Uncomfortable Toad

Uncomfortable Toad

Blog post by Iris Carden

Meet Toad. She’s a character from my children’s book Wendy Watchitt.

She’s one of Wendy’s two pets, and she usually rides around in Wendy’s hair.

Toad likes the finer things in life, balls, banquets, anything that involves wearing a tiara.

She had all of that and more in Wendy Watchitt, with the royal banquet in the Ivory Tower being the highlight of the story for her.

Of course, she endured some less pleasant things as well, being shut in a packing case, and being smuggled to school in the pocket of Wendy’s uniform among them.

Sadly for Toad, the sequel I’m working on right now, will have even more of the uncomfortable stuff, and very little of the fancy stuff she loves.

The story begins in the Ivory Tower, where Wendy is not enjoying princess lessons, and Toad would like more practice at balls and banquets, and less theory on manners at such events.

Princess lessons and the question of how to rehabilitate the evil uncle Wendy has locked in the basement of the Ivory Tower (since the end of the first book), are Wendy’s biggest problems at this point, but something much bigger is looming.

This something is going to take Wendy into even more danger than the first book, the kind of danger that will require even Toad to wear a hardhat and overalls for protection.

Of course with the help of Toad, Woofles (an 80kg dog of unknown and unknowable breed), her teenaged cousin Frederick, and her own intelligence and special abilities, Wendy can handle anything.

The new book is going to be called The Venomous Void. Right now, it exists mostly in my head, but it is starting to make its way into my computer as well. I hope to have it written and published by the end of this year.

In the meantime, if you have kids who like fantasy and adventure, they might like Wendy’s original story. (Or if you’re an adult and you like fantasy and adventure stories written for kids, you might like Wendy’s original story.)