Literary Classics International Book Awards, Rapid City, South Dakota announced The King of Average as a double GOLD  award winner.  It has been awarded two gold medals for Preteen and Middle Grade fiction.

Children’s Literary Classics, an organization dedicated to furthering excellence in children’s literature, takes great pride in its role to help promote classic children’s literature which appeals to youth while educating and encouraging positive values in the impressionable young minds of future generations.

In the tradition of The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the children’s classics by Roald Dahl, The King of Average combines the wit and wordplay found in The Phantom Tollbooth and tells the tale of James, an average boy travelling his emotional landscape in the Realm of Possibility where states of mind are actual places i.e., Lake Inferior, The Kingdom of Average, Accusia and Epiphany. Transported by his wish to be the most average boy who ever lived, he befriends a talking scapegoat named Mayor Culpa, and a professional optimist paired with an equally professional pessimist called Kiljoy. Together they embark on a wild adventure to discover and claim his true self-worth.

I lived through emotional and physical abuse as a child and I believe we all take the various traumas of childhood with us into adulthood. Without self-awareness, we can suffer our whole lives.

I wrote this story to entertain and inspire children to better understand their feelings and discover their own truth in a hilarious allegory. My hope is that it takes a place alongside other childhood classics and inspires future generations.

I’ll be going to Rapid City to accept the awards and meet other winners as well. Their blogs and titles are listed below.

Have a look.