Writer says kids' fantasy will 'become a childhood classic' and calls it 'multigenerational magic'

A story in last week's Pacific Sun and North Bay Bohemian calls Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates “perhaps the sweetest kids’ book of the year-end possibly the decade.” The article by Jane Vick includes a reproduction of the cover, with a caption headlined “Multigenerational Magic,” and predicts that the fantasy “is sure to become a childhood classic.”

The plug by the Marin and Sonoma County weeklies, one traffic jam north of the Golden Gate Bridge, ensures that my co-writing granddaughter, our illustrator and I have a happy new year.

You can check it all out at https://pacificsun.com/literary-roundup-phenomenal-reads-for-2022/ or get more information from my website — woodyweingarten.com. 

My granddaughter and I, close despite a 70-year difference, had oodles of fun collaborating on the whimsical book, which features a sorcerer, two fairies, spells, unicorns and a magic carpet. Highlights include an eight-year-old fairy winning her division of the Unicorn Racing Championships, baby chicks singing jazz instead of cheeping, a wizard making robot movie characters less scary, and two girls wanting to stop thunder-and-lightning storms, floods, earthquakes and tornadoes all over the planet.

Joe Marciniak self-portrait

Not incidentally, the front of Grampy…, created by Joe Marciniak, was recently voted best 2021 children’s book cover design by the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA).

For any of you who’ve already purchased the book and liked it, we’d love you to spread the word — via reviews on Amazon and GoodReads, via personal posts on Facebook or other social media (or sharing), via anything you figure can help the get the fantasy into the hands of more children 6 to 10.

I, Woody Weingarten, have also written a book that can be helpful for patients who are facing a life-threatening disease and their caregivers (male or female) — Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer.