Don P. Hooper

A little Caribbean humor from Coomacka Island Comic Strips to start your week:

http://www.coomacka.com/comics/2008/12/27/coomacka-island-comic-strip-001/

Hey Everybody,
We’re looking to get more children to test out our online games for fun factor, interest, and game play… So if you have children under the age of 10 who like to play online games have them check out the
Coomacka Island Activities page!

Also, if you stop by the Coomacka Island Story Preview page, check out either story preview and leave a review on Amazon.com (just search for “Coomacka Island”) — we’ll send you a free Coomacka Island book.

Just send us a link to your live review on Amazon.com to info (at) coomacka.com and we’ll ship you a free Coomacka Island book.

Thanks for the help!
One Love,
-The Coomacka Team

This is a quick note for Sunday. Darnel Degand, Coomacka Island’s illustrator, just informed me he received a Google Alert stating that Coomacka Island was featured in today’s Jamaica Gleaner (Sunday, Feb. 17). Needless to say this is an exciting moment. It’s one of the largest papers in the Caribbean with a circulation that reaches the Caribbean population in the U.S. as well.

I’ve already received calls from family and friends back in Jamaica who have read the article. So please check it out.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080217/arts/arts5.html

I couldn’t have made it this far without the support of everyone, so once again Thank you for all your kind words and encouragement.

One Love,
Don P.

It’s finally here. Check out the trailer for the upcoming animated Coomacka Island cartoon, based on the Caribbean inspired children’s book series.

Please visit the youtube page for the Coomacka Island Trailer and leave a comment and rating!

Also, don’t forget to stop by www.coomacka.com and sign up for our newsletter!

This is just a quick note/update on Coomacka Island (Caribbean based children’s books for the unaware).

I’m about a week away from finishing off a quick trailer for Coomacka Island. Nothing big, just a video for YouTube to get the word out on this children’s book series. I probably could finish it in a day or less, but I’m working on about a hundred and one other projects.

Finishing off the trailer has just been several months behind schedule, so I want to wrap it before the end of Q1 2008. This one won’t be a fully animated trailer. It’s more of a book style trailer, but with some nifty editing and sound design.

Be sure to subscribe to either of my Youtube pages to make sure you see it.

Coomacka on YouTube
Jamtown Films

Well it’s 4am EST. So, that’s it for me.

Dear friends of Coomacka Island,

We are pleased to announce the addition of some great new activities and games at Coomacka.com.

Just stop by coomacka.com and click the “Activities” link. There you’ll find coloring sheets available free for download. Also, there are two cool new games:

1) Find the Words Game with Anansi Jr. – Anansi Jr. needs help learning words. Help AJ search through the word maze and find new words!

2) Lenox Lizard vs. the Duppies (ghosts) – Help Lenox Lizard rescue the water from the mysterious duppies of Coomacka Island. Along the way, eat delicious Julie Mangos and stomp out the scary duppies.

And, don’t forget to stop by Amazon.com or Coomacka.com (Bookstore link) and order your copy of Coomacka Island.

Thanks again for all your support. Please be sure to send us an email with feedback on the activities.

Your friends,
The Coomacka Team

P.S. We’re trying to push Anansi Jr. and the Mango Truck (our top seller) to a new level, so it would be great to sell-out of books for the Holidays on Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble!

Congratulations to Ms. Dean of Armona Elementary School in Armona, CA.

She is the winner of the joint CRA (California Reading Association) “Schoolside Press and Coomacka Island” Barnes and Noble Gift Certificate Giveaway!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Here are some more pictures of the Coomacka Island booth at the CRA (actually only the right side of the booth). Didn’t get a chance to take a picture of the entire booth, which also had the giant map from Andrew Martonyi’s “The Little Man in the Map.” It was a gigantic winner with the teachers.

Note: It got kind of messy at the booth by the time I took the picture, so I apologize.

Day 2 (day 1 for me) of the 41st annual CRA (California Reading Association) Conference is now in the history books. Coomacka Island partnered with E. Andrew Martonyi of Schoolside Press and shared a booth for the conference. Martonyi is the author of “The Little Man in the Map,” an excellent book that teaches children the geography of the United States.

Here’s a picture of Martonyi and myself:

Well, here I am at Day 1 of the California Reading Association Conference. Actually, it’s day 2 for the conference, day 1 for me. I was supposed to be here for the opening of the conference, but one thing lead to another and I missed it.

I arrived at JFK fourty minutes before my flight time. Unfortunately, since I had an extra bag that needed to be checked in I wasn’t allowed to fly at my scheduled time. Airports have some rule where after a certain time, only carry on luggage is allowed on the plane. So, I ended up flying standby, several hours later.

I finally arrived in Ontario, CA only to find out that my luggage didn’t make the flight. It ended up stopping at LAX (Los Angeles Intl Airport). The attendant at JFK had only marked my checked-bag for the first leg of the flight. Of course, that was the bag with my clothes in it.

Luckily, the airport was able to locate the bag at LAX and sent it on to Ontario on the next flight. I was thrilled when I went to the hotel lobby and the desk attendant had my bag waiting for me at 10pm PST.

Well, that’s it for now, time to start on Day 1.