By Christine Goold –
Fort Collins children’s author and book publisher Karla Oceanak had a dream: Create a series of quality books that elementary-age kids (especially boys) would read and covet as much as the comic books and humorous novels that her three young sons adored, yet would also enrich their lives and minds.
Thus were born the award-winning Aldo Zelnick comic novels, an A-to-Z series of illustrated chapter books for readers age 7-13. Published by Bailiwick 
Press in Fort Collins, and illustrated by artist Kendra Spanjer, the series focuses on the adventures of chubby, curly-headed protagonist Aldo Zelnick: an “athletically challenged,” artistic 10-year-old who’d rather fill his sketchbooks with cartoons and eat bacon than embark on more stereotypical outdoor Colorado adventures with his diverse group of friends and relatives.
“Our purpose is simple: to produce books kids love to read,” sums up Oceanak on the webpage of Bailiwick Press, the publishing company she and Spanjer, along with graphic designer Launie Parry, started in 2009. “Bailiwick’s books for kids teach, inspire and delight. As we develop our children’s books, we work with teachers and other educators to make sure they will be equally at home in the classroom as they are on kids’ nightstands.”
Or as Spanjer and Oceanak quipped in a recent interview, “Our books are vitamin-fortified ‘Wimpy Kid.’”
So far, Bailiwick Press launched 10 of a projected 26 books in the alphabetical Aldo Zelnick series: Artsy-Fartsy, Bogus, Cahoots, Dumbstruck, Egghead, Finicky, Glitch, Hotdogger, Ignoramus and Jackpot (with Kerfluffle to come in May 2015). The books are drawing rave reviews from parents, teachers and the most important audience of all: elementary-age readers.
“It was the funniest book I have ever read,” writes young Amazon.com reviewer Tavis of Artsy-Fartsy. “The illustrations are hilarious. It is better than Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”
“There are lots and lots of funny parts in Dumbstruck,” writes another young reader on Amazon.com, reviewing the series’ fourth book. “You’ll be happy after you read it! Thank you for writing funny books. I smile when I read Aldo Zelnick book[s].”
These words are music to the ears of Oceanak, who describes herself as “a children’s author who believes that humor is the key to literacy and thus the solution to pretty much every not-so funny problem in this world of ours.”
Each book is written and drawn in the form of a sketchbook that Aldo himself creates, and each book follows a month in Aldo’s life. The series starts in June, the summer after Aldo’s fourth-grade year, and continues (so far) through April of fifth grade. Told in Aldo’s unique, realistic voice, the books are packed with jokes, cartoons and well-paced plots that not only introduce readers to Aldo’s versatile exploits, but also to locales that many Colorado readers will recognize.
In the first two books, for instance, Aldo and his friends establish their fort at the base of a Colorado blue spruce tree and pursue summertime adventures in a Fort Collins neighborhood. In October’s Egghead, the 10-year-olds visit the nearby Rocky Mountains to watch bugling elk and participate in “Eco Week” (a fifth grade event avidly anticipated by real-life Fort Collins-area elementary students).
“When I was a kid, the books I read were set in New York or Los Angeles, places I’d never been,” says Spanjer, who grew up in Fort Collins and also works as a freelance copywriter and illustrator. “Anything set in between the coasts were books about wilderness survival. I couldn’t relate to something that happened in an urban setting or in the wilderness. A lot of kids grow up in a [smaller] city setting, but not in a major urban population.”
“We thought that Fort Collins deserved its own character who grows up here,” adds Oceanak, who was raised in Minnesota but has lived in Fort Collins for 25 years, working as a writer and editor as she and her husband, Scott, raised their three sons (now ages 22, 18 and 15). “Kids don’t often get to read a book that is set in their town. The series is an ode to Fort Collins and, more broadly, Colorado.”
But the series also features situations that any late-elementary (or “middle-grade”) reader can relate to: dealing with a neighborhood bully; kicking a video game habit; juggling fifth-grade infatuation and insecurity; holding on to new and old friends. As Aldo himself confronts these issues in the books, he is helped by a colorful cast of family members and adult friends (like grandmother “Goosy” and the school “lunch-lady-who’s-a-guy,” Mr. Fodder), as well as loyal sidekicks Jack and Bee.
