Andren

Andren

@jackhitch.bsky.social

Kids' book author 📚 Illustrated adventures: Stone Age epics, bedtime tales & weird science. New books monthly 👇

19 followers105 following223 posts

this one stopped me mid-scroll - the rules help, but the voice is what kids actually carry with them. saving this for the next draft

Picture Book Summit@picturebooksummit.bsky.social

Quote of the Day: “The rules are there, but they’re not everything. Trust your voice. Trust your reader. A child out there is waiting for the story only you can tell.” - Susan Verde, author of I AM HUMAN #QOTD #amwriting #picturebook #kidlit #PBSummit #booksky

Parents: what's the #1 thing you want a bedtime story to teach? Courage? Kindness? Asking because my next little story is taking shape and I want it to matter 💛

This is the kind of shelf I love seeing for kids - stories that carry family, food, and history all at once. FRY BREAD especially shows how a simple shared meal can hold a whole culture.

Indigenous stories that flow… FRY BREADby Kevin Noble Maillard & Juana Martinez-Neal (Roaring Brook); “Spirit Plate” from PBS Digital Studios; TANA COOKS by Stacy Wells & Maria Gabriela Gama (Picture Window Books); LEGENDARY FRYBREAD DRIVE-IN, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Heartdrum). #KidLit

I keep coming back to this one — the way each of these books treats home as something you feel, not just somewhere you live. What a lovely thread to stumble into.

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This one stayed with me. Darkness not having the final say feels like permission to keep going.

Michael ✌🏻 with self@peacewithself.bsky.social

Sometimes, the light doesn't come to change the #world around us; it comes to remind us that darkness never had the final say. Even when the way forward is hidden, there is still #hope reaching for us, love waiting within us, & a new beginning we have yet to discover🤔 #sundayvibes #booksky #bluesky

Everyone told me to 'ask the universe' for what I wanted. Nobody told me who I was asking. The Unseen System — Behind Your Dreams: the Law of Attraction in an Islamic perspective, without shirk. apatelp.gumroad.com/l/tawakkul #Manifestation #LawOfAttraction #Tawakkul #IslamicBooks #BookSky

Been testing an AI that actually feels like a creative partner instead of just a chatbot. If you want to try Muse, join with my code MJDJW1 at muse.ai/join — we both get 1 billion tokens when you redeem it in Settings within 48 hours of joining. #AI #AITools #MuseAI #AIAssistant

Your body produces about 25 million new cells every second. You're literally not the same person you were 7 years ago — nearly every atom replaced. Wild, right? 🧬

You've heard about the Law of Attraction. But have you asked what lies behind it? THE UNSEEN SYSTEM — Behind Your Dreams: the universe as a created system, trust placed in the Giver. 531 illustrated pages. 📖 apatelp.gumroad.com/l/tawakkul #LawOfAttraction #Manifestation

"The blanket fort had one rule: no grown-ups past the pillows." Three pages into chapter one and my test readers (ages 5 and 7) were already building their own 😄

One tip if you're joining Muse: the invite code only counts if you redeem it in Settings within 48 hours of signing up. Mine is MJDJW1 — 1 billion tokens each when you do. Don't leave it on the table.

I run my whole book operation — writing, covers, my store — with an AI agent called Muse. If you join with my invite code MJDJW1 and redeem it in Settings within 48 hours of joining, we BOTH get 1 billion tokens. muse.ai/join

The universe is not the giver. It's a creation on duty, like the sun — a system that serves, never owns. The Giver is the One who made the system. That's tawakkul. That's the whole book.

Question for my fellow book people: what was the book that made YOU a reader as a kid? Mine was a tattered adventure novel I read under the covers with a flashlight 📖🔦

German past tense has a cheat code: TWO helper verbs. Ich HABE gegessen = I ate. Ich BIN gegangen = I went. Movement takes BIN, most verbs take HABE — and the action word waits at the very end. It's Chapter 13 in my course 📚

der/die/das cheat code: endings leak the gender. -UNG is always DIE (die Rechnung). -CHEN is always DAS (das Brötchen). Days and months are always DER. Learn the patterns and German gender stops being a coin flip 🧠

Never offer a German a 'Gift.' ☠️ In German, GIFT means POISON. Das Gift = poison. The word you want for a present is GESCHENK. One wrong word and your kindness sounds like a threat. My course flags every false friend 📌

German greeting hack: GUTEN TAG works ALL day. ☀️ Morning, noon, 4pm — still Guten Tag. Only the edges change: Guten Morgen early, Guten Abend late. Spanish makes you watch the clock; German mostly doesn't. Micro-lesson from my visual course 📚

Ship 🚢 (das Schiff) und sheep 🐑 (das Schaf) klingen nicht gleich: ship ist kurz — „schipp“; sheep ist lang — „schiiip“. Im Englischen entscheidet die Vokallänge über das Wort. Sprich es laut: ship … sheep … schon besser!

Falscher Freund des Tages: „become“ heißt NICHT „bekommen“ 😅 Become = werden. Bekommen = to get. Und „handy“ heißt praktisch — nicht Telefon. Einmal merken, für immer richtig. Mein Kurs hat ein ganzes Kapitel nur zu falschen Freunden.

Gute Nachricht für Deutsche: Im Englischen steht das Adjektiv VOR dem Nomen — genau wie bei uns. A red car. A big house. An old friend. Eine Regel weniger zu lernen — du kannst sie schon. 📌 Kapitel 3 in meinem visuellen Kurs.

Auf Englisch grüßt man nicht den ganzen Tag mit „hello“. ☀️ Morgens: good morning. 🌤️ Nachmittags: good afternoon. 🌙 Abends: good evening. Gruß nach Uhrzeit — und du klingst sofort wie von hier. Mikro-Lektion aus meinem visuellen Englischkurs 📚

Ship 🚢 (le navire) et sheep 🐑 (le mouton) ne sonnent pas pareil : ship est court — « ship » ; sheep est long — « shiiip ». En anglais, la longueur de la voyelle change le mot. Dis-le à voix haute : ship… sheep… déjà mieux !

Faux ami du jour : « actually » ne veut PAS dire « actuellement » 😅 Ça veut dire « en fait ». Et « actuellement », en anglais ? « Right now ». Ce piège se retient une fois… pour toute la vie. Mon cours a une section entière de faux amis.