is illustrated by Matthew Rivera, and I'm already obsessed with how bright and fanciful Roxy is just from the cover. It's not daily you can find a children's book that gratifies both the child and the parent reading it times, but Roxy seems like a good fit. And any picture book that makes me want to wallpaper my house with its pages, is more than OK by me.