Happy Middle Grade Monday! Today I'm thrilled to have Derek the Ghost from Scary School on Mundie Kids to talk about his first two books in his series, Scary School.
Hi Derek! Thank you for stopping by Mundie Kids today. How would you describe your Scary School series in 5 words or less?
Hilarious, spooky, super-fun, wacky, book series all kids should read. I may have to check Webster's on that last word.
Being a student at Scary School, you have a variety of interesting characters who attend there with you. Which of those characters do you enjoy hanging out with the most?
As the reader finds out, I'm actually an 11-year-old ghost who haunts Scary School and writes about all the terrible, wonderful, hilarious things that go on there, so I get to hang out with all the students. My favorite student to hang out with would have to be Petunia, whose half-flower half-girl and is completely purple from head to foot. She's the only student at Scary School who reads the Scary School series, so I think she's the coolest by far. She also loves to read just as much as I love to write. Since I'm a ghost, none of the bees that fly around her hair can sting me, so I'm also one of the only kids who can hang out with her.
Author Derek, what's one of the things you and Derek the Ghost have in common?
Derek the Ghost is basically an 11-year-old dead version of me, so we should have pretty much everything in common. What's more interesting is what we don't have in common. One of the big differences is I have mass and Derek the Ghost does not. Derek the Ghost is invisible most of the time, whereas I've never even been able win a game of hide-and-seek. Also I can interact with objects, while Derek the Ghost just passes through all matter.
What was one of your favorite scenes or chapters to write?
My favorite chapter to write in the first book was probably Chapter 6 - Dr. Dragonbreath's Rules, which is also the scariest chapter in the book. It starts off very ominously: At 8:00 am on the first day of school, there were thirty kids in Dr. Dragonbreath's class. At 8:12 am on the first day, there were only two kids in Dr. Dragonbreath's class. After that, it was a lot of fun playing with that tension for the rest of chapter and keeping the reader on the edge of their seat.
Most of the other chapters are much funnier than they are scary. In fact, Scary School just won the award as the "Funniest Middle-Grade Book of 2011" from Children's Literature Network, so you know there will be a lot of laughs.
Congratulations on that award! Can we except to find more books in this series being released any time soon?
Yes! Scary School #2: Monsters on the March just came out on June 26, 2012 and Book 3 will be coming out June 2013. Hopefully, there will also be a bunch more after that as well. I also have a very funny new book called Principal Mikey that we're currently shopping, plus I'm starting up a couple new projects - one is an older YA book that will be kind of an adventure story through great cinema, and also a new middle-grade series about the wackiest town in the world.
Thank you for stopping by today Derek!
From the Author:
For more information on Scary School and all my other books, I invite everyone to visit www.ScarySchool.com - it's a super-fun website! You can play a video game on it, and if you win, you will receive the weirdest trophy ever! Plus you can tour the school, meet the students and faculty, watch some cool videos, and even unlock the "Secret Last Chapter" but you'll only know how to do that after you finish reading Book 1 of Scary School!
About the Author:
Derek is an eleven-year-old ghost who haunts the classrooms and hallways of Scary School, writing down all the spine-tingling often hilarious things that go on there. Despite his ghostly state, Derek still enjoys reading comic books and hopes to one day become a master ninja. If that doesn’t work out, he will continue to share the fun of this very special, very secret school, so all kids can experience the scariest school on earth. Derek the Ghost communicates through the first-time ghost whisperer Derek Taylor Kent, who is a writer and performer in Los Angeles, California.
About the Books:
Scary School
By: Derek the Ghost
Published by: Harper Collins Children's
Released on: June 21st, 2011
* browse inside
You think your school's scary?
Gargoyles, goblins, and Frankenstein's monster on the loose
And
You think your school's scary?
Get a load of these teachers:
"Ms. Fang," an 850-year-old vampire
"Dr. Dragonbreath," who just might eat you before recess
"Mr. Snakeskin"--science class is so much more fun when it's taught by someone who's half zombie
"Mrs. T"--break the rules and spend your detention with a hungry "Tyrannosaurus rex"
Plus
The world's most frighteningly delicious school lunch
The narrator's an eleven-year-old ghost
Join Charles "New Kid" Nukid as he makes some very Scary friends--including Petunia, Johnny, and Peter the Wolf--and figures out that Scary School can be just as funny as it is spooky - quoted from Goodreads
Scary School: Monsters on the March
By: Derek the Ghost
Published by: Harper Collins Children's
Released on: June 26th, 2012
As winners of last year's Ghoul Games, the students of Scary School are off to Monster Forest. School may be scary, but the forest has a few frights of its own, including:Bearodactyls—so terrifying we can't even show you pictures of them
Princess Zogette, the Monster King's toad-faced daughter, who falls for Charles Nukid . . . hard
Captain Pigbeard, fearsome leader of the Monster-Pirates and Princess Zogette's fiancÉ (well, former fiancÉ, thanks to Charles)
And when Zogette follows Charles to Scary School, the Monster King and Captain Pigbeard raise their armies and chase after her. But the monsters have no idea who—or what—they're dealing with.
In this clever, funny sequel to the frighteningly hilarious Scary School, Charles, Penny Possum, Dr. Dragonbreath, and all the students and teachers prove that scary monsters are no match for Scary School! - quoted from Goodreads
You can learn more about this series and find out which of your favorite book stores has these books available by visiting Harper Collins Children's publishing site here.
Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is a weekly feature started by MG author Shannon Messenger and is a weekly post featuring an upcoming MG release, a MG Author Interview or a MG review. You can find out more about this series posts, and find links to author authors and bloggers who are taking part in this feature here. You can also my Must Have Middle Grade Reads feature on Mundie Moms
These sound like great books! I have Scary School and plan to read in the next month or so.
ReplyDeleteKathryn @ Clean Teen Fiction
They're fun reads! I hope you enjoy them :)
DeleteGreat interview. These sound like fun books. I loved reading Derek's info about the characters and who he liked best.
ReplyDeleteThank you Natalie! I think you'll enjoy this series.
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