The Munchkins
Book 1
by Candice Zee
Genre: Upper Middle-Grade Fantasy
"Has all the "ingredients" for a fantastical, magical, YA story that also caters to adults who absolutely love the Potter-esque world that happens maybe twice in a lifetime." - Reader Views
Thirteen extraordinary children with mysterious powers.
Their loving and protective father.
And a sociopathic neighbor who knows them better than they know themselves.
When Capricorn Munch and her twelve siblings appear outside a children's home, no one, including themselves, knows who they are or where they came from. At ten years old they stop aging, as she and her siblings develop powers that gift them with incredible abilities, like healing wounds and manifesting objects. They keep these powers secret and their adoptive father restricts their use. Capricorn strives to live a normal life, blissfully playing with her favorite sisters, witty and bold Allie, empathic and wise Breezy, and giddy and sweet Hazy.
But now a sudden threat has intruded on their carefree lives: Their next-door neighbor, a man who calls himself Big Boss. Capricorn watches fretfully as Big Boss encroaches on her family like a malevolent force, feeding hostility between her siblings and causing them to be reckless with their powers. Capricorn knows Big Boss is plotting something sinister and can only pray it doesn't end in ultimate doom for her and her family.
"Told in a fast-paced narrative voice with complex characters, the exhilarating fantasy will keep readers guessing until the very end—all while falling in love with the quirky cast. The book deserved to be made into a movie or a web series." - The Prairies Book Review
**On Sale for Only .99cents 3/14 – 3/31!!**
Chp 3 #1
“We’re going to play a game,” Ashley said, approaching us. The rest of our siblings gathered at the tree.
“How about we play tag?” said Justin.
“No,” said Carlie. “I don't like tag.”
“What are you talking about, Carlie? “ Ashley said. “You love tag.”
“Well I don’t want to play it today,” Carlie scowled.
“You’re so stubborn,” Ashley frowned. Ashley, being technically the oldest (she was nine when adopted), felt it was partly her responsibility to keep the rest of her siblings in check, especially Carlie, the youngest of us (she was five when adopted).
“How about Simon Says then?” Justin said, quickly making another suggestion before an argument surfaced between Carlie and Ashley. Justin, kind and sensible, hated conflict and strived to find compromises that would make everyone happy.
“That sounds good but I want to be Simon,” said Becky. Everyone groaned in unison. Becky seemed to thrive on telling her siblings what to do. Simon Says was the perfect game for her.
“How about we play Simon Says only if Becky doesn't get to be Simon,” said Allie.
“Agreed!” shouted out half the group, their hands in the air.
Becky gave Allie a contemptuous look. Her sandy blonde hair cast a sheen in the sunlight. “Oh, be quiet, Allie. Nobody asked you.”
“Oh, see that's funny because I don't recall anyone asking you to be Simon either,” said Allie.
“Okay,” said Breezy, with her hands raised, stepping into the middle of the group. “We're only going to play a game together if we can all agree on it. Does anyone have any other suggestions?” Justin gave Breezy a grateful smile for her quick mediation, which Breezy returned with a nod.
“How about we play baseball?” I said.
“Hey, great idea, Cap!” Allie cried.
All around various cheers in favor of baseball arose. We divided amongst ourselves to form two teams, and Kevin agreed to serve as umpire. But there was one problem.
“We need a bat and ball,” said Ashley. “Someone took them in the house.”
“Let’s go in and look for them,” Justin suggested.
“Nah,” Kevin said. “That could take all day. We'll just whip some up. No biggie.”
“You mean use our powers?” Ashley asked. “Should we?”
Breezy clenched her face and shook her head. One of CC’s rules was our power should be used only when necessary and with good reason. Frivolous use of magic was a serious no-no. I had a feeling for manifesting a bat and ball, CC wouldn't consider “we didn't feel like going in the house to look for our old ones” a good reason.
Just as I expected, Breezy objected. “I don't think this counts as a necessary use of our powers. CC wouldn't approve of this.”
“Well, CC's not here right now, is he?” Twisty declared defiantly, spinning rapidly on her heels and running off with her braids bouncing behind her. Twisty (a nickname for Theresa, but she hated that name and didn't allow it to be used in her presence), had always been a bit of a troublemaker and had a real rebellious streak. Just the thought of doing something that was against CC's rules excited her greatly.
