GENRE: Humor, STEM/STEAM, Informational Fiction
WORDS: 440
Query:
Dear Picture Book Partiers,
I’m excited to present my informational fiction picture book, OUT FOR BLOOD: A MOSQUITO MISADVENTURE.
Monique is out for blood — she’s a mosquito, after all. But when mammals try to smack her flat, Monique looks for a safer source of dinner. She meets snails with blue blood, skinks with green blood, and jellyfish with no blood at all. Where is the red-blooded host she needs?
OUT FOR BLOOD: A MOSQUITO MISADVENTURE pairs humorous narrative fiction with “info bites” highlighting strange but true facts about blood and mosquitoes. The mix of humor and science is likely to appeal to fans of Worm Makes a Sandwich (Brianne Farley), Poop for Breakfast: Why Some Animals Eat It (Sara Levine / Florence Weiser), and Blood! Not Just a Vampire Drink (Stacy McAnulty / Shawna J. C. Tenney).
OUT FOR BLOOD features a 440-word primary text plus info bites and back matter (another 970 words). Although the sidebar-style info bites aren’t part of my 70-word sample, I hope you’ll find the information about blood colors and mosquitoes as fascinating as I do. I consulted dozens of scientific studies and news articles while writing this story; a bibliography is available upon request.
I’m a former journalist who is active in SCBWI, several critique groups, and the online writing community. As an Alaskan, I spend every summer swatting my share of the state’s 17 trillion mosquitoes. (That number isn’t hyperbole, sadly – it’s an entomologist’s actual estimate!)
Thank you for considering my work.
Excerpt:
Meet Monique.
She’s the busiest, buzziest, HUNGRIEST mosquito on the planet.
And she’s searching for rich, red blood.
Swish!
Snap!
Slap! [Monique dodges tails, teeth, and hands.]
Yikes! Now Monique is the maddest, saddest, nearly-smacked-flattest mosquito on the planet.
She needs a meal that’s safe and slow.
Look, a snail!
Monique points her proboscis, ready for yummy red blood.
“Stay away!” the snail snarls. “My blood’s blue.”
What inspired you to write this story & what do you have in common with it:
I live in Alaska, home to 740,000 humans…and 17 trillion mosquitoes. There’s even a species named for our state: Culiseta alaskaensis, the snow mosquito.
These “flying syringes” are the bane of our summers. I don mosquito jackets, slather on DEET, and carry a bite-relief device on my keychain, but I can’t escape their itchy welts. I detest mosquitoes, but I admire them, too. They’re marvelously designed.
When I decided to write about unusual blood colors — a topic that’s always fascinated me – the perfect protagonist was practically at my fingertips. (Slap!) I guess mosquitoes are good for something after all.
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