The Best Mistake Mystery: Blog tour

Last month, author Sylvia McNicoll's 

newest middle-grade novel,

The Best Mistake Mystery, 

part of her new The Great Mistake Mysteries series, 

launched.

I kind of jumped the gun with my review and interview 

with Sylvia McNicoll 

hoping to entice readers to pick up a copy at the earlier launches.

So,

let me now encourage you to read my review of 

The Best Mistake Mystery

by Sylvia McNicoll

Dundurn

978-1-4597-3625-2

120 pp.

Ages 9-13

January 2017

reviewed here

and

my interview 

with the ever-entertaining and thoughtful 

Sylvia McNicoll

as well as 

promote Dundurn's blog tour for her book 

with stops at

Feb. 6: kdrewkthebookworm

Feb. 8: My Interdimensional Chaos

Feb. 9: Middle Grade Mafia

The Best Mistake Mystery: Q & A with author Sylvia McNicoll

The Best Mistake Mystery

The Great Mistake Mysteries, Book 1

by Sylvia McNicoll

Dundurn

978-1-45973-625-2

120 pp.

Ages 9-13

January 2017

Yesterday I reviewed Sylvia McNicoll's newest middle-grade book, The Best Mistake Mystery, the first in her new series The Great Mistake Mysteries. Today, let me share this interview with the book's author, Sylvia McNicoll, about her new book so that you can get a feel for your next great middle-grade mystery read. 

HK:  I think mysteries are great reads for hooking readers but the characters of The Best Mistake Mystery will grab readers just as easily.  Stephen could be any middle-grade reader who loves dogs, deals with humiliation, feels like he’s always making mistakes, overthinking everything he does.  Though he is no one special, he actually is someone very special in that he represents the majority of preteens on the cusp of puberty. How did you manage to create a character so real and likeable without making him so complex that readers couldn’t relate to him?

SM: Thank you, Helen. My life is full of quirky characters and I love observing, interacting and writing about them. Stephen is probably every writer I’ve ever met, over-analytical, and self-deprecating. Renée, too, asks too many questions and bubbles over with the information she discovers through her hyper-curiosity, very writer-like. I think the key is always to live and breathe through your characters as you write and if you like them, readers will too.



HK:  Stephen suggests that one of the biggest mistakes he might have made may have been misunderstanding Renée and almost closing himself off from a friendship with her.  But I think Stephen’s a fairly “open” character: receptive to new experiences and easily talking to strangers.  Is he modelled after someone or several kids you know, like your grandchildren whom you mention in your dedication?

SM:  My 15 year-old grandson Hunter and I used to walk to school together and we were always making up stories, usually involving the dog, on the way. At our house he chatted up the dishwasher repair guy or the neighbor planting his garden, everyone and anyone, always curious and interested. He was (I think he’s grown out of it) afraid of flying too, just like Stephen Noble which leads to Stephen’s greatest anxiety that feeds all the other tiny ones. Stephen fears for his own mother’s safety. The fearful mistake maker Stephen, however, is based more on the students to whom I teach writing in various workshops. They are always asking “Is this okay? Am I doing this right?” Or saying “Mine isn’t any good. I didn’t do it that way. I did it wrong.” You can’t try new things without making mistakes. Mistakes need to be applauded because they demonstrate effort, sometimes in a new direction.



HK:  You describe Ping and Pong, modelled after your own dog Mortie and your daughter’s dog Worf, as mismatched twins, because they are very  different in temperament and physical nature.  But mismatched as they are, they obviously miss each other when Pong goes missing.  Is the relationship between the two fictional dogs similar to that of Mortie and Worf?

SM:  Definitely Mortie and Worf’s relationship is bizarre and complex with  the same Ping/Pong rivalry i.e nudging each other out for pats, racing to be the first through the door, marking and remarking posts along their walks. Worf (aka Pong) is a usually a strong silent dog but Mortie (aka Ping) is a hyperactive barker who seems to goad Worf into a constant duet. Because of his height Worf, left on his own, will steal food off counters but we joke that Mortie eggs him on and certainly shares the gains. Usually Worf is food and toy possessive but I have watched the two dogs swim together, carrying either end of a stick in their mouths, perhaps only grudgingly sharing. At the leash free dog park, larger dogs may start a fight with Worf but tiny Mortie will yell at them and defend Worf. 