As an added bonus, each book also integrates lively vocabulary words into its plot, and includes a glossary at the end, written and illustrated by Aldo. For instance, in Bogus young readers learn Aldo’s definitions of such “B” words as bewildering, bilingual and blithely (along with his lighter explanations of “buzzkill” and “bazillion”); in Egghead, which deals with differing kinds of intelligence, readers explore the meanings of such “E” words as eccentric, enigmatic, excruciatingly (defined as “uber-painfully”) and even euphemism. All new words are integrated into each book’s story line, and starred (*), so that readers can flip to the glossary in back and look them up.Daniel is a happy Aldo Zelnick reader.Daniel is a happy Aldo Zelnick reader.
“In the beginning, we thought that parents and teachers would love the vocabulary words in our books, and that kids would take them or leave them,” says Oceanak, who travels with Spanjer regularly to elementary schools to meet and talk with young readers. “But wherever we go, it’s the kids who want to talk about the words.”
“They ask things like ‘What does cahoots mean?’” says Spanjer. “Or ‘What will your next book be called? What words will be in that one?’ Teachers tell us that when kids are reading the Aldo Zelnick books together, they won’t let each other skip looking up new words in the glossary.”
Due to this kind of high quality content, the A-to-Z series has earned a number of awards, including a Colorado Book Award and a Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Regional Book Award, as well as continuing accolades from parents, teachers, bloggers and librarians.
So how does each new Aldo Zelnick book come together?
“We start by brainstorming about the month in which the book will be set,” explains Oceanak. “Kendra and I ask, ‘What would normally be going on in a 10-year-old’s life during this time?”
For instance, Artsy-Fartsy and Bogus focus on June and July adventures in Aldo’s neighborhood, while in Cahoots, Aldo travels to his uncle and aunt’s Minnesota farm in August (a month when many families take trips before school starts).
And since January is really boring, says Oceanak, the pair worked that reality into Hotdogger, as well as Aldo’s reluctant foray into skiing.
“Each book has a ‘problem’ and a theme,” continues Oceanak, “and the title is really important. It has to be a word with a real personality, that will make you smile, that will be fun, but also encompasses or refers to the book’s events and theme.”
February’s Ignoramus, for instance, deals with Aldo’s cluelessness about romantic love, while March’s Jackpot teaches Aldo important lessons about fame, wealth and community (but also introduces readers to the hilarious character J.D., the Pawn Shop Guy).
After Oceanak creates an outline, Spanjer goes to work illustrating the 160 pages committed to each book. She tries to make her illustrations rough enough that it would be believable that a 10-year-old kid was keeping such a journal, Spanjer says, and adds details to her covers like authentic apple produce stickers, Dum Dums sucker wrappers and wrinkled patches of duct tape so real-looking that readers want to reach out to smooth them.
Then, in a back-and-forth drafting process, author and illustrator add more and more content until each book has not only a ton of silliness and a strong plot, says Oceanak, but also deeper meaning and the kind of substance the series is known for.
“If our goal is to get and keep kids reading every day, we need to create books they enjoy,” Oceanak emphasizes. “In a 2007 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, researchers found that the highest reading scores on standardized tests correlated with the frequency of reading for fun. For fun.”
“One mother told us, ‘You saved my son’s life,’” recounts Spanjer, her voice still tinged with awe. The woman’s son, a fourth-grader, hated to read and she worried for her son’s survival in the school years ahead. But when the boy discovered the Aldo Zelnick books, he started to love reading, Spanjer reports.Author Karla Oceanak (left) and illustrator Kendra Spanjer (right). Author Karla Oceanak (left) and illustrator Kendra Spanjer (right).
“We hear that all the time,” Oceanak concludes. “How a child would not read until an Aldo Zelnick book was put in his or her hands for the first time. How a child was more or less turned into a reader with a single book.” She pauses. “We love that.”
Christine Goold is a freelance writer from Durango. Recently retired from over 20 years of teaching English and writing at Fort Lewis College, she is working on a mystery novel series.