The journey continues

Short version—I am feeling so incredibly honored by the assessment that has come in from Kirkus Reviews. Full text of the review can be read on their website.

The long wordy version—as I have posted here in the blog about before, The Way of the River began long, long ago as a simple story that grew over the years into a multi-generational bedtime series of made-up-on-the-spot tales within our family when my sister and I were very young children. In the beginning it was called The Tales of Henry, and it was based on a character our father first imagined and wrote piano scores for. Years later, at the behest of my own and my sister’s young (at the time) children, I began to jot the stories down. Eventually, I began writing the manuscript with increasing seriousness and increasing the story’s scope, and with the simple goal of putting it into book format for us, once and for all (because as a lifelong, rabid maker of books and zines and publications, both professionally and for personal joy, that is what I do!). What came out was a full-scale middle grade novel, and I had no idea where it would lead and the adventures that would follow. As a lifelong writer, but also as someone who is a novice, first time novelist, I am pinching myself in disbelief over the journey this story has had so far. To my family—this is for us! Yay, Henry!