Chapter 30
The third book in the Rainbow Road series of children's chapter books was Hawaiian Rainbows.
I had been looking forward to writing this one. Peg and I had lived on Maui, Hawaii for five years and we loved it.
My third mystery/comedy novel in the Lady Justice series, Lady Justice Gets Leid, was also set on that beautiful island.
In Hawaiian Rainbows, Blake receives the gold coin for Super Strength.
After receiving another nod of approval from the grandson, Peg created another cover and we sent it off to Createspace.
Three down --- and how many more to go?
As with the Lady Justice books, once my mind was fixated on Rainbow Road, it wouldn't shut off. I found myself again laying awake in the middle of the night conjuring up the kids next adventure.
The Fourth of July holiday was approaching and I thought that an adventure based on a patriotic theme seemed appropriate, so the fourth installment of the Rainbow Road series, Patriotic Rainbows, began to form in my mind.
In this adventure, little Breonna receives the gold coin of Truth. In each story, the previously bestowed super powers are passed on to the next story, so in this book, each kid now has two super powers. With these new-found abilities, they are able to save the Liberty Bell from being destroyed by terrorists.
Even though the Lady Justice series was fiction, these were adult novels and the plots had to be believable.
I felt no such constraints with the Rainbow Road books. Having played with my grandson, I was quite aware of the dazzling stories that are constantly being conjured up in the fertile imagination of a kid, and I let my own imagination run free, pretending I was an eight-year old.
It was actually kind of scary when I realized just how easy that was to do. They say that grandpas are just really old kids, and I began to think that maybe there was some truth there.
"If I were a kid, and could have a super power, what would I do?" It was just like going back sixty years and being Roy Rogers again.
Blake loved Patriotic Rainbows, so off it went to Createspace and Rainbow Road now had four volumes.
Our next event was the Bingham-Waggoner Festival and we had Rainbow Road ready to sell along with Lady Justice.
The new books had the affect we had hoped for. We now had kids dragging their parents to our table and grandmas who didn't really want to buy a mystery for themselves, would buy a book for their grandchild.
Bingo!
After receiving great reviews from our new Rainbow Road readers, I began to wonder if maybe there could be some commercial value to our new series.
On a whim, I sent the manuscripts of the four Rainbow Road books to the acquisitions lady at Tate Publishing. Since I already had three novels under contract with them, I thought they might at least take the time to look at them.
I have to admit that I was surprised by her response.
"I have had an opportunity to review your juvenile reader books (The Rainbow Road Series.) I liked the books. The dialog between Blake and Breonna is perfect for young readers. You have really captured their personalities in your writing. One part that stood out was when Breonna called Blake a “smarty pants.” You are right on with the age range of readers you are trying to reach. You have written their adventures to be fun and exciting. There is fine line between trying to put too much into a story and just the right amount of adventure. With too much you lose the reader and they become confused with what the ultimate goal of the writer is. Often when this happens it is difficult for a writer to find the proper ending to their story. If there is not enough adventure and personality to the writing the reader gets easily bored and we all know what happens then… the book is put back on the shelf. I think you have a good balance with your story. I am not surprised that parents and grandparents were purchasing the book. It can be difficult to find a book for this age range. Juvenile reader books are highly successful in the industry at the moment."
I was offered a contract for the Rainbow Road series.
While this was certainly a boost for my ego, and a validation for the series, Peg and I decided that with three Lady Justice novels being published, we would hold off until we were certain that Tate would come through as promised.
At that point we were absolutely happy with our experience with Tate, but we wanted to see if the marketing and promotion would develop as we had hoped.
I had decided to stop writing more Rainbow Road books and get back to Lady Justice #4.
In the meantime, my grandson was sharing his little books with some of his friends, and soon, fate would intervene once again.
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