Who Is Stick Boy? (Guest Post by the author, Paul Coomey)

Stick Boy lives in Foxhollow Drive, Little Town, with his mum Anna, his dad Simon and his sister Bella. No dogs or cats, even though Stick loves dogs. Stick is just like every other eleven year old boy, except that he’s a stick boy. In a 3D world. This comes in handy sometimes, like when he wants to hide.

Because he’s a stick boy, it’s pretty easy to see when he’s confused…

or nervous…

or angry…

or happy…

But this does make it tricky when wants to hide his feelings. Like this:

Because he’s a stick boy, he can do some other cool things. He has super powers. Or maybe super-ish powers. Like, if he concentrates really hard, he can change a bit of himself. Just a bit. Like this:

Or like the trick with the locker, on page 13 of Stick Boy. And his super-ish powers mean that if he falls apart, he can put himself back together again. Like this:

And he doesn’t have to wear clothes, unless he’s in disguise. And he doesn’t really get wet. But his tears are like ink and his boogers are like black goo. Other than that, he’s just like every other eleven year old really. He likes collecting odd bits of stuff that he finds, like buttons and shoelaces and coins. He likes comics and football and superhero movies and biscuits. He likes hot chocolate and board games video games and holidays with his family. But most of all he likes having fun and finding adventures and making friends. Like you!

…okay. But who is Paul Coomey??

Paul Coomey was born in Cork, where his mother taught him to read in 1982. His favourite book that year was Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, and he hasn’t stopped reading since. He learned to write creatively at Kilmurray National School, where he was the only student to ever achieve a mark of 9/10 for an essay, awarded by Headmaster Der Hartnett for a story about a wolf in the snow.When he isn’t writing and illustrating books, Paul works as an Art Director at a brilliant little company called Wonderbly, and sometimes does workshops and portfolio reviews at UCL and AUB and with the AOI and SCBWI. He lives in London with his wife Tanvi Kant, and in his spare time his favourite things to do are read comics and go to the sea.

I Want To Know More!

Then check out the rest of the blog tour, and follow the #StickBoy hashtag on social media!

But What Do YOU Think?

I think it’s great! But I’m not really the intended audience so I handed our review copy over to Arthur (aged 9) to read and see what he thought.

He can be a bit of a reluctant reader but within ten minutes of me giving him the book, he was engrossed.

He read it in two days (around boring stuff like having to go to school, and eat dinner, and brush his teeth – that sort of thing), regularly popping up to show me his favourite bits.

He says it was ‘hilarious’ and ‘clever’ and ‘so much fun’ and he also wanted to know when there was going to be a second book and was mightily disappointed when I told him that this one hadn’t even been released yet. (Welcome to the pain of book reviewing, kiddo. Being able to read it first is awesome, but the waits between books is even longer than normal!)

BUT IT IS OUT NOW!

Stick Boy was launched yesterday, 7th January 2021, so if all of this has you wanting to get your paws on this fabulous, fully illustrated book, then now you can!

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Many thanks to the author and Little Tiger Group for sending us an advance copy of Stick Boy to read and review. No other payment was received and all opinions are either mine or Arthur’s.