Slim First

Slim the Ogre

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the children's book I wrote about Floppy the Monster will soon be published. It's actually going to come out under the title Floppy the Monster is Nearly Lost Forever, and I'll keep you posted... however, a different book will get there first!

This one is called Slim the Vegetarian Ogre and it's part of an educational resource designed to help children write their own stories. Here's what I wrote for the back cover blurb:

Slim the vegetarian ogre is the only ogre in all the land of Ogg who would not enjoy his own Gala menu of
Starter: snail soup with shell croutons, or brain gazpacho with crunchy teeth;
Main course: boiled meat (human) with worm spaghetti, or fried fingers in barbecue sauce with cockroach chips, or flame grilled rib steak with marshmallow eyes;
Dessert: Doughnuts fried in human fat, or jelly and full-fat human cream.
Drinks: bilgewater beer and fermented berry wine.

What is to become of such an ogre? Will Slim be forced to knuckle down and stop worrying his parents silly? Dr Roeg comes to Slim's rescue with an ingenious plan to save the ogre from his path of vegetarian destruction. But Slim has his own ideas. Find out how Slim develops his own plan to change the world and get to eat a pizza. 

How does that sound? Appealing? Interesting? Disgusting? Funny? OMG I'd never buy that for my kids/nieces/nephews/grandkids/kid next door/best friend's kid/other?

I wrote the story because I'd been writing material for the software that will be available for schools to help children write their own version. I put in a finished story as an afterthought because I thought it might be fun to have as a storytime story. In fact it's to be published in its own right!

The whole series looks like this:

Slim the Vegetarian Ogre the Book (hardback and paperback)
Slim the Vegetarian Ogre Digital Book Builder for teachers (adds stories from whole class to be printed in a book)
Slim the Vegetarian Ogre Digital Book Builder for Parents and Children (the child's story is printed in a book)

The book builders have help buttons for ideas, and literacy notes to help kids write more interesting stories. There's even an audio file of instructions from the ogre himself.

There'll be a website where kids can submit their stories and pictures and we'll have competitions to find the best ones.

If anyone's a member of Mumsnet and is interested in posting an 'honest and fair' review of the book, or on Amazon, do let me know.