"This is a great sequel to the first book in this series. I love the idea of the Night Buddies, a secret agent program to help kids get tired and go to sleep. The book had lots of humor in it and it is appropriate for kids of all ages. Even though the story has crimes being committed, they are things like stealing mothballs, creating messes, and other silly stuff. John and Crosley are great characters and they are fun to read about." - Goodreads
Description:
In the second book in the Night Buddies series, red crocodiles start popping up all over the city, creating confusion, committing crimes, and causing Crosley to go a little crazy at the sight of them.
The impostors must be stopped, and Night Buddies John and Crosley are just the guys to stop them!
Stakeouts and wild chases in a fantastic flying machine, far-out schemes to snare the impostors, and a never-ending supply of Crusted Crème Fro-Madge frozen yogurt make for one totally super night.
These adventures after lights-out will delight any young reader who relishes an adventure/fantasy in the wee hours of the night.
The Night Buddies series revolves around the nighttime adventures of a young boy named John, who is not ready to go to sleep, and a bright red crocodile named Crosley who turns up under John’s bed.
Each book starts by having this unlikely pair sneaking out of John’s house using Crosley’s I-ain’t-here doodad, which makes them invisible to John’s parents. They embark on their Program, the Night Buddies word for Adventure, and make their way around the Borough chasing down enemies and cleaning up the mishaps at hand.
Night Buddies, Impostors, and One Far-Out Flying Machine is the second book in the Night Buddies series, a 7-times award-winning chapter book series for kids. The first book, Night Buddies and the Pineapple Cheesecake Scare was released in June 2012 and the third book, Night Buddies Go Sky High is due out in March 2015. The Night Buddies series is available in both print and ebook format.
GUEST POST
Starting Out As a Writer -- Some Things You Should Know
I think the biggest thing for a writer is to read. You can't write good stuff unless you know good stuff. Read all of it twice, and read mediocre stuff too so you know the difference. You can't get something out of nothing, and nothing is what you've got unless you dive into the literature. Who was it that said, "Good writers borrow; great writers steal?"
The second biggest thing is scheduling and dedication. Writing is a lonely and often tedious business and you've got to want it and go after it. Make a writing schedule and stick to it no matter what happens and how rotten you feel that day. Don't try for eight hours. No successful writers I know work eight hours. (Or unsuccessful ones either.) It's just too exhausting, and if you try it you will probably quit. Three hours should be enough. Never stint your three hours, though. Dorothy Parker said it: "I hate writing. I love having written."
And while we're leaning on authority, I like something Hemingway said also. He said stop for the day at a spot that will be easy to start from tomorrow. And read everything you've got tomorrow before starting so everything will be of a piece.
I like to do about five hundred words a day and do it straight through. I get in trouble when I start trying to do a line at a time, that is, getting the line just-so before going on to the next one. This hurts my flow (from the reader's point-of-view) and wastes time. I try to do my five hundred words without looking back, and then take fifteen or twenty minutes to clean things up.
Finish the piece and then rewrite and rewrite. You need to stop this at some point, but err on overdoing it. Get lots of criticism from good people (they don't need to be pros). Have a thick skin because you're going to take a lot of flak, some of it undeserved. When you get stuck, get a little notepad or recorder and go for a walk. Dickens used to do this late at night in London. I know it loosens my thoughts up. Keep your antenna out at all times. You never know where good material might be coming from. I got the idea for my book series while putting my little son to bed.
EXCERPT
Okay, since you’re here I guess you’re all hot to hear about it, right? About the next big adventure Crosley and me got into. This makes two now, two Programs. That’s what we call them in the Night Buddies and please don’t ask me why that is. They start at bedtime and go all night, but you already know about that if you checked out the first one. And you know why I don’t much go for pineapple cheesecakes anymore, either. Not that there’s anything wrong with pineapple cheesecakes, okay? It’s just that I’ve seen way more of the things than I want to for the next twenty-five years. I’ll be real old then. Me, John (no-middle-initial) Degraffenreidt, your faithful correspondent.
The Program I’m talking about right now started out just like the first one did. That part’s pretty much up to the crocodile on assignment. All I do is go to bed on a night when I really, really don’t want to, and then I just lay there and wait, and Crosley comes crawling out of someplace with his flashlight lit. That’s how he likes to do it, and that’s fine with me.
But hey, let me get going here! So I’m laying there in bed on this night we’re talking about, okay? Wide awake and waiting and waiting for something to happen but nothing ever does.
So I’m starting to worry, right?
“Hey listen, Cros, it’s safe. Mom an’ Dad are both downstairs.”
I waited a pretty long time again.
“Cros —— Are ya there? Crosley —— ?”
Nothing. Dark.
I got up and went over and looked inside the closet and then I looked under the bed. “Crosley, are ya down there? I really don’t feel like sleepin’ an’ you said —— ”
It was way too dark to see anything, specially under the bed.
“Hey, you promised, Crosley!”
“ —— SNERK! SNK-SNORK!” Rustle!
I grinned really big but you couldn’t see it in the dark.
“Hey Crosley, turn your flashlight on. What’s the matter, you asleep under there? I thought ya said you’d be in the closet.”
“SNERK! WUFF! Say what? FUP! —— Uh, well HELLO there, ol’ Night Buddy o’ mine! How on earth ya been keepin’ yourself? I didn’t think ya was ever gonna come t’ bed!”
It was that voice like a chain saw with the volume knob turned down. Turned down most of the time, I mean.
“Not so loud, Cros. Switch on your flashlight. I can’t see nothin’.”
“Ain’t got no flashlight,” said the chain saw.
“Why not? I thought it was a major part o’ your equipment.”
“Forgot t’ go get a new one. Wait, hang on, lemme crawl out from under here —— ”
I giggled: “You were sleepin’, weren’t ya? That’s why ya didn’t get in the closet —— Oop! ——
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About the author:
Sands Hetherington credits his son John for being his principal motivator. Sands raised his son as a single parent from the time John was six. He read to him every night during those formative years. He and young John developed the Crosley crocodile character in the series during months of bedtime story give-and-take. Sands majored in history at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and has an M.F.A. in creative writing and an M.A. in English from UNC-Greensboro. He lives in Greensboro.
About the Illustrator:
Jessica Love grew up in California, with two artist parents. She studied printmaking and drawing at UC Santa Cruz, then went on to study acting at The Juilliard School in NYC. Her favorite way to work is collaborative, which is why illustration is such a treat.
Some of her inspirations are Maurice Sendak, Edmund Dulac, Lisbeth Zwerger and of course, the incomparable Hilary Knight. Jessica currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, toggling back and forth between her work as an actor and her work as an artist.
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