YUP! WE'RE REALLY REALLY HIGH TECH ELVES!

 Fun Holiday Book with a Great Message, October 23, 2014

The book is a fun mix of both traditional and contemporary holiday charm! Frizzy is one of Santa's elves and she loves making dolls. However, she's always sad when Santa takes the dolls to deliver them to the children. So Frizzy talks with her friend Dizzy and decides that she must find a new toy to make - one that she won't miss when Santa delivers them on Christmas Eve.

It's a fun twist to see what Frizzy decides to do and also the outcome of her new toy-making adventures. The author includes some very up-to-date and funny references to technology throughout the book which the kids thought was great! I like the problem-solving aspect of the story and how Frizzy approaches her dilemma (and also how Santa and her friends help out along the way).

The story is actually written in verse and mimics the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas". I wasn't sure I would like this when we first got the book but it works really nicely with the story! My 10 year old and I read this book together so it was great to get into the rhythm of the poem as we read. And I also like the connection of old and new (old being the link to the original Christmas story and new being the fun introduction of technology throughout the book).  - Jacqueline Fisher, Amazon.com

Frizzy's Not the Only One Getting Great New Reviews! Hooray!

Tizzy, the Christmas Shelf Elf: Santa's Izzy Elves #1

Home for the Holidays has a whole new meaning

This children's book has it all! Amazing pictures, a rhyming story line to grab a child's attention, and the magic of everything children love about Christmas...This one is sprinkled with enough realism and fantasy that it will be a family favorite during the holidays for many years to come. It's not only the children who love this book...Grandparents who share this story will become one of the best memories of childhood Christmas. An engaging 5 Stars!!

                                                                                                       - Peggy M., Amazon.com

 Blizzy, the Worrywart Elf: Santa's Izzy Elves #2

This is such a cute story. My little one loves it. No matter how many times we read it he is entranced in the Story like he is hearing it for the first time. 5 Stars 

                                                                                                - Kera Montgomery, Goodreads.com 

Dizzy, the Stowaway Elf:Santa's Izzy Elves #3

 

My grandchildren really loved the story of Dizzy the Stowaway Elf

My grandchildren really loved the story of Dizzy the Stowaway Elf. Thank you so much for the Christmas fantasy! It's always easy to spot a winner in the eyes of a child. 5 Stars
                                                                                                         - Goodreads Reviewer

We Izzy Elves LOVE people who write nice things about our stories. (Deedy likes them, too!) We're thinking of handing out Honorary Izzy Elf certificates to our Worthy Readers (if we can figure out how to deliver 'em)!

Thank you so much!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ (♥)

Bizzy, Blizzy, Dizzy, Fizzy, Frizzy, Quizzy, Tizzy, Whizzy (and Deedy)

Wonderful New Review for Frizzy!

We Izzies love it when Frizzy gets a great new review.  She deserves it! Here's the latest:


I had a great time reading this book: such beautiful rhymes, illustrations and story, too!
I’d like to point out that the message brought about by Frizzy is not just for children – a lot of adults can definitely relate to it as well. Although the “poem” was really long, it did show that sometimes, you have to go through a trial-and-error process to find out that thing that you really want in life (yes, even kids go through that with their toys!). At least, the author did not create a shortcut to the story and give a solution right away.

The illustrations that come with the rhymes were also well done. I love how colorful they are and they portray the characters’ emotions very well, too. It is something that will definitely catch the attention of very young kids who might not yet be interested with the text.
                                                                                                 -  the bookloverslounge.com

Today is a Big Day for Tizzy!

I just found out that the New Improved Downloadable Audiobook of my story, Tizzy, the Christmas Shelf Elf, has been released!  Now it can be bought at Audible.com, Amazon.com and the iTune stores!

(Anyone out there who has already bought the old version will be able to download the new version for free.)

Yee Haw!

Love,
Tizzy

P.S. Here's the link to buy it from Audible.com.  Hope you like it as much as i do!

Tizzy, the Christmas Shelf Elf Downloadable Audiobook!

Tomorrow is a Big Day for Us Izzy Elves (or for 4 of us)

We are all very excited up here because tomorrow CDs are arriving here for the first four of our stories, Tizzy, the Christmas Shelf Elf; Blizzy, the Worrywart Elf; Dizzy, the Stowaway Elf and Frizzy, the S.A.D. Elf!

