Recap from July 2022: Previously, I shared with you that I’d written a children’s picture book (‘Raccoon and Pig, and the donut truck’). I used an agile approach and my kids were excited to be part of moving work across a Kanban. They provided progressive feedback on pieces before the book was published.
The kids have been getting a feel for the Product Owner role with my latest release. We’re very proud to announce, ‘Hidden Powers – The Stolen Ruby’ is now available. It’s a middle-grade (readers 8-13 y.o.) urban fantasy, chapter book. Taking what we’d learned from Raccoon and Pig, we refined our agile approach. The first few readers have loved the results!
The kids played a key role. I’d write chapters and they’d review them with me. We’d talk about bits that might benefit from an illustration, and I’d roughly sketch something up. Taking learning from last time, I created illustrations at the same time as words, rather than finishing all the text first. We had to be careful the illustrations didn’t become irrelevant, based on changes to the storyline, but that was manageable. As a result of flowing text and illustrations through the Kanban at the same time, chapters came to life quicker and my Junior Product Owner ‘read-throughs’ provided richer feedback, influencing the plot twists and turns. We’d very much love your support in spreading the word about the book. If you have relatives or know of any readers 8-13 y.o., please consider our book.
You can find it on Amazon:
Illustration from, ‘Hidden Powers – The Stolen Ruby’ (Illustrator: Andrew Hobday)