 Today we celebrate the book birthday of The Beginning of All Things, the exciting second book in Karla Arenas Valenti's chapter book series "Legendarios" (illustrated by Vanessa Morales). We sat down with Musa Karla Arenas Valenti to learn more about the inspiration behind this book. Tell us a little bit about the book: "Legendarios" is a series pitches as "Magic Tree House" meets "Heroes in Training" inspired by Mexican mythology and following twins, Emma and Martin, whose magical book transports them into ancient legends! In Book 2 (The Beginning of All Things) Emma and Martín are settling into their new home in Chicago and getting ready to start at their new school. When they learn they’ll be in separate classes for the first time, they aren’t sure they can face so much change alone. But when life gets stressful, the siblings now have the perfect escape—into the book of legends! They enter the creation story of when the giant Ometecuhtli made the world. As soon as they arrive, they realize they have a major problem: it takes a magical object to activate Emma’s necklace and open the portal home, but how can they find one when nothing exists yet? It's quite possible Emma and Martín will be stuck at the beginning of time for eternity! Sounds exciting, doesn't it? What was your favorite part of the publication process with this story? First of all, my editor is WONDERFUL. I have truly enjoyed working with Anna Parsons! Not only is she very insightful and always has great insights, she is also great at making suggestions or proposing solutions (especially helpful when I get stuck on a particular plotpoint). The other thing I have enjoyed a ton is watching Vanessa Morales bring this series to life. She is a real pro! Vanessa brilliantly captured Emma and Martin (I can't imagine them looking any differently than they do) and her illustrations are always so vibrant and dynamic, full of energy! It's been a real pleasure working with her to bring this series to the hands of young readers. Can you share if you used any mentor texts for your story? If so, how did you use them? "Legendarios" is my first chapter book series. Up until then I had focused on middle grade novels and picture books. However, the chapter book audience is quite different from the readers who consume MG or PB content. So, I had to study how chapter books are built and what makes them different from MG or PB stories. To help me out, I read a lot of the "Magic Tree House" books, "Heroes in Training," and "Definitely Dominguita" by fellow Musa Terry Catasus Jennings (an adorable series!).  Some things I picked up: the word count for a chapter book tends to be between 12k and 15k; the world building is a lot simpler than what you would find in a MG novel, as is the character development; you need to jump right into the action fairly early and there is typically a lot of drama throughout the story. Also, chapter books are often used for early readers so the language needs (the words, the grammar, the sentence structure) should take that into account. What comes next for you as an author? I'm very fortunate to have a number of books in the pipeline over the next few years:
I have Las Musas to thank for helping me build a lot of that!  Karla Arenas Valenti grew up in Mexico City in a house built around a tree. Her life was always filled with elements of the fantastical which she readily incorporates into her storytelling, taking readers on journeys steeped in magical realism.
Karla writes middle grade novels, chapter books, and picture books. Her stories are heavily influenced by her Mexican heritage and layered with ideas and concepts she’s picked up in her many travels around the world. Karla currently resides in the Chicagoland area with her husband and three kids, two cats, and hundreds of books. Find her at https://karlavalenti.com/ Comments are closed.
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