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Meet
Julius Carmichael: First Day Blues
By
Jonathan Carroll
Educator
Writes and Self-Publishes Children's Book
By
Junious Ricardo Stanton Jonathan
Carroll a third grade teacher at Moorestown Friends School has
been thinking, dreaming and pondering about writing books for
and about African-American youngsters to give them positive
images and content that will also stimulate their enjoyment of
reading. He enjoys teaching children and also enjoys reading and
writing. So when he noticed there were very few books aimed at
African-American children he started writing as a solution to a
very real problem.
"I
started writing when I realized in my classroom there weren't
many African-American authors for me to choose from so I decided
to become one of them." Carroll explained. He decided to
write stories that would relate to children's universal
experiences: family, school, making friends, discovering how to
navigate social relationships and learning important life
lessons.
"Not
only did I feel there was a gap in the literature for children,
I also thought there was a gap in that there weren't that many
African-American male voices being heard in the literature for
children. I wanted to fill that void so children would be able
to understand how African-American boys are slightly different
in their behavior and demeanor from other children. I also
wanted to develop in young African-America boys a love of
reading because if they don't read early, they're not going to
read later on when it becomes more necessary to educate
yourself."
Carroll
deliberated on his plan, thoroughly weighed his options and
finally decided to go the self-publishing route because he
didn't find any large publishing houses publishing the types of
books he was writing. "I felt that self-publishing would be
a way to learn the business. I'd be able to market the books in
the way I thought was best and reach the audience I felt was
best and take charge of the whole project; do it my way."
Carroll shared.
By
publishing the book himself, Carroll assumed control over every
aspect of the project, its make up, the cover, lay out, content
and editing. But he is also responsible for making all the
marketing, promoting, and distribution decisions.
"Officially the book comes out in May, we're planning a big
release party and at this point we're working with distributors
to target specific book stores so that when we do come out in
May we'll be easily accessible to the whole
community."
As
part of his marketing strategy Carroll plans to submit copies of
the book to the book review publications and the educational
markets such as elementary and middle schools, school libraries
and also the English Departments of colleges and universities to
show them the importance of using diverse images and materials.
The
title of the book is,
Meet
Julius Carmichael: First Day Blues .
It is about an eleven year old African-American boy who is
returning to school from the summer vacation and his
vicissitudes meeting a new classmate and becoming friends.
Jonathan enjoyed the creative process, writing the book and
anticipates this will be the first in a series of books about
Julius Carmichael the central character of the book who is
patterned somewhat after himself.
"There's
a lot of me in Julius Carmichael in that I was a young
African-American boy who had to struggle and survive. I wanted
to take a lot of things my parents tried to instill in me and
place them into this character because I feel they are things
that are positive and often a lot of the images that are thrown
at African-American children aren't so positive. I wanted to
take a lot of things that are positive and place them into this
character so that children will be able to see that those
characters do exist."
Aside
from the sense of accomplishment he has from making his dream
come true, Carroll wants his books to be successful, widely read
and well liked. "We want Julius Carmichael to become a
beloved character, i.e., the Harry Potters and the Ramona
Quimby's and other children's characters of legend. So the next
novel is already in the pipeline. It's being edited and
proofread. We're looking at a Thanksgiving release, which is Meet
Julius Carmichael: Nanna To The Rescue."
Carroll
plans to write the books so young readers share Julius' growing
up experiences and see themselves in Julius' experiences.
"We're certainly looking to grow up before children's eyes.
Again we want to have Julius Carmichael be a character that
children can relate to, look to and see themselves in. We'll
take him to a point and I don't know what that point is at this
particular time, but we'll take him to a point, as long as he's
loved and accepted by the community and continues to be someone
the children can look to a relate to." explained
Carroll.
For
more information about the books you can E-mail Carroll at JC@Strikingpresence.com
or call (609) 936-7278.
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