Interview which was hosted by Robbie Cheadle

https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/whos-that-in-the-cat-pajamas-by-sojourner-mcconnell/

This is the post with Sojourner's interview. My thanks to Robbie Cheadle for her interesting questions. She sure made me think!

Who’s That In The Cat Pajamas? by Sojourner McConnell

Sojourner McConnell is releasing a new book on 2 June 2017 and its for children. How exciting! I am delighted to host Sojourner on robbiesinspiration and to learn and share more about Who’s That In the Cat Pajamas?

The blurb

When the wind brings the cries of children to her ears, Dolcey is spurred into action. Comforting and aiding children in need is her main focus. Welcome to Dolcey’s world. Welcome to a world of magic and endless possibilities. When Emily has a big problem, her family tries to help, but some problems need something special to make things right. In Emily’s case, the special treatment is a visitor named Dolcey.

Author interview

Robbie: Welcome to Robbiesinspiration, Sojourner, it is lovely to have you over for a visit and learn more about you and your new book.

Sojourner: Thank you, Robbie, for this opportunity to share more about myself and my exciting news of the release of Who’s That In The Cat Pajamas?. I am so very excited, I hope you and other readers will join me for the release on June 2, 2017. I love your children’s books. I found an illustrator, she uses standard methods, our illustrations are not quite as tasty as yours.

Robbie: Thank you, Sojourner. I think your cover illustration is delightful. Why did you decide to write a book for children?

Sojourner: I was visiting my family that lives in Michigan for the month of December and my granddaughter, who is in the second grade, asked to read my book. I told her it was a hard book for little girls to read. She replied, “Then will you write me a book that I can read?” I promised her I would and before I made it home in January, I had the concept filling my brain and ready to be written. I was working on Mystery Thriller Week at the time, so I did not actually begin writing until March.

Robbie: What inspired you to write this particular story?

Sojourner: Who’s That In The Cat Pajamas? is the story of my daughter’s relocation far away from her home. I based the story on how a little cat could help. As the cat is not an actual cat, there is some magic and adventures to spice up the story.

Robbie: How have you adapted your marketing strategy for a children’s book rather than a book for adults?

Sojourner: That has been hard, I am looking for a parent’s group. I find author groups for children’s books, but I am not having much success finding the parents of the little readers. I am still searching for that group of parents and children in order to get the book seen by future readers. I hope that word of mouth by readers will promote the book. I also have a blog that shares back stories and features about upcoming characters. Promoting a book is not easy and simple. It is almost a full-time job.

[I think that all authors will agree with you in that regard, Sojourner.]

Robbie: Are you planning on writing a series about Dolcey?

Sojourner: I am writing a series featuring Dolcey. There will be quite a few differences in each story. I hope that the children and parents will respond positively to Dolcey and Emily. The name of the next book is shared at the end of Who’s That in the Cat Pajamas? and I hope they are as excited about the prospect of book 2 as I am.

Robbie: What age group are you targeting with this book?

Sojourner: I believe this book would be well received by children as young as four and I had a beta reader that was twelve and she said she enjoyed the book and can’t wait to read the next one. She had already read, The Path of the Child, and enjoyed that so her reading genres are as varied as mine. I have placed those as the prime ages for the book. The language is a little above grade one but the message is one even a younger child can appreciate.

Robbie: Thank you, Sojourner, for taking the time to answer my questions and tell me a bit about yourself and your book, Who’s That In The Cat Pajamas?

About Sojourner McConnell

Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. Sojourner McConnell lives in Winchester, Kentucky with one of her daughters and three of her thirteen grandchildren. She has six grandchildren in Alabama and four that live in Michigan.  Sojourner’s new book is a children’s chapter book, Who’s That in the Cat Pajamas which will release June 2, 2017.  Her next book, Blip, is a sci-fi book with humor and intrigue and is due out by December 2017. The Path of the Child, The Power of Forgiveness, and 31 Days of October are all available in paperback and in eBook format on Amazon and other retailers. Sojourner brings a taste of strong personalities with a healthy dose of southern charm to her characters.  As co-founder and part of the organizing team of Mystery Thriller Week, she has become fascinated with writing a mystery of her own. In fact, there might be a little mystery woven into one of the two books she is writing at present.  When not writing, she is busy entertaining her Australian Shepherd, Beau. Unfortunately, Beau tends to get jealous when she spends too much time working on the computer.

Purchase Sojourner McConnell’s books

You can pre-order Who’s That in the Cat Pajamas? on Amazon

For older readers, The Path of the Child is available on Amazon at a special price in celebration of the release of Who’s That in the Cat Pajamas?

