Consider Yourself Well In! Guest Peter Clenott

"Consider yourself well in, consider yourself part of the family"

I haven't really met Peter in person, but he's one of our Imajin-nation, so he has to be great. Here are some things I have learned about him. He has three wonderful kids (even though they're teens LOL). He writes mainly in the YA genre in their honor.  In August 2013, DEVOLUTION will be published by Imajin Books. He's also one of those people whom I admire for their social services and non-profit work. Sounds like he's politically involved, too, so look out Massachusetts!

Now, to the best part - Peter's new book, Devolution.

DEVOLUTION features sixteen-year-old Chiku Flynn. Chiku was born in the Congo rainforest to two anthropologists studying the native chimpanzees. For the first eleven years of her life, Chiku is more chimp than child. She nests with the chimpanzees, grooms them and has no qualms about sticking a leaf tool in the soil and slurping up the ants and termites she uncovers. When she is eleven, her mother is killed, and Chiku is sent back to the United States to grow into a maladjusted teenager medicated for anxiety, depression, mood disorder, hyperactivity, you name it. When her father disappears, Chiku must return to the Congo to discover her true heroic self. In Swahili, Chiku means ‘chatterbox’ but the chimpanzees of the Maiku National park, with whom she can communicate using sign language, know her simply as Talk Talk

An Excerpt for my followers - FREE!
     Perched on a branch in a tree at the top of Chimp Hill, the highest point on the island, Scallion studied the night sky. In times past, the moon, the stars, all of the bright objects set in the darkness above, would have held no meaning for him or for his fellow chimpanzees. With good reason their curiosity was focused on the earth and upon the rain forest in which they lived, how it fed them and nurtured them. This had been true since the beginning of time, since the first chimpanzee found a home here. Only the arrival of the girl and her parents had changed that, changed everything, in fact.
     Scallion didn’t feel the wind breathing through his brown fur, didn’t feel its soft tickling. Sometimes the moon shone a brilliant red or even purple, colors reflecting off the water of the Mamba River, which flowed around Chimp Hill and created his island home. On those nights the young chimpanzee reflected upon days buried deeply but firmly in his memory when he and the human female played tag and leaped through the trees, wraaing and hooting and pretending they were of the same kind.
     Tonight the mouth-shaped moon seemed to be frowning. The girl had explained to him, using her hands in a language her father was teaching them, that they all lived on a great big ball. Using the thumb and middle finger of her left hand she would pinch her right wrist and explain to them that their world made a circle every day so that light was a part of the morning and darkness an expected feature of night.
     "The moon," she signed, touching her forehead with two fingers in the shape of the crescent, "is a ball of rock that floats in the air so far away birds can never reach it. Chimpanzees can never get there either, but our kind can."

Buy Devolution HERE

It's still only 99¢ for its debut price, so get it on your ereader now and read it to your kids!