About the Book
Book: New Chicks at The Peaceable
Author: Caryl “Grami” McAdoo
Genre: Children’s Animals Picture Book
Release Date: November 23, 2023
Chickens from newborns to old hens have a “pecking order” but bullying is never right! What to do if you’re bullied by those around you!
Click here to get your copy!
About the Author
Award-winning, Christian author Caryl McAdoo prays her story brings God glory. Of her best-selling novels, readers love her historical Christian romance family sagas most, but also enjoy their contemporary cousins, Caryl’s Biblical fiction, her new historical mystery series, and tales for young adults and mid-grade booklovers as well as the new picture books for the still younger set. The majority of reviewers award her stories five-stars and praise Caryl’s writing style and the depth of her characters, feeling as though they get to know them well.
The prolific writer loves singing the new songs God gives her almost as much as penning new novels—hear a few at YouTube! She’s been married to Ron fifty-five years, and they share four children and twenty-seven grandsugars. The McAdoos live at The Peaceable in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.
More from Caryl
As the chicken population grows at The Peaceable Farm & Bookery, troubles come–all based all on the true story! One of our beautiful ‘Golden Laced Wyandotte’ hens got broody and wanted to sit on a nest and hatch a clutch of chicks!
The wee peepers, designated the “Songsters” and named Reba, Celine, Loretta, and Miley (the last by a reader’s daughter), experience the famous and proverbial “pecking order” chickens are so famous for. In human terms that can be called bullying though, and so Goldie, their mother teaches the girls how to respond those bully chickens!
Grami loves her “backyard birds”, and so does O’Pa! She expects the name of the twenty acres she and O’Pa live on in Red River County—The Peaceable—to be the spur for all its inhabitants to cohabitate peacefully with one another—and that includes the chickens!
She and O’Pa, her husband of fifty-five years have bought an incubator to hatch purebred chicks then raise fine, healthy birds to their laying age—usually four to five months—before finding them forever homes. We love our flock, and the babies grow so fast. Watching them is so much fun and relaxing, too!
Grami knows each hen and rooster by name, and they all are so affectionate! They come running whenever I head out the door (mostly because they want to see if I brought any food! 😊) I love thinking about what they are saying to each other with all their clucking and purring and cackling!
This is why the books are partially written from the hens’ point of view as our first animals’ series, The River Bottom Ranch Stories featuring horses and goats and dogs among other wild animal characters. And all those farm animals were real ones that we owned and loved, too—like the chickens!
This series ‘Grami’s Stories for Children’ also has a narrator speaking throughout—that’s me, Grami McAdoo! I talk to the children through a few pages full of dialogue to teach them about poultry and things of God. In NEW CHICKS at the Peaceable, I talk about bullies and how Jesus teaches us to respond, how they can be scary, but God is always with us and sends His angels to protect us!
The illustrations are photographs of our real chickens and The Peaceable Farm & Bookery. In the back of the book, there are a few pages of “Chicken Terminology” and fun “Chicken Facts” to teach the little ones more about the wonderful world of chickens!
I pray the precious little ones so dear to God’s heart will love the story and be blessed by it! 😊
Author Interview
- What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?
Well, my favorite actual journey was traveling along the Oregon/California Trail. From my north Texas home, we went to Independence, Missouri, saw the actual place where thousands upon thousands of sojourners in covered wagons crossed the river to go west.
There were museums all along the way. It was a wonderful, historical rich trip. My favorite site was Independence Rock in Wyoming, It touched my heart and I felt connected somehow to all the pilgrams who’d been there back in the 1800s and carved their names, initials, and/or dates in the granite.
I highly recommend that trip as a family vacation!
- What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?
I AM My Beloved, the story of Abishag should be read—in my humble opinion—by every Christian. It makes a little known Biblical character—only a couple of mentions in the Old Testament.
She was the last queen of King David. I wonder why he even married her when she only came to keep him warm in his last days. She was a virgin queen. Scripture says she cherished him, but also that he “knew her not.”
Upon David’s death, she became the property of Solomon as his heir, though he was not the oldest son, he was Bathsheba’s child. I believe she is the Shulamite spoken of in the Song of Solomon.
I love this story. Oft times when writing it, I had to stop for weeping and worship my God. It’s a very special book to me. 😊
- How do you select the names of your characters?
I love naming things, characters, goats, chickens, children, cars, buildings, homes . . . tee hee hee! Does it come from God letting my great-to-the-who-know-how-many-generations-grandfather Adam name all the animals??
I write down interesting names of people I meet for future use. I go to the internet for look at lists, especially for cultural names like of Irish or Russian or Norwegian. I love checking the meanings of the name that fits the character I’m about to create.
- What comes first, the plot or characters?
Definitely the characters and their backstories. Authors need to know the backstories to have a firm handle on the character—where they are in life and how they got there.
Readers on the other hand should be dropped straight into the action and learn the background of their new friend as they would a real-life new friend . . . a little unfolding at a time. Otherwise backstory bores them because they don’t know the character enough to care.
Think of it, if you met a new person, how long would you sit and listen to the details of their life since birth? It gets boring fast if there isn’t a back and forth. If you can’t get a word in edgewise, would you want to be with them again? I think not.
- What do you like to do when you are not writing?
A very small part of my day is spent writing. I enjoy playing games with my husband. We play Quirkle at every meal and maybe two more games (one late morning and one mid afternoon). We’re both very competitive and love to win 😊
I also thoroughly enjoy caring for the animals we have at The Peaceable Farm & Bookery. Those include nine Nubian goats. I’m milking four of them right now and expecting new kids any day. We have about forty chickens I love, 5 dogs (four stay outside, one small Sassy girl lives inside), and our barn cats. I know we feed at least twenty=plus every day, but a very few allow us to touch them. At least they keep the rodents far away!
Thank you for letting us get to know you better!
Blog Stops
Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, January 9
Lots of Helpers, January 10
Library Lady’s Kid Lit, January 11
Artistic Nobody, January 12 (Author Interview)
Splashes of Joy, January 12
Texas Book-aholic, January 13
Guild Master, January 14 (Author Interview)
Locks, Hooks and Books, January 15
Happily Managing a Household of Boys, January 16
Abba’s Prayer Warrior Princess, January 17
Cover Lover Book Review, January 18
Girls in White Dresses, January 19
A Reader’s Brain, January 20 (Author Interview)
Lights in a Dark World, January 20
For Him and My Family, January 21
Fiction Book Lover, January 22 (Author Interview)
Giveaway
To celebrate her tour, Caryl is giving away the prize of a $25 Amazon gift card and a copy of the book!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.
https://promosimple.com/ps/29587/new-chicks-at-the-peaceable-celebration-tour-giveaway