Breezy turned to Hazy, Allie, and me looking for support. Allie signaled her sympathy for Breezy's position by rolling her eyes in Twisty's direction and gave a hapless shrug. Hazy's apprehension mirrored Breezy's. I mumbled feebly, “Well, it's only a bat and ball.” Breezy shook her head and repeated, “CC would not approve of this.”
My siblings didn’t always see it, but there's a good reason for this rule. There are limitations to our powers. There are certain things we’re not able to do at all (such as make ourselves disappear and reappear, make ourselves invisible, magically teleport ourselves from one place to another, the list goes on) but more importantly, the powers we do have aren’t inexhaustible. Using a power takes a lot of energy, and once that energy is used, it takes a while before you have enough energy to use a power again. Think of it as a battery. If you run something on a battery that uses a lot of power, you'll drain your battery quickly and have to recharge. Recharging means you have to wait for your energy levels to restore themselves before you can use them again. The time required to recharge depends on what type of power you are using and the task. A telekinetic power like moving an object in the air is one of the lowest energy uses and takes about 10-20 minutes before you're good to go again, but of course, it depends on the size and distance of the object. Healing a wound or injury, depending on how severe the injury is, can take over an hour or two. Replicating an object, disappearing objects, or putting up a protective shield will put you back a few hours. Manifesting an object into being? That's huge and will cost you a whole day's worth of power at least.
Chp 3 #2
“Well, that was fun while it lasted,” Kevin said. “What next?”
“No, let's keep playing baseball,” Carlie cried. “That was fun.”
“How are we going to play without a ball though, Car?” Twisty asked, glaring at Ashley.
“I'm sorry,” Ashley said sheepishly. “I didn't mean to hit it that hard. I swear.”
“You're apologizing for hitting a home run?” Allie questioned. “Yes, and I'm terribly sorry for scoring an A on the science test last week.”
“Well…we could make another one,” Justin suggested, avoiding Breezy’s eyes.
Breezy immediately shut down that idea. “No, absolutely not. We’re not doing it again. Anyway, the game was getting a little heated, so maybe it was time to quit.”
“Yeah, I thought you two were going to come to blows or something,” Chase agreed, pointing at Allie and Twisty.
“Oh, I wouldn't have hit her,” Allie said. “Even if she did deserve it.”
Twisty's eyes burned into Allie's. ”Deserve it? Oh, no one deserves to get smacked more than you, Allie,” she seethed. “And just what makes you think that you're the one who'd hit me?”
Allie took a step back from Twisty. “Why would you have hit me? It's not like I'm the one who started it.”
“Hah!” Twisty scoffed. “Of course you started it. You said I couldn't throw a ball.”
“Are you suffering from some temporary case of amnesia, Twisty?” Allie retorted. “Sure, that's what happened. You were just standing there on the field, minding your own business, when I said out of nowhere you couldn't throw a ball. That had nothing to do with the fact that you started picking on Kit-Cat for no reason!”
“Excuse me, brats!”
The voice came from out of nowhere and resonated like a thunderclap. We froze in mid-action, instantly silenced. The growing fight between Twisty and Allie, which seemed unavoidable just a moment ago, was immediately forgotten. Finally, we looked at each other and turned, nearly all at once, towards the source of the voice, which came from, amazingly to us, the opposite side of our wooden fence, in the next yard.
There, at the fence, stood a man. He was about 6 feet tall, like CC, light-skinned, and had a toned, but not overly muscular body. His hair was short, thin, and black, and his eyes were dark green. He stood with his left hand on the fence, leering at us, and held up in his right hand an object we right away recognized: our baseball.
We gawked at the man in astonishment, not sure exactly where he had come from.
“Is this your ball?” he asked us. He spoke in a low, smooth, icy tone. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristle at the sound of it. I decided at once I did not like this man.
Becky was the first to find her voice to speak. “Um, yes. We were-we were playing baseball. The ball...it went over the fence.”
“Well, your ball came into my yard and broke my window,” he said glassily.
“Oh, I'm sorry, we didn't know it broke your window,” Breezy apologized nervously. “We're really sorry about that. We'll pay for any damages.”
The man eyed Breezy and smiled in a way I didn't like. “Will you? Well, how nice of you. You brats must have fantastic upbringing.”
Allie walked up next to Breezy with her arms crossed, glaring at the man. “And who, exactly, are you?”
