This Coming Saturday I'll Be In Worlize.com

This Saturday April 14 from 3:00 PST to 4:00 PST I will be in a Worlize virtual world / video chat. Come hang out with me! http://worlize.com/ 

'Max Quick' Nominated for Maine Student Book Award!!

 Just got some VERY exciting news: MAX QUICK: THE POCKET AND THE PENDANT has been chosen by an 'academy' of sorts of Maine teachers and librarians as a Nominee for the Maine Student Book Award!!!

This is a pretty huge deal, as this is a well-respected award won by several huge books in the recent past -- The Hunger Games won a few years back, as did the Percy Jackson books and several others you would recognize.  I am very thrilled and honored to be in this company, as you might imagine!

Over the coming months, students will read the nominated books and then vote on their favorite -- this is very much a grassroots / people's choice sort of thing.  True, the list is curated by teacher and librarians, but the student are the ones who will decide!!  This makes it even MORE exciting to me -- so keep your fingers crossed!!

In other news: Look what Suzy Lee Leow found in a rare bookstore in Van Nuys, California!

And lastly: Here I am, Skyping into a Maine classroom for National Read Aloud Day about a week ago:

New Max Quick review; Highlands Elementary and OC Book Fair Readings

First up: REALLY nice review of MAX QUICK: THE POCKET AND THE PENDANT from a member of the Maine Children's Book Award committee ... this could lead to something big! :)

"This book was first brought to my attention by my friend, Linda, who serves on the Maine Student Book Award committee with me. She had a fifth grade boy who brought this book to her claiming it was "the best book I've ever read!" He asked her to read it. She did. Then she brought it to our committee, shared her story and asked if others would please read it. She and I are both committed to listening carefully to what kids are saying about books so I promised her I would read it, even though I felt like all I was reading was fantasy/sci-fi stuff...not my genre of choice. But a promise is a promise...and so I opened the book....and did not put it down until I had finished the last page!"

More here: http://thebookmavenshaven.blogspot.com/2012/02/book-reviewthe-pocket-and-pendant-max.html

Next up: a bunch of snaps of my visit to Highlands Elementary: enjoy!

New reviews, Guest Author Posts

First up, a new review from The BK Club at Memorial Library. 

This is a perfect book for older readers who liked Rick Riordan’s The Red Pyramid, and other action adventure novels.

Next, a guest post by author Mark Jeffrey (that's me :) ) where I talk about maintaining consistent rules in fantastical settings -- and how to do that without losing the suspension of disbelief.  This was on a VERY popular YA book blog, so this was quite an honor.

My thinking here was that force = mass x acceleration; since acceleration is a function of time, if time tends towards zero, then force tends toward infinity. So I had to be careful to apply this rule consistently. For example, when the kids try to start a car, the engine immediately seizes up and dies. This is because the engine is meticulously designed to operate within normal physics: the amplified physics of the Pocket throw it out of whack.

And another review on BookDads.com, another VERY popular top YA book blog.

Max Quick reads like a video game in Mark Jeffrey’s fast-paced, action-packed modern day sci-fi adventure, Max Quick: The Pocket and The Pendant.  This book will keep young adults (and adults, too) glued to the page as the plot leaps and whooshes.  It’s no surprise Max had millions of downloads as a digital audio book. Full of vivid imagery and dialogue, one can easily picture Max Quick on the big screen or as a video game.  This book is the first in a series, and it will be sure to captivate many young adult readers.

Finally, something we don't see a lot of these days, but still very gratifying: a major new review of of MAX QUICK 2: THE TWO TRAVELERS podiobook. 

Be aware: The Two Travelers is a much bigger, darker book than it’s predecessor.  While The Pocket and the Pendant is suited and even targeted towards tweeners, I would definitely recommend The Two Travelers for an audience a few years older. And it’s BIG. The content spans many well spent hours.

And some new reviews of MQ2 also popped up on Podiobooks.com recently:

By: Arri
I thoroughly enjoyed Max Quick 1 which I listened to quite a while back. Just finished MQ 2 and have to say "Wow, brilliant thought provoking story. But also the performance by Mark is uncommonly great! After some thought I believe this pretty much my favorite on Podiobooks.com. I can't recommend this enough! I'm sure you'll have fun in these worlds with these characters. With luck we'll see the third installment before too long. Thanks Mark.

By: Traeonna
I cannot express enough how happy I am you've chosen to podcast the second book in this series. Like the first book, I've enjoyed this one immensely and am on my third read (now with my 9 year old son listening along). I love the cast of characters and the story always has me on wanting more. I highly recommend this series for both adults and children. I do not read paper novels as much as I used to due to issues with dyslexia, so I am so happy that more and more authors are podcasting them for free (as buying audiobooks is quite expensive if you "read" a lot). I also like that this is a story both my son and I can enjoy. It's smart enough to keep adults engaged in the story as well as entertaining enough to keep the kids interested. Another wonderful book and we both look forward to the next book.

By: Robin
I cant wait for Book 3 to come out on Podiobooks. I have thoroughly enjoyed the forst 2 books but really want to know what happens next. All excellent ratings for story and narration quality. Keep up the good work.

 Lastly, a little anecdote from today I posted on the MQ Facebook page, but repeat here as well ..

Popped into Manhattan Beach B&N to sign copies of MQ -- register person says: "Sold out! That book goes as fast as we restock it!" Checks computer, all LA-area stores save Promenade are sold out (!)

Some New Pictures

These were sent in by several readers recently: enjoy!  Oh, and there's one of me holding up my Junior Library Guild Award.  MAX QUICK: THE POCKET AND THE PENDANT is a 2011 selection, which means it is in the top 5% of books they evaluated ... and 95% of their selections go on to win major awards (!) so this is a great honor!

*Update: One more new pic! This is GABE with his copy of 'POCKET'!