Sep 12, 2007 -- /prbuzz/ --How many 5-year olds do you know who can capture the spirit of a holiday in a story, with a great structure, a solid plot, and plenty of suspense, in 60 words or less? And in another language? A new Children’s Book Publisher, Maroma Books asks, how many 5-year-olds have you asked to try?
This is exactly what young Alberto Fernandez has done with “A Halloween Story,” and with the unique “Your Turn” pages, the readers (or the children being read to) are invited to create their own stories, using creepy characters they meet in the story.
This remarkable picture book is Maroma Books’ first title. It pairs the clever tale with illustrations of Mexican artist Pilar de la Fuente, whose black & white drawings in pencil & ink, add ghoulish glee to “A Halloween Story.”
Alberto, who was born and lives in Monterrey, Mexico, wrote the story in his English class as part of a project last Halloween. Just learning how to write, and just learning English, his first version was with phonetic spelling, and accompanies by his own creature creation drawings. His teachers, surprised by its remarkable structure, and how the story captures its audience, shared it with Alberto’s parents.
Alberto’s father, Alberto Fernandez, Sr., inspired by his son’s story saw the book as the start of something big:
• Finding new ways and audiences to appreciate talented young Mexican authors and artists.
• Improving education, (more than half of Maroma’s profits will go towards improving education in some of Mexico’s most impoverished areas).
• Enhance multi-cultural & multi-lingual understanding, (each of the books will be available at the publisher’s website in various languages, easy and free to print-out for children to practice and compare with their copy).
Thus, Maroma Books was born. (The word “Maroma” is Spanish for “summersault.”)
The founding principles of Maroma Books, says Fernandez, Sr. is “to reach children, through our books, to:”
1. Feel. Through a tear or a belly-laugh.
2. Free themselves from the artificial limits adults unconsciously set for children.
3. Question. To arrive at the meaning each book has for them, by their own able minds and means.
4. Explore. Languages & Cultures.
5. Learn. To compliment what children learn in school with an emphasis on the arts.”
Contact: Molly Armstrong, Editor, Maroma Books.
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www.maromabooks.com. Tel. (888) MAROMA 8. Orders:
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Reviewers solicited: e-version available.
Tip Sheet also available: 5 Tips on how to How to Spark & Feed the Creativity of Your Young Storyteller.
A Halloween Story: Available via Baker & Taylor & Maroma Books directly:
Hardcover: $14.95 US
ISBN 13: 978-0-9796465-08
ISBN 10: 0-9796465-1-0
Paperback: $9.95
ISBN 13: 978-0-9796465-2-2
ISBN 10: 0-9796465-2-9
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About the Press Release
October story time was just ho-hum before A Halloween Story came to town, encouraging young readers, and those read to, to not only enjoy the creepy characters they meet, but invent their own stories.
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