HK:  I loved the anecdotes Stephen’s mom likes to tell him that are related to animals and the people with whom she works at the airlines.  And I’m glad that the ones you let her tell Stephen always have happy endings.  Are these stories true?

SM:  All of the stories Mrs. Noble tells Stephen, from the dog escaping an airplane’s cargo and swimming away in a nearby harbor to the kitten who closes the New York subway for hours are true stories researched from news clippings posted on the Internet.



HK:  A great mystery, especially the cozies, use red herrings to throw the snoops and readers off the scent of the real culprit.  You peppered your story with red herrings in the form of potential suspects.  Without giving away the actual culprit, did you know from the onset of the story who would be guilty of the bomb threat and the Beetle crash or did the story evolve as you wrote it?

SM:  When I begin any Great Mistake Mystery, I have a definite idea about the “whodunit” part of the ending. But I still regard the rest of characters with suspicion and throw as much plausible motivation their way to create red herring suspects. Sometimes those characters persuade me that they are the best criminals and I end up changing the ending.



HK:  Your message that mistakes can be fortuitous is inspirational without being preachy.  How do you manage to be positive when meeting with challenges like mistakes?

SM:  It may surprise readers that I write story to explain the world to myself. As such, I am very much dealing with my own anxieties about mistake making when I write this series, many of the crazier mistakes are mine transferred to Stephen. Not surprising then is that writing The Great Mistake Mysteries is really helping me to just roll with my errors and look for their silver linings. Writing is very much adventuring onto the wrong paths and trying to navigate to the better ones.  



HK:  Could you please share some insider scoops about upcoming The Great Mistake Mysteries like the next titles, when they are set for release and whether the same characters will be featured?

SM:   Coming in September of 2017, is The Artsy Mistake Mystery, in which a whole city learns how important art can be. Besides Stephen, Renée, Ping, Pong and Attila most of the original cast makes an appearance.  However a new crossing guard Madam X (nicknamed such for the reflective tape X on her back) will make an appearance, also William Kowalski, the elderly jogger/painter. In January of 2018, The Snake Mistake Mystery will show Ping and Pong playing an important role in finding a missing slithery pet with which Noble Dog Walking is entrusted.  Janet Lacey, a rug hooking artist from The Artsy Mistake Mystery, will play a more leading role in her job as animal control officer. All of the stories will feature guest anecdotes from flight attendant mom, loveable dog antics from Ping, Pong and other canine clients, lots of mistakes, close to thirty, on the character’s part and a great meeting of all suspects where Stephen and Renée identify the criminals and solve the crime.

Thank you, Sylvia McNicoll, for helping readers to appreciate their mistakes as serendipitous circumstances, for bringing The Great Mistake Mysteries to print, and for answering my questions here. Thanks also to Dundurn publicist Jaclyn Hodsdon for arranging for this Q & A with Sylvia McNicoll and sharing a review copy of The Best Mistake Mystery with CanLit for LittleCanadians.

The Best Mistake Mystery (The Great Mistake Mysteries, Book 1)

by Sylvia McNicoll

Dundurn

978-1-4597-3625-2

120 pp.

Ages 9-13

January 2017

"I know that if you relax enough to stretch, reach, and risk, the twists along your path will lead to something amazing." - Sylvia McNicoll

Student Stephen Nobel sees mistakes in every turn of his path, past and present, anticipating more in his future.  His days as a Grade 7 student are logged as a compendium of mistakes, though Sylvia McNicoll only shares three consecutive days, of ten mistakes each, in The Best Mistake Mystery, demonstrating that a whole lot can happen in three days, both gaffes and opportunities, depending on how you look at them.

His dad’s new business, Noble Dog Walking, has given Stephen the opportunity to regularly walk the Bennetts’ two dogs: Ping, a small Jack Russell, and Pong, a tall greyhound.

