A group of friends discover a treasure chest during a flood. Inside the chest is an unusual map of clues, which point not to physical locations, but to paragraphs in 15 children’s classics. As the kids hunt down the clues, questions haunt them: Who buried the treasure chest? When? And why? Together, the clues add up to the Rules for Detecting, which the kids use to gather evidence and solve their own real-life mystery.
Mysteries in historySet in contemporary Rochester, NY, the mystery in each Frontier Team book addresses some aspect of New York State history—e.g., the Iroquois Indians, the Erie Canal, and the Underground Railroad. The first book, in which the kids learn how to be detectives and then uncover the origins of an old treasure chest, serves as a means of launching the series. Each book in the series is narrated by a different member of The Frontier Team, a group of ten kids who run a history education business from a rustic cabin they built themselves in western New York.
Ten Kids?Yes, I know: Ten central characters will make any editor skeptical. But the families come from various cultural backgrounds, which helps distinguish the kids from one another. With ten kids, each book will have a strong and unique voice, a device that worked well in the ten chapters of Ann M. Martin’s Ten Kids No Pets. The first book is written from the perspective of Karen Rose, age 11. I am currently writing the second book, Medal of a Native Son, in the radically different voice of Max, age 13.
The Frontier Team is for readers who have enjoyed series like The Magic Tree House, Cam Jansen, and the Boxcar Children, and are ready for the next step up. As in books like Summer Reading is Killing Me and Ten Kids No Pets, references to familiar kids books (e.g. Little House of the Prairie and Calvin and Hobbes compilations) are integrated into the dialogue, and ideas from these works move the plot. Home SchoolersThe Frontier Team will tap into an as-yet-unexploited niche in fiction: home schoolers. The members of the Frontier Team are from six home-schooling families. I think that the book will sell like hotcakes among this rapidly-growing market (estimates of U.S. home-schooled students range from 1.5 million to 2 million), but the fact that the protagonists are home schooled is really just an interesting backdrop to a story aimed at all 8-to-12-year-olds. Just as Blue Balliett’s Chasing Vermeer series places her characters in a vivid contemporary Chicago, The Frontier Team uses real places and real people in Rochester, NY. This brings readers right to where history happened. And, as in Balliett’s series, readers will learn a great deal about history and culture.
Building a market for 8 yearsAlthough this is my first foray into fiction for kids, I have been a nonfiction writer for many years. I publish KidsOutAndAbout.com, a popular website for parents in Rochester, NY. In a region of a million people, KOA has an average of 80,000 user sessions per month. I write a weekly mom-to-mom email newsletter to which 7000 Rochester-area families subscribe. I am regularly on the radio, and I am frequently quoted in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. I have been featured in Sue Shellenbarger’s Wall Street Journal “Work and Family” column. KidsOutAndAbout.com spends no money on advertising; I have simply been a P.R. machine since 2001. Moreover, I am expanding KidsOutAndAbout.com. We will add seven new KOA city-sites in upstate New York this winter. Next year, we will add a site in Westchester County, NY, and we will extend beyond the Northeast to Atlanta and Fort Worth.
Debra E. Ross, P.R. MachineIn addition to the marketing and public relations work for KidsOutAndAbout.com, I also coordinate publicity for the Rochester, NY arm of SCBWI, Rochester Area Children’s Writers and Illustrators, of which I am an active member. I understand that publishing is a business. I know what it takes to provide value in a market. I know how to get the word out to readers. I maintain a compelling web presence, and I have lots of ideas for additional ways to engage Frontier Team readers online, most of which I could put into execution with minimal technological assistance.
A reader’s copy of The Frontier Team is available immediately upon request. |
