Celebrating Baby Moo & Tara Tyler's Cradle Rock

This week's Celebrate the Small Things hop was an easy one for me as I am celebrating that my first ever children's book, Baby Moo's Great Escape, will be out in less than a week now! September 8 is the day. Thanks again to all who have volunteered to help me spread the word by giving the book a shout-out this month.

I'm also celebrating that I actually visited with Baby Moo himself last week when I took a trip to Sunrise Sanctuary. I had such a great time with all the animals! But of course Baby Moo got special attention and he is as sweet as can be. He was gracious enough to take a picture with me while he was hanging out in his barn in order to get out of the hot sun.

I'm glad Baby Moo and I got to be friends!

The Celebrate hop is hosted by Lexa Cain and co-hosted by L.G Keltner at Writing Off the Edge and Tonja Drecker at Kidbits. Visit Lexa's blog here to find out how join in the hop yourself and to see the list of participants.

I'm also super excited to welcome my bookfest buddy Tara Tyler to the blog and share the excellent cover for her new book Cradle Rock. Welcome, Tara!!



Thanks, for helping me with my cover reveal, Julie! I'm excited to see your MG book!

CRADLE ROCK is book two in my Beast World series. In it, there are many beast species. Each fantasy writer adds their own tweaks to traditional fantasy creatures, and today I'm going to tell you about one of mine.

GOBLINS

In Beast World, goblins, pixies, elves, and ogres are the closest to humans. They don't morph into other creatures or have animal appendages. Goblins and pixies are the most intelligent of that bunch, but goblins like rules and order, where pixies are the opposite.



Goblin Origins - from my research, goblins started in European stories during the Middle Ages and most stories depict them as evil or mischievous and dwarf-like with various abilities and dispositions.


Tolkien's goblins - evil, ugly, and wicked creatures!



Rowling's goblins - highly intelligent creatures entrusted to run Gringotts, the wizard bank.


Beast World Goblins - I like the Harry Potter version of goblins. Though my goblins are highly intelligent, they aren't perfect. They're small, green smarties with sass. They like to be in control. They aren't strong, so must use their cunning to provide order to the lesser intelligent masses - very similar to humans in that respect.

How do you picture goblins? What's your favorite fantasy creature?

CRADLE ROCK
by Tara Tyler
Publication Date: December 1, 2016

Welcome to the forest.
Gabe and his girlfriend Ona are headed in opposite directions for Spring Break. After finding out humans might be a real part of their history, Ona is determined to dig up evidence of them in the mysterious mountains at Camp Cradle Rock. Being a logical goblin, Gabe tries to talk her out of it, but there's just no reasoning with a stubborn ogress.

When Ona goes missing, Gabe and his friends fly to Cradle Rock to search for her and discover a village of trouble, igniting an age old war. His physical skills may be lacking, but Gabe won't give up. With the help of his diverse group of friends, he will find a way to save his girl and maybe all beastkind. Humans, bah!

Add to your Reading List on Goodreads!

 

Tara Tyler is a math teacher and writer who loves to help and inspire others. Her problem solving skills mesh with her vivid imagination to teach math in new ways and overflows into her productions of exciting action-adventure stories in a variety of media. Pop Travel is the techno-thriller series that started it all and Beast World invites a younger audience to join the fun!