Cover Reveal for The Great Caper Caper by Josh Funk and Brendan Kearney
I am so excited about today’s post! I’ve known Josh for a few years having first met him on social media and then later getting to hang out at the Princeton Children’s Book Festival together. Josh is an absolutely fantastic writer and can rhyme just about everything (and do it well)! So, I’m super excited to be able to share the cover reveal of his latest adventure of Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast today!
I also couldn’t help but giggle when I learned about the title for the next book – The Great Caper Caper. If you’ve ever watched Pitch Perfect 2, you might already know where I’m going with this. In one scene, Bumper is trying to create a romantic evening for his girlfriend Fat Amy and says, “I have a patisserie, some charcuterie, and a huge bowl of exotic capers. I didn’t know what those were, but they’re like salty peas.” It makes me laugh every time. And it’s the only thing I can think about when I hear the word capers. But, enough about me, let’s learn more about Book #5 in this fun fridge series!
Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast are back in a Las Veggies heist for the ages! Pancake and Toast awake one morning to near-darkness. Who could possibly have stolen the fridge light? And what if the fridge is—gasp—dark all the time? Not to worry; Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast are on the case! Along with their friends, they assemble blueprints, collect supplies, and investigate. Will they bring the fridge back to its bright self, or will they have to live in semi-darkness . . . forever?
Why a Heist?
Laura: I thought I’d ask Josh one very important question: How exactly did you land on a heist as the next adventure?
Josh: I try to do two things when writing the Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast series:
- Base the story on a real problem that could happen in a fridge.
- Change up the genre of the story in each book.
Recap
In book #1 (Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast), the fridge problem is there’s only one serving left of something (syrup), and in this case the genre is ‘race’ or ‘athletic competition’ (or something like that – I didn’t really come up with this A & B system until after I’d written a few of the books and I sort of fell into it).
In book #2 (The Case of the Stinky Stench), the real-life fridge problem is that something in the fridge smells and it’s a mystery as to what that smell is.
In book #3 (Mission Defrostable), the real-life fridge problem is that things in the fridge are too cold and freezing over, and this one is an action-adventure-spy-thriller.
In book #4 (Short & Sweet), the real-life fridge problem is that foods (Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast) are going stale, and this one is both a sci-fi/comedy (like Honey I Shrunk the Kids or The Nutty Professor) and a magical body-swap (like Freaky Friday or Big).
Brainstorm
And so I thought, what other real-life problems could happen in a fridge? That’s when a light bulb in my head went on – the light bulb in the fridge could go off! And I’ve always loved heists – but heists are inherently tricky because the protagonists have to try and steal something for altruistic reasons. So what if they’re trying to steal the light bulb back from an evil villain who took it in the first place?
But who could be the villain in such a caper? Well, that was immediately obvious – I didn’t even need to finish the question.
Cover Reveal
And so without further ado … here is the grand cover reveal of book #5 in the Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast series, The Great Caper Caper:
The Great Caper Caper by Josh Funk and illustrated by Brendan Kearney is available for preorder from your favorite book retailers and releases on September 20th, 2022, published by Union Square Kids.
Learn More About Josh
Josh Funk is a software engineer and the author of books like the Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast series, the It’s Not a Fairy Tale series, the How to Code with Pearl and Pascal series, the A Story of Patience & Fortitude series, Dear Dragon, Pirasaurs!, Albie Newton, and coming soon: My Pet Feet (8/23/22), It’s Not the Three Little Pigs (10/25/22) and Dear Unicorn (fall 2023)! For more information about Josh Funk, visit him at www.joshfunkbooks.com and on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at @joshfunkbooks.