Follow Sojourner McConnell

To learn more about Sojourner you can like her on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

Follow and friend her on Goodreads

Visit her blog for up close and personal posts about new books and more information about the characters in all her books. The Path of the Writer has a newsletter sign up too. Another way to keep up with everything about books is to follow her book reviews on The Page Turner.

Robbie and Michael Cheadle are the co-authors of the Sir Chocolate Book series

Purchase Sir Chocolate at:

https://www.amazon.com/author/robbiecheadle

OR

http://tinyurl.com/zdokqjr (currently available at a discounted price)

Follow Robbie Cheadle at:

Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15584446.Robbie_Cheadle

Facebook: @SirChocolateBooks

Plus.google: https://plus.google.com/105609586198905397891

The benefits of baking and cooking for children by Robbie Cheadle: A Friday's Fun and Family-Friendly Guest Post

The benefits of baking and cooking for children

Most children love to spend time in the kitchen either cooking or baking. It is a fabulous bonding experience with Mom or another caregiver and they always enjoying eating the results of their hard work afterwards.

I love to bake and both my sons have travelled the cooking, baking and eating road with me. Michael, particularly, loves to cook. He prefers to make more practical things than I do such as savoury and/or sweet pancakes, French toast and even stews and curries which he makes with his Dad. I like to make all sorts of fancy sweet treats and cakes.

I remember baking with my small boys. Gregory used to love to measure and pour the ingredients into the bowl. Funnily enough, Greg also loved to wash up. Sadly, this has not continued into his teenage years. I used to strip him down to his nappy and stand him on a few chairs lined up in front of the sink [so that he could not fall off] and set him free in front of a sink of soapy water. He used to splash around happy with a cloth washing up the bowl and wooden spoon. I kept the washing of any sharp implements and breakables for myself.

Michael, on the other hand, has never been a fan of any kind of cleaning up. He likes to measure, pour and, especially, to mix. He also likes to “lick” out the bowl. I have photographs of Michael covered from head to toe in chocolate cake mix with the bowl upside down on his head. What fabulous fun.

Other than the obvious fun and bonding factors, there are a list of other great benefits to baking with your children. I did some research on this and this is what I found:

1. Maths skills: Baking helps children to learn maths concepts, in particular, measurement and simple fractions (half a cup, a quarter of a lemon). In addition, multiplication and division are involved if you half or double a recipe. Other kinds of cooking may also involve patterning (for example with salads and kebabs) and simple addition (how many people are you feeding? how many cupcakes do you need for the class?);
2. Art skills: Decorating cupcakes, cutting out biscuits and making animals and people out of fondant (sugar dough). All of these activities encourage creativity and develop design abilities. An element of construction can also be involved if you are making a gingerbread house or a marshmallow tower and children learn how to fit pieces together and get a tower to stand up;

Cupcakes decorated for charity by the children of St Columba’s Presbyterian Church Sunday School – Parkview, South Africa

3. Comprehension skills: Baking and cooking teaches children how to read and interpret a recipe. They learn to follow a sequence of steps and how to organise the required ingredients. Baking also teaches children techniques and vocabulary such as folding, beating, kneading and blending;
4. Science skills: Contrary to popular belief, baking is a science. Children learn the scientific effects of raising agents such as yeast and baking powder. They learn about the interaction between certain substances such as salt and bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and milk, yeast and warm water. If they make a mistake and/or leave out an ingredient, disaster often follows which helps enforce these learning points;

Giant marshmallow made by Michael – the scientific effects of gelatine

5. Life skills: Baking and cooking with your children teaches them lifelong skills. In the future, the job of feeding themselves and their future families will become theirs. Baking and cooking skills will stand them in good stead when they leave home; and
6. Self-esteem: Baking and cooking helps increase children’s self-esteem as they see and taste the results of their efforts. It also teaches children to work together with someone else in a team and that hard work pays dividends in the end.

I am not an occupational therapist but I found the following additional benefits listed on an OT website for children:

1. Bilateral coordination;
2. Eye-hand coordination;
3. Hand strengthening; and
4. Spatial perception and planning skills.

These four benefits make perfect sense to me in the context of baking and cooking with children.

So, what are you waiting for, get cooking. An easy way to start is with mini pizzas. You can buy the bases ready made from most grocery stores and you can also buy the tomato paste source to spread on the bases. Grate some cheese, cut up some mushrooms, pineapple, ham and anything else that you fancy and let the kids have fun assembling their own pizzas.

Thanks to Robbie Cheadle for this delicious and delightful post. Robbie, you are welcome to share a post any Friday. You can follow Robbie at:

Blogs: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com and Goodreads.com

Facebook: @SirChocolateBooks

Twitter: @bakeandwrite