This month’s Bartography Express giveaway: The Rockabilly Goats Gruff

The January issue of my Bartography Express newsletter went out a couple of days ago, and as usual, one subscriber will win a copy of the featured book. This month, the giveaway is for author/illustrator Jeff Crosby‘s new picture book, The Rockabilly Goats Gruff (Holiday House).

If you’d like to be in the running for next month’s giveaway of Nikki Loftin‘s upcoming novel Nightingale’s Nest (which received a starred review from Kirkus), you can sign up here in the big yellow box.

But in the meantime, here’s my chat with Jeff about his book from this month’s newsletter:

CB: What drew you toward the story you tell in The Rockabilly Goats Gruff?

JC: The Billy Goats Gruff was a favorite story of mine when I was a kid. I think it was the repetition of the three encounters with the troll building up to the climactic battle that appealed to me. That repetition appealed to me as a writer, too. Plus, also being the illustrator of the book, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to paint hot rods, goats in pompadours, and a troll!

CB: Tell me about the kind of kid you think The Rockabilly Goats Gruff will appeal to the most.

JC: The troll, hot rods, and rock ‘n’ roll swagger of the goats will definitely appeal to boys. As a Looney Tunes-watching, Tonka Truck-playing kid, I would have loved this book when I was boy. But the rockabilly lingo and music will make it a fun read-aloud for any kid.