Guest Post: Alexa Moses on Creating The Twinning Series

Today we invite the uber-talented, Alexa Moses to share the process of creating a popular series for primary aged readers.

After my Michaela Mason series for tweens came out, Scholastic Australia asked me to pitch them a commercial, illustrated series for 7-11 year old girls, and I ran around the house squealing for a bit, before settling down and mulling over ideas. 

One of those was a diary series with alternating points of view, between two 10-year-old girls. 

Of course, there are plenty of diary series for kids on bookstore shelves, but the shifting point-of-view would afford me gags and dramatic irony. Were these characters best friends? Sisters?

12 Curly Questions with author Alexa Moses

Photo credit: Daryl Charles

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.
I’m a super-knitter. I’m on a sock jag now.

2. What is your nickname?  
Lex

3. What is your greatest fear?
My own death, or the death of the people closest to me. I get dizzy thinking about it.

4. Describe your writing style in ten words.  
Snappy, funny, honest, colourful, empathic with turn-the-page storylines.

5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
Humorous, clear, brave, persistent, and disciplined.

6. What book character would you be, and why?
Elizabeth Bennet from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Was there ever another heroine so sparkling, clever, and mischievous? And she got to marry the adorably uptight Mr Darcy.

Review: Slave Girl

I am thrilled to have had the chance to read Slave Girl. It is a historical time-travel fantasy (one of my favourite genres) written for tween girls without the romance involved with a young adult or adult book.

In Slave Girl we meet 13-year-old Jenna Bookallil-Brown - from Erskineville, Sydney, Australia - who is an exchange student in New York. She is introduced as an angry fashionista who later develops into a loyal and appreciative teenager.

Review: Twinning: BFFs (NOT); Twinning: Skipping Stars

These are The Top Secret Diaries of Twin Sisters. 

A fantastic read, they are part of a series with wonderful characters, light-hearted narratives, and a focus on multicultural - people and customs.

Ten-year-old Grace and Izzy are identical twins. But that’s where the likeness stops.

They love each other very much, but there is friendly sibling rivalry between them. 

 Sharing a bedroom is challenging.

Totally different in character, Izzy is untidy, loud, feisty, and loves hamburgers.

Grace is quiet and thoughtful. She loves to read, art, wear fashionable clothes, and eat vegetarian food.

Review: Bat vs Poss

A delightfully rhythmic story about sharing and making friends set in branches of a sprawling paperbark tree.

Bat vs Poss caught my heart in the very first scene, beautifully illustrated with an Australian native tree; the home of a possum family and other creatures, surrounded by terrace houses, wheelie bins and city lights in the background. Everything about it felt familiar to me, as it would for many people who have lived in urban Australia.

Guest Post: Alexa Moses on Playing With Poetry

When I was younger, poetry seemed as stultifying as a hot church on a summer’s afternoon. Poetry had nothing to do with me and I wanted nothing to do with it. At its worst, poetry meant being recited lines I didn’t understand by a bristling adult who used a sonorous ‘poetry’ voice.

Turns out, I was wrong about poetry.

Guest Post: Alexa Moses on Character Crushes

When I was in year 5, I fell in love for the first time. I knew with burning clarity that this guy would understand my 11-year-old soul like no one else could.

I wasn’t sure how Gilbert and I would make it work, since he was:

a) Canadian; b) living in the 1870s; and c) fictional - but those facts didn’t stop me from day-dreaming.

Of course I understood it was impossible, but I struggled to square that with the feeling that Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables was meant for me.

Am I alone here? I’m hoping other avid readers understand the feeling of connecting with a person who doesn’t exist except on paper.

Here are a few other literary crushes of mine:

The eccentric and passionate Jonathan from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Funny, envious Erica from Hating Alison Ashley by Robin Klein. Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books.

Were these heroes inspired by real people? The beating heart in each makes me think they were.

Review: This is Us - Essential Australian Poems for Young People

There is music in everything around us. The music of poetry reflects the music of Life itself. 

That's how it is in This is Us: Essential Poems for Younger Readers, a celebration of life. 

An outstanding collection of poetry chosen by Libby Hathorn and Jude Fell, it contains 61 poems chosen from states all over Australia. 

At times, full of nonsense and laughter, they include the sky and Earth, and everything in between. 

Lots of free verse is mixed in with rhyming and rhythmic poems - about Nitz, mosquitoes, swans in their majestic beauty, wombats and lyrebirds.  

Tender and deeply moving ones such as 

Review: Scaredy Cat

Scaredy Cat is a entertaining, read aloud, rhyming story, about a little girl and her four-legged friend.

Scaredy Cat is afraid of all manner of things; bees, sneezes, noises, toys, boys and much much more. Luckily he's got an owner that is brave and unafraid of pirates and crooks. She absolutely adores him.

Heather Gallagher's rhyme captivates readers to want to know more about Scaredy Cat. It is a fast paced hunt around the garden, out the gate and to the beach, 'Have you seen my Scaredy Cat?'

Review: Santa and the Sugar Glider

It’s Christmas Eve and the rainforest animals cram against one another to see an incredible sight. Santa and his reindeers have landed! A catastrophe has occurred on their special night! Comet has collided with an albatross and sprained her ankle.

Santa needs help!

He announces to the animals that an audition for a temporary replacement will take place at sunset. His Christmas magic can make anyone fly. But only a special kind of animal will do.