The man narrowed his eyes at Allie. “I'm your next-door neighbor,” he said in a resonant note. “Isn't that obvious?”
Ashley was next to regain her voice. “But we don't have any next-door neighbors. The house next door has been empty for years.”
“Well I just moved in a few weeks ago,” the man said evenly.
We looked at each other, not sure whether to believe this. After all, we hadn't seen any moving trucks, boxes, or any other signs that someone new was moving in.
“Okay. Well, welcome to the neighborhood then. Nice to meet you,” Breezy said with a courteousness she didn't seem to feel.
The man flashed his eyes at Breezy again. “Are you always this polite?” he sneered.
“So are you ever going to introduce yourself? Tell us your name?” Allie questioned with obvious animosity. “Or are you just going to keep standing there staring at us?”
The man turned to Allie, looking at her with a mixture of coolness and amusement. “Oh, I have a name,” he cooed. “But you may call me Big Boss.”
“Big Boss?” Allie snickered. “That's cute. What are you? A 1920s street gangster?”
Big Boss met Allie’s boldness with a caustic smile. “You're quite the saucy one, aren't you, brat?”
“And where do you get off calling us brats?” Allie demanded. “You don't even know us!”
Big Boss's cold smile grew wider. “Oh, but I do. I've been watching you, and trust me, that's what you are. A bunch of brats.” He paused to let his next words hit us with the staggering effect he intended. “A bunch of real Munch brats.”
We all stood gaping at him, stunned into silence. We all had the same question. Kevin finally brought voice to it. “How-how do you know our last name?”
Can you, for those who don't know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author? /What inspired you?/How did you come up with the idea for the book?
I’m a middle-grade and YA fantasy writer who first dreamed the idea of The Munchkins as a child while playing make-believe with my brother in Wilkes-Barre, PA. I am an early childhood teacher with an M.Ed. in Elementary Education and have taught for over twelve years in Pre-K, Kindergarten, and primary grade classrooms. Like Casey Munch in my book series, I am passionate about creating a more just and equitable world. I’ve been vegan for over 23 years and I'm a long-time animal and social justice activist. I savor vegan food, love board games and podcasts, relish horror movies and novels, devour social science nonfiction, and spontaneously belt out tunes from musicals. I’ve lived in Pittsburgh for over 13 years, but now live in Cleveland, OH with my wife Dana and our dog companion Solstice. The Munchkins is my debut novel.
When I was a kid, my younger brother and I had wild imaginations. We would make up our own make-believe stories and play pretend, acting them out. Our favorite one was one I dreamed up about kids with magic powers who never grow up, and the bad guy who wants their powers named Big Boss, and we called it “Munchkins.” I always remembered it as I grew up, and I thought to myself it would actually make a good book. I think somehow I always knew I’d turn it into a book someday, but I never thought I’d be a book author until I actually started writing it.
When I first started writing The Munchkins, it was probably back in 2012 or ‘13. It started out just for fun, and I didn’t have any intention to publish it, so I wasn’t too serious about working on it, and I’d write bits and pieces here and there. At some point though, I decided it was too good not to publish, and then I got more serious. Once I was determined to publish it, I banged the story out rather quickly. I’d go into a zone and spend whole weekends doing nothing but writing, staying up all hours of the night, only coming up for air to eat (and sometimes I’d forget to eat). I know this sounds cliche, but I felt like something was writing through me. I’d type out the words before I could even think of them. I wrote so much that I actually wrote the first and second book together. At one point I looked at the word count and realized I was well over 300,000 words. That’s when I decided to split it into two different books and write a series.
Candice Zee is a middle-grade and YA fantasy writer who first dreamed the idea of The Munchkins as a child while playing make-believe with her brother in Wilkes-Barre, PA. She is an early childhood teacher with an M.Ed. in Elementary Education and has taught for over twelve years in Pre-K, Kindergarten, and primary grade classrooms. Like Casey Munch in her book series, she is passionate about creating a more just and equitable world. She savors vegan food, loves board games and podcasts, relishes horror movies and novels, devours social science nonfiction, spontaneously belts out tunes from musicals, and does some of her best writing while drinking coffee at 1 AM. She lives in Cleveland, OH with her wife Dana and their dog companion Solstice. The Munchkins is her debut novel. More information about her book series and the characters can be found at www.munchkinsbooks.com.
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