Today is publication day for the deliciously monstrous ‘Monster Doughnuts’ – an excellent new chapter book for readers aged 7+ and created following the spark of an idea by Gianna’s young daughter (read her exclusive piece below to find out how this happened.)

‘Ten-year-old Grace likes doughnuts and cakes as much as the next kid – but they are also her secret weapon. Grace is a monster hunter who owns a bakery – and everyone knows how much monsters LOVE any kind of sweet treat! Just don’t tell them about the secret exploding baking powder inside the doughnuts and the cookies …

When Grace’s Monster Scanning Machine alerts her to the doughnut-loving, people-eating, board-game-playing cyclops Mr Harris, she realises she’s about to face her biggest challenge yet …’

I was a little conflicted by reading about so many excellent cakes being used to destroy monsters but am willing to concede that matching each monster to a favourite cake is genius! A cyclops who loves doughnuts, wardrobe lurkers who can’t resist fiddly salted-caramel tartlets. Every monster has its weakness!

I loved this! It is just the right amount of funny, gross and delicious. Throw in a plot to m-eat the Prime Minister, cool gadgets and a bucketload of illustrations and you’ve got the recipe for a riotous read! An excellent choice for readers aged 7+

Now it’s time to hear from Gianna about how ‘Monster Doughnuts’ was formed in collaboration with her then seven-year-old daughter:

“When my daughter, Sophia, was about seven years old, she came home from school one day and told me she’d had a brilliant idea for a character and that I should write a book about him.  This character’s name was Mr Harris. He was a people-eating, ruthless, board game-loving cyclops whose only weakness was iced doughnuts.

We talked about Mr Harris on the way to Sophia’s swimming lesson, in the changing room, and on the way back home. As we spoke about him, a story started to take shape. Mr Harris started to form into a villain, of sorts, but was also rather lovable in many ways (if you’re partial to a grumpy cyclops!). So, in came a super-villain, in the form of Mr Harris’s grandfather, Neville.

And, who better to take on two terrifying cyclopes? Ten-year-old Grace Hunter and her older sister, Danni, who both come from a long line of monster-hunters, going back generations. I knew from the moment we spoke about Grace that she would be loosely based on Sophia – they’re both kind, brave and feisty!

One seven-year-old’s idea, one half an hour long conversation and one swimming lesson later, Monster Doughnuts was born!”

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Amazing! You can’t beat the imagination of a child – always willing to think outside the box and take great leaps of imagination. It’s great to think that ‘Monster Doughnuts’ was inspired by a member of its target audience.

Well all this talk of cake has made me hungry! I wonder which cake would prove to be my Achilles heel? Squidgy chocolate brownies, a moist carrot cake, or maybe my mum’s meringue-laden lemon meringue pie? Yum!

Library Girl.

*Many thanks to Piccadilly Press for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour*