Welcome to the Guestbook!
I’m always eager to read your comments about my books and stories, so please feel free to pitch in. Here are a few things for you to know:
1) I answer the messages here personally.
2) No message shows up here until I actually answer it to prevent spam and other inappropriate postings. So there will sometimes be a delay before your message posts, especially if I am traveling.
3) Teachers, a gentle request: Please do not have multiple children send me variants of the same message. A group email is much easier to respond to and not such a drain on my time. My thanks in advance for being alert to this.
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Dear Mr. Coville,
Our class really enjoyed reading The Monster’s Ring. It was extraordinary and humourous. It started as realistic fiction and quickly became a fantasy story. Here are some questions that we have about this story.
-Will you write another book about The Monster’s Ring? Will Russell appear inanother book?
-Did you write books as a kid? Can you tell us about any stories you wrote as a kid?
-What made you want to become an author?
-We are interested in publishing stories too. Can you tell us about the process and how you published this book?
-In your other books, did you write about other students? (you mentioned in your author’s note that Russell and Eddie were modeled after read students)
-Are any of your character traits in this story? (especially, character traits of Russell)
We enjoyed the twist of the story! You really inspired us with this story! We think you should write part 2 of this story!
Mrs. Hum’s grade 3 class
Our class really enjoyed reading The Monster’s Ring. It was extraordinary and humourous. It started as realistic fiction and quickly became a fantasy story. Here are some questions that we have about this story.
-Will you write another book about The Monster’s Ring? Will Russell appear inanother book?
-Did you write books as a kid? Can you tell us about any stories you wrote as a kid?
-What made you want to become an author?
-We are interested in publishing stories too. Can you tell us about the process and how you published this book?
-In your other books, did you write about other students? (you mentioned in your author’s note that Russell and Eddie were modeled after read students)
-Are any of your character traits in this story? (especially, character traits of Russell)
We enjoyed the twist of the story! You really inspired us with this story! We think you should write part 2 of this story!
Mrs. Hum’s grade 3 class
Reply by Bruce Coville
Ahoy, Mrs. Hum's Class -
Lovely to hear from you. I am delighted that you enjoyed THE MONSTER'S RING so much. It was the very first novel I published, and it thrills me that people are still reading it.
My goodness, you do have a lot of questions!
Will I write another book about Russell? Probably not. I wanted to write a sequel when it was first published, but my editor was not interested. But I loved the Magic Shop too much to let go of it, so my next idea was to do a book of short stories about the shop. Except I tend to get carried away, and most of the times when I tried to write a short story, it turned into a book instead. That's why there are now FIVE Magic Shop books!
Russell and Eddie are the only characters I have based completely on my students. Characters in my other books are made up, but I use a lot of what I learned about kids from (a) being a kid myself and (b) working as a teacher for seven years.
The first time I wanted to be a writer was when I in 6th grade. Other careers appealed to me, but the desire to write never went away.
As far as getting published, that is a huge topic, so big that whole books are written about it! The best book I know for kids about HOW to write better is SPILLING INK by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter. I highly recommend it.
Thanks for writing - and keep reading!
All best,
BC
Lovely to hear from you. I am delighted that you enjoyed THE MONSTER'S RING so much. It was the very first novel I published, and it thrills me that people are still reading it.
My goodness, you do have a lot of questions!
Will I write another book about Russell? Probably not. I wanted to write a sequel when it was first published, but my editor was not interested. But I loved the Magic Shop too much to let go of it, so my next idea was to do a book of short stories about the shop. Except I tend to get carried away, and most of the times when I tried to write a short story, it turned into a book instead. That's why there are now FIVE Magic Shop books!
Russell and Eddie are the only characters I have based completely on my students. Characters in my other books are made up, but I use a lot of what I learned about kids from (a) being a kid myself and (b) working as a teacher for seven years.
The first time I wanted to be a writer was when I in 6th grade. Other careers appealed to me, but the desire to write never went away.
As far as getting published, that is a huge topic, so big that whole books are written about it! The best book I know for kids about HOW to write better is SPILLING INK by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter. I highly recommend it.
Thanks for writing - and keep reading!
All best,
BC