Deedy read them all aloud at Rocking Horse Studio to make these recordings. (She says she pretended to be reading to her grandsons, but we know she was really reading to all of us.)
Then music was recorded at a studio on the other side of the world by Louisa, Ruth, Lucy, and Rowena Wise and put at the beginning and ending of each of these stories.

We know that CDs are very old-fashioned, and modern parents like to buy audio downloads instead, but Deedy says that some parents and most grandparents still like to have a CD to play when they are too tired to read one of these stories aloud to children for the 100th time!

We Izzies love listening to these over and over and over again!

Deedy says she will get them up on Amazon.com for sale as soon as she can figure out how to do this. Bizzy says he will help, but we all know that sometimes he doesn't know quite as much as he thinks he does.
 
Here are some excerpts, so you can hear what these sound like:

 Santa's Izzy Elves: Excerpt of Frizzy, the S.A.D. Elf Audiobook
(now available from Amazon.com, Audible.com, and iTunes.

Santa's Izzy Elves: Excerpt of Tizzy, the Christmas Shelf Elf Audiobook

(New, Improved version will be available soon from the above websites.) 

New Improved Version is NOW available from Audible.com, Amazon.com, and the iTunes store. (See post above for link!)

Santa's Izzy Elves: Excerpt of Blizzy, the Worrywart Elf Audiobook
(New, Improved version will be available soon from the above websites.)

Santa's Izzy Elves: Excerpt of Dizzy, the Stowaway Elf Audiobook
(New, Improved version will be available soon from the above websites.)

The Great Circle of Elf

So Bizzy has been snooping around in the innards of our blogsite and found a widget that makes it easy for people to sign up to get e-mail notifications whenever we Izzies write a cool new post! (It's over on the right, just under the page view counter.)

Naturally, once Bizzy installed it, we couldn't resist playing around with it a little.  We put our own address in.  Then we wrote a new post.  Then we watched our e-mail like hawks to get the notification that we'd written a new post. Then we go back to our blog and write another post and then watch for it to come through to our e-mail.

We have decided to call this "The Great Circle of Elf."

You must understand that there is not much to do for entertainment up here at the Pole. Mostly we just 1) work in the Workshop, 2) work out in the ElfGym, 3) munch in the Munchroom, or 4) play with Quizzy's games and puzzles in the ElfDen.  (Of course, there is also the Great Outdoors, where we have snowball fights that go on for days.  And days around here can be REALLY LONG during some parts of the year.)
 
In any case, we have been having fun going round and round the G.C. of E.

Please join us, by putting your e-mail into that tiny slot on the right and following directions to set it all up.

Bizzy also put a "subscribe" button on here, but we haven't figured out yet how it works. We'll get back to you when we do.

In the meantime, here is a fun picture for you of some of the elves working out in the ElfGym.

Cheers,

The Izzy Elves

Can you spot the non-Izzies who have sneaked in to play in our gym?

More Translation Chuckles!

So we Izzy Elves cannot resist playing with the "translate" button (see it on the right??).

We just tried translating our names into Portuguese (because Deedy speaks it a bit - she was in the Peace Corps in Brazil 45 years ago!)

Guess what?  Just like in French, Frizzy's name is the only one that is changed into something else. Here's the list:

Bizzy 
Blizzy
Dizzy
Fizzy
Cabelo Crespo
Quizzy
Tizzy
Whizzy 
(e Deedy)

It's always fun to see how similar words can be in these Romance languages:

French Cheveux Crépus = Portuguese Cabelo Crespo.

We prefer the Portuguese, because we don't have to hunt all over the keyboard trying to figure out how to put in the  ´.  (Which we just did anyway, which kind of defeats the purpose. Oh, well.)

Luckily, Dizzy seems to have learned his lesson about teasing Frizzy about this. Just in case, Bizzy looked online and found out that Dizzy in Portuguese is "Vertiginoso". We're all ready to start calling him that if he starts calling Frizzy "Cabelo Crespo". 

Deedy (that's Dorothea Jensen to you) has been pestering us lately asking our opinions on which of Bizzy's "adventures" (or misadventures) she should put in the next Izzy Elves story. (It's going to be about Bizzy, obviously.) She says she won't start writing it down until after Christmas—which is just as well because we are all slammed with work here at the Pole until then, of course, and don't have time to chat with her.

Meanwhile, Bizzy is looking a little nervous. We tell him not to worry, Deedy won't put anything in his story that will embarrass him—too much!

Much Love,

The Izzy Elves (and Deedy)

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (♥)

(Whizzy likes this picture because his name is first! Since his name starts with "W" he's usually at the end of the list!)