What is your book all about?
Magical Elements of the Periodic Table Presented Alphabetically By The Metal Horn Unicorns started out as a unicorn alphabet book based on the metal horn unicorns from my previous book Journey To Osm – The Blue Unicorn’s Tale. Since my unicorns all have horns and hooves representing metals from the periodic table, each page quickly evolved into a “unicornucopia” of information about each unicorn’s magical element. The original twelve unicorns all have metal horns and I had to develop 14 additional magical elemental unicorns to round out the alphabet.
What inspired you to write the book?
I have wanted to write a unicorn alphabet book for a very long time but I had a very hard time coming up with a unique concept until it occurred to me to associate each alphabet letter with an element from the periodic table. Right away I ran into trouble because not every letter of the alphabet is represented by a periodic table element. The three pesky letters that I needed elements for were J, Q and W. I thought my book might be doomed until the idea hit me to see what names of some of the elements were in other languages besides English. I learned that Jodium is Dutch for Iodine. One problem solved, just like that. Then, I started wondering what some nicknames might be for other elements. Did you know that Mercury is also known as Quick Silver? That was my answer for the letter Q. Finally, I found out that the Latin word for Tungsten is Wolfram. In fact, I was happy to learn that the letter W happens to be the chemical abbreviation for Tungsten, making Wolfram the perfect nickname for that element. One of my original metal horn unicorns has a horn that is an alloy of Copper and Zinc. I didn’t want to leave him out of the book so the Brass-Horned unicorn has his own page. Including him led me to develop one page each for Alloys and Compounds.
What is your target audience for the book?
What is your target audience for the book? I’m hoping this book will appeal to middle grade students and maybe a few teens, too. Due to the immense amount of information on each page, I’m afraid younger readers will mainly focus on the unicorns but you never know how much one might learn through the process of osmosis. Simply staring at all the cute pictures might spark curiosity in the very young about the elemental information offered on each page. The book is available in Kindle and paperback right now on Amazon and should be available in hardback from there soon. The Metal Horn
What do you hope readers could get out from your book?
I’m hope to inspire an interest in science at an early age. Everything in our world revolves around the elements in the periodic table. Most people are completely oblivious to just how important they are in our lives. You can see it everywhere… in buildings. . .transportation…communications. . .medicines and even in the food you eat! All technology and everything that makes life modern come from the magical elements in the earth, water and the air. You can learn more about the book at sybrina.com.
What are your future goals/plans for the book?
My future goals for this book is to continue to create fun unicorn-themed lesson plans to make learning about science and the periodic table more interesting for youngsters. I’ve already created several that are available at Teachers Pay Teachers. I plan to send this book on some book blog tours in hopes that the word gets out there to parents and teachers. I particularly want to thank Author’s Lounge for giving me this opportunity to gain some exposure.
And something more about yourself. I call myself a unicorn author/entrepreneur. In addition to books, I offer unicorn-themed activities, t-shirts and more. Plus, I have pulled together a collection of nearly all the unicorn books available today from hundreds of authors. They are categorized on my website by Little Kid, Middle Kid and Teen Unicorn Books. Check out Sybrina’s Unicorn Book Store at sybrina.com.