“And we’re off–like a wagon pulled by a mismatched team, a horse and a pony.” (pg. 18)

Just like for the dogs, for whom every step is a new adventure of sounds and smells and textures, Stephen becomes witness to a myriad of happenings which will all become part of a bigger mystery or two.  He finds a bag of poop lodged in a tree.  He meets up with an annoying and relentlessly questioning classmate, Renée, with whom he learns that an earlier school drill was actually a response to a bomb threat.  Ping tackles a skateboarder.  Pong urinates on some bricks being worked by a contractor, Mr. Mason.  Then the teen sees the principal, Mrs. Watier, in the orange VW Beetle he’d seen their former custodian Mr. Sawyer driving earlier.  Later Stephen observes that same VW driving around the school’s parking lot late at night.

The mysteries begin to mount when school is cancelled the next day because that orange car had crashed into the school overnight and, because of a brick on the accelerator, filled the school with fumes.  Worse, the car belongs to Renée’s older brother, Attila, who is questioned, though he denies any role, since his car was at the high school auto shop.  The twists and turns of who did what, who was where and why something happened become a full-blown pot boiler with threatening texts, an impending wedding, a dognapping and ransom demand, and a whole lot of snooping, with and without dogs in tow. 

I love a good mystery and The Best Mistake Mystery is a great one.  Sylvia McNicoll throws in so many red herrings and suspects that readers will be changing their hunches as to who did it and why repeatedly.  Just like the winding neighbourhood through which Stephen walks Ping and Pong, a lovable but unlikely duo of canine champions, The Best Mistake Mystery is bursting with characters, storylines, life lessons and dogs. And readers will love all of that.  

But personally, I adore Sylvia McNicoll’s message, and the premise for this new series, The Great Mistake Mysteries, that mistakes are opportunities that enrich our lives.  They may certainly feel like challenges, even curses, but ultimately most mistakes should be considered serendipitous, providing chances to learn and grow and tweak our lives for the better.  And, if you solve a mystery or two in the process, all the better.

Check back tomorrow for my interview with author Sylvia McNicoll about The Best Mistake Mystery and her new series, The Great Mistake Mysteries (cute logo posted below).

Also, get in on one of the book launches for The Best Mistake Mystery this week for a chance to get a signed copy of the book, and maybe share a doggie treat with your own canine best friend. Details here. 

The Best Mistake Mystery: Book launches (Burlington, ON)

Attention young readers who are lovers of dogs and mysteries: 

Join

Sylvia McNicoll

author of over 30 books for children and young adults

for the launch of her new middle grade series

The Great Mistake Mysteries

with Book 1

The Best Mistake Mystery

by Sylvia McNicoll

Dundurn

978-1-45973-625-2

120 pp.

Ages 9-13

January 2017

on

Family Literacy Day

Friday, January 27, 2017

1:30 p.m.

Brant Hills Branch, Burlington Public Library

2255 Brant St.

Burlington, ON

and

Sunday, January 29, 2017

2 p.m.

along with author Deb Loughead
launching her recent young adult book
The Secrets We Keep

 Reviewed here

A Different Drummer Books

513 Locust St.

Burlington, ON

Look for my review of The Best Mistake Mystery next week here on CanLit for LittleCanadians, along with my interview with author Sylvia McNicoll.  But, just to see how much you'll want to read this book and attend one or both of these launches, here is the blurb from publisher Dundurn's website:

Some people count their blessings, but dogwalker Stephen Nobel counts mistakes. 

Dogwalker extraordinaire Stephen Nobel can get a little anxious, but his habit of counting the mistakes he and everyone else makes calms him. His need to analyze gets kicked into hyperdrive after two crazy events happen in one day at school: the bomb squad blows up a backpack and someone smashes a car into the building. 

To make things worse, that someone thinks Stephen can identify them. Stephen receives a threatening text. If he goes to the police, his favourite dogs, Ping and Pong, will get hurt. The pressure mounts when his new best friend, Renée, begs for Stephen’s help. Her brother has been charged with the crimes and she wants to clear his name. 

Is it a mistake to give in to dognappers? How can he possibly save everybody? To find out, Stephen will have to count on all of his new friends.