Roaring Book Press | Daddy Mojo

Vanya and the Wild Hunt plays it safe for the mglit crowd

Vanya and the Wild Hunt is a tale of two books and follows a trail of breadcrumbs that mglit audiences except and appreciate. A young girl has mysterious parents. Something happens to her, or her parents, which reveals her proclivity towards magic and a quest ensues. There are elements of these patterns or tropes that have existed in literature for the past 100 years. Vanya and the Wild Hunt know their audience. The core audience for this book is fifth-grade through eighth-grade girls. There will always be outliers, but if 100 copies of this book were in various people’s hands, the vast majority would fit in that demographic.

Vanya and the Wild Hunt is mglit that uses the same playbook with minimal changes, but will preach to girls aged 8-12.

Deja vu

My Parents Won’t Stop Talking! will be on your forever bookshelf

The cover of this book is annoying, and that is the point. My Parents Won’t Stop Talking! Is an illustrated book that channels the impatience, imagination, panicked exaggeration, and manic mood swings that kids can have like few books before it. When you read it you’ll remember when you were a kid and your parents would not stop talking. The family was out for a walk, they’d see somehow they know and talk for what seemed like hours. My Parents Won’t Stop Talking! is from the viewpoint of a possibly impatient child as that exact thing happens.

My Parents Won’t Stop Talking! is the perfect intersection of art and story in a picture book about patience, perception, and creativity.

Embrace the choas and go down the rabbit hole

Elementary readers will be forever Bad Kitty, #FurEverBadKitty

For us, Bad Kitty is the best kind of retiring cop buddy-movie. They always manage to pull us back in. Our 11-year-old went through a huge Bad Kitty phase when he was in third grade. He would howl with laughter when we’d leave him alone so that he could dig in with Uncle Murray, kitty, and the other animals that make up Nick Brule’s world. That was a couple of years ago. His brother was casually interested in Bad Kitty, and then not at all. However, now, just like the venerable Sergeant Murtaugh who’s about to retire, our nine-year-old has rediscovered a certain skittish black kitty.

Bad Kitty, even the upper elementary kids dig it