Parisian Phoenix Publishing

2023 marked Parisian Phoenix’s official entry into children’s lit with the launch of Parisian Phoenix Kittens and the release of the Echo City Capers Jr. hardcover children’s books. Joe and Ralph, our own dynamic duo, have another hardcover planned for 2024, a hardcover update to Otto the Oak.

But I can’t help but get excited as publisher because Joe and Ralph have asked me to release a second edition of their middle-grade fiction, Who Turned the Lights Out?

(Middle-grade readers are hopping up from picture books, typically ages eight to 12 or United States grades three to six. Need more info? Try this post from Novelry.)

No one is more excited about this than me. This one is my favorite of the Echo City Capers stories– a touch of 1960s, Adam West Batman, a pinch of Inspector Gadget, and the bumbling baddies we’ve come to love. The original, very glossy version of the book was released by a publisher in Canada, Grandfalloon. More about its 2022 release here.

I won’t give away too much of the story here, but Nightbat comes up against the mysterious Dr. Light in this story. This new villain to Echo City is out to rob everybody, building and thing of its electricity, during a particularly hot summer. EC Citizens dreading the sudden stopping of AC units, not to mention their cell phones, Chief Stone and Mayor Clifton trying their best to thwart the Dr.’s Plans (or at least figure what those plans are going to be) Nightbat gathers his clues, even gets into a cliffhanger trap set by Dr. Light halfway through the book, but finally uses his superhero skills to meet, and…well, it wouldn’t be fair if I told you what happens now, would it?

Baxtor Starr, Echo City’s newscaster

The 2024 second edition will allow some corrections to the artwork and adjustment to the size, with a February release date to correlate with the duo’s spring school visits. The story will also expand with some bonus content.

But also in 2024…

Larry Sceurman is working on his first middle-grade book, a story about individuality called Barry the Dancing Bear. And while it’s not Parisian Phoenix-related per se, we’re also excited about Jess Rinker‘s release of her passion-project middle-grade, Monolith. I can get excited about things that happen outside the Parisian Phoenix world. That’s why I say I like to build community in addition to publishing books.

If you want to learn more about Jess, subscribe to her Substack. Maybe start with this one which she titled “So You Want to Write a Children’s Book.”

When you walk into a bookstore or a library and get swept away by books, by the shelves and shelves of “ideas” that came to life, the one thing you need to know is that the vast majority of those books came by years of learning and hard work. These are not people who simply said “I might write a book someday” and then sit down one weekend and do it and become rich and famous. I’m sure it’s happened. There are always exceptions. I’m not looking them up because it will just piss me off. But it’s not really how it works, not even for children’s authors. Dare I say especially for children’s authors. Because in order to write a successful story for children, one has to be able to access that part of their moldy, inhibited, grown-up brain that is still childlike, and most adults cannot do this. 

–Jess Rinker

Let’s circle back…

But 2023. Remember 2023? This is a blog post about 2023. (If you think that sounded vaguely like Alice’s Restaurant, we are officially friends. Because it’s Thanksgiving and I am obligated to mention that song at Thanksgiving and my mom had the vinyl. Before vinyl was cool. When vinyl was the alternative to 8-tracks.)

Shelf Awareness, a book industry daily newsletter, announced their best children’s books of the year.

This year has delivered some incredible reading material for children and teens. Our 2023 Best Children’s and YA Books encompass titles of varying genres across age ranges–including read-alouds, early chapter books, poetic middle-grade, and introspective nonfiction for young adults. Beautifully illustrated picture books feature tasty spreads of bread, dancing literary figures, and trouble-making kittens. Middle-grade readers will find touching memoirs filled with art, hilarious and courageous fiction, and meticulously researched histories. And our young adult picks highlight horror–both fiction and non–as well as adorable first-like stories.

Siân Gaetano, children’s and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

And since we’ve spent so much real estate on middle-grade, here’s the Shelf Awareness Best of Middle-Grade 2023 list:

• Just Jerry: How Drawing Shaped My Life by Jerry Pinkney (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow (Disney Hyperion)
• Kin: Rooted in Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
• 102 Days of Lying About Lauren by Maura Jortner (Holiday House)
• A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat (First Second)
• Nearer My Freedom: The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano by Himself by Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge (Zest Books/Lerner)
• When Clouds Touch Us by Thanhhà Lai (HarperCollins)
• The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln, illus. by Claire Powell (Dutton Books for Young Readers)

This blog entry is inspired by an issue of Shelf Awareness.