Reviews for Moon Puppets, Also Sandwiches

I received my first review for Moon Puppets! I avoided the whole nervous trope thing–making someone else read it first because I was afraid of what it would say. Instead, I couldn’t click the links in the email fast enough to read it. I was super excited to see my work reviewed by a stranger and posted on such a wonderful site like Indies Today. Here’s part of the review by Nicky Flowers:

“Flora Figglesworth is an adventurous young girl with one ambitious goal: Flora wants to broadcast shadow puppets on the moon for the entire world to enjoy! It’s a tall order, so she will need a little help and a lot of ingenuity. Moon Puppets uses a rhythmic method to convey a lovely story for young children. Vivid illustrations add a touch of whimsy to a well told story of a child reaching out to achieve a goal.”

You can read the full review of the book here: Moon Puppets by Baxter Bramatti | Indies Today

Moon Puppets also recently received a five coffee cup review by the Caffeinated Reviewer. Which is great, because the coffee cups are like stars but better because they are filled with coffee. Yes, I’ll take five cups of coffee, please. The Caffeinated Reviewer is a fantastic site for authors, including indie authors. When Kimberly, the Caffeinated Reviewer, reviews picture books, she reads them to her grandchildren to get their reactions too. Kimberly says Moon Puppets is “delightful, educational and imaginative” and you can read her full review of the book here.

On the same day that Indies Today posted my book, I noticed that my good friend, Molly, over at her lovely blog, Belle and Roses, gave my book a nice shout-out, saying, “It’s a rhyming book, which is so fun, the pictures are delightful, and my girls constantly choose it as their snack time story.” Thanks for the support, Molly, and I’m glad your girls like it! Even better than my book being on her post is the mention of her new found love of cucumber and peanut butter sandwiches. I love sandwiches. Please, everyone, share all of your sandwich recipes and ideas with me.

If you’re interested in owning a copy of Moon Puppets, you can purchase it anywhere books are sold online or just click here for the Amazon link. The ebook is also free to download if you have Kindle Unlimited subscription. Not sure about grabbing a copy? Why not make yourself a sandwich while you think about it?

A Quarantined Book Release Party

I want to preface this post by acknowledging that a lot of people, a lot of families are struggling and suffering in terms of physical and mental health and finances due to the COVID19 outbreak. This post is in no way meant to be a “woe is me–I couldn’t do the thing I want to do” kind of thing. On the same note, I do believe we can complain and sit in our own self-pity about whatever we want. Our lives are constantly affected in new ways and I do my fair share of complaining these days, especially about the country’s toilet paper situation.

But no complaints here. This post is a “thank you,” a tribute, an acclamation to my wife.

Any fantasy I’ve ever had about releasing a book and throwing myself a party to promote and announce the work (but most importantly, to receive pats on the back and congratulatory nonsense from friends and family because hey, I did this and I’m allowed to be thrilled about it) died on March 13. That was the day the state of Michigan started promoting staying at home, and it was eleven days before my book was set to be released. Should I change the date? I thought about it for a little while but decided I didn’t want to do that. Too much time and energy and late nights and editing and revising and creating had gone into getting it ready for that date. The release was already delayed a few times for technical reasons. I was sticking with March 24 knowing that none of my fantasies about the launch would be realized.

And trust me, I’m a dreamer, so I have fantasies about everything. I imagined all of it: the miraculous sale of millions of copies of my book; #1 spots at the top of best-selling lists; the dreamt-about-too-many-times instant contract with Disney to turn my work into an animated short or feature film; and a friendly invitation to appear for a guest spot on Sesame Street. None of those things were going to happen, you know, because of COVID19 (and only because of COVID19, right?).

But something I never imagined took place instead: I got a surprise book release party with my wife and my kids.

I knew my wife had something in the works when she ordered me to spend an hour or two away from her and the kids and quarantined me in another part of the house (which I have to admit was nice in and of itself since alone time for any of us is rare these days). But I didn’t know exactly what they were up to until the big reveal that night.

What I didn’t know is that something greater than anything I imagined was going to take place.

When I was called to the basement for the big surprise, my kids jumped out of their hiding spot (after I pretended not to see them hiding under a desk, of course). They were wearing purple shirts, the same color Flora wears in my book, Moon Puppets. And they taped yellow cut-out stars to their shirts to make them look even more like Flora. I couldn’t believe it. Not only were they just as enthusiastic as I was, but the fact that they left the paper stars on and didn’t destroy them right away (the younger one lost hers while dancing a little later) and were genuinely excited to wear and show them made me feel better than any contract with Disney could have made me feel. So I felt emotionally richer, obviously not financially richer, okay? Let’s not kid ourselves.

My wife hung banners that she made with the kids to celebrate the release of the book. And she baked chocolate chip cookies to represent the moon and made star-shaped grape Jell-O cutouts.

“She’d use the cookies as the moon and the Jell-O as the sky. Her first attempt proved scrumptious, I gave both of them a try!”
That’s for all you Moon Puppets fans out there!

Then my older daughter presented me with a gift. When I opened the box I found a small pipe cleaner model of Flora herself. I couldn’t believe that she made the fragile little doll. It made me so proud to see that she was inspired by something I created to create her own special thing. The moment captured the true essence of the whole self-publishing process for me: create something positive and put it out there without fear of judgement.

I mean look at this! The kid doesn’t even know what Etsy is!

I couldn’t believe the detail to their party, it didn’t matter that no one else was there, that I wasn’t sharing the moment with more people, strangers even. It mattered to my family, to my wife, to make sure I got a book release party for my first book. A party so good, I’m not sure I deserved it.

How to Announce a Book Release to Family

This past Christmas Eve, as my family gathered around the Christmas tree after eating way too much Middle Eastern food (which has become a Christmas Eve tradition among my Italian-American family…garlic, yum), I finally broke the news to everyone that I was going to be self-publishing my first book in 2020.

Talking about doing so, especially with close family, is a lot different than writing about it to a bunch of strangers. Strangers don’t ask many questions, if any at all. Strangers take information in and then they continue scrolling through their social media feeds. Family on the other hand, they want to know things. While I was excited to make the announcement to my wife, children, parents, and the rest of my loved ones, I was still apprehensive.

I figured the best way to get it over with was to tell them the truth: I had to tell them the story about how the book came to be.

I told them that in the previous spring I met someone special online. And then that special person and I started to develop a relationship. It was fast-paced and exciting at first, but then naturally slowed enough to where we began growing comfortable with each other. Then I hit my family with the big news: that about nine months after meeting this person, he and I were having a baby (I admit my wife knew about the book and played along well, she had this serious look on her face and she just kept nodding in agreement to what I was saying, which was hard for everyone else to figure out if she was excited or disappointed with what I was sharing).

I got raised eyebrows from my family members. I got questions about who the person was and what exactly I was talking about, which worked well to avoid questions about my writing and about the book.

The only logical thing to do next was to tell them that I had a picture of the ultrasound. I handed my mom an envelope. She hesitated to open it, even trembling a little, afraid to view the contents. Inside the envelope, though, was a print out of the book’s cover and the first page of the story.

Moon Puppets is available on March 24, 2020 in paperback, hardcover, and ebook formats on most websites you use to buy your books. So use one of those websites to buy Moon Puppets in one of those formats, won’t you?

They were happy for me. As was expected and as it should be. I then answered their questions about the book as best I could, and about the very special someone I met online, Taylor Graham. Taylor was amazing to work with and his beautiful art has brought on a bigger life for Flora FIgglesworth and her adventure than I ever thought was possible.

Now that my family knows about the book, I hope they buy it.