It’s official. The title of the second book in the series will be Cheesie Mack Is Cool in a Duel. It gets released June 2012.
Author Archives: Steve Cotler
A Return to Kamala School
May 14, 2011 – 10:38 pm
I was in Southern California all last week hopping from bookstores to schools in an exhausting and exhilarating schedule of 22 Cheesie Mack book events and two Pobba concerts. All were fun and rewarding, but one visit, a spur-of-the-moment trip back in time, stood out. In September 1952, Oxnard’s Kamala School (K-6) opened to students. [...]
Grandparent Nicknames
May 13, 2011 – 7:28 am
A couple of days ago there was an article in the New York Times about the many new and different nicknames for grandparents. Looking to stay and act younger, my generation is no longer just Grandma, Grandpa, Nana, and Papa. In my first Cheesie Mack book, almost-11-year-old Cheesie talks about the unusual nicknames for his [...]
Death of Bin Laden
May 1, 2011 – 11:43 pm
Osama Bin Laden is dead, but this is not a time for exultation. Crowds of mostly young people outside the White House are celebrating. Surely there is justification for bringing justice down upon terrorists. His death will undoubtedly change the nature of the world conflict for which 9/11 remains the signature event. But the hooting [...]
A Captain and the Majors
April 12, 2011 – 5:57 pm
Time and situation award only a few in each generation with an opportunity to take a place in history. How much smaller is the number who are twice-touched by fate. Today’s post is about one such man. It starts with the differences between North and South and ends with the thin line that separates fair [...]
Henry VIII for a Five-Year-Old
April 7, 2011 – 9:54 pm
One of my daughters, a medieval history scholar and expert on European royalty, recently acquired a Henry VIII mug with images of his six wives surrounding him. Appropriately, when the Queens get into hot water (e.g., tea or coffee), their heads disappear. What she hadn’t anticipated was how fascinated her five-year-old daughter would be with [...]
Final Four Math — 2011
April 2, 2011 – 11:50 am
This year’s March Madness has brought us a Final Four with no #1 or #2 seeds, unique in NCAA tournament history. But the absence of high-seed teams has not dulled enthusiasm for the last three games. In fact, some sports pundits are trumpeting the “Cinderella” factor: can a #11 seed, Virginia Commonwealth University, pull off [...]
Cheesie Mack on Sale Today
March 22, 2011 – 4:58 pm
Several years ago I had an idea for a book about an active, inquisitive ten-year-old boy. His name was Ronald Mack, but his friends all called him Cheesie. I envisioned him as full of life, talkative, smart, and funny…exactly the kind of youngster who’d get into complicated kid situations that would require clever kid thinking [...]
A Siyuntist’s Perspective
February 25, 2011 – 5:42 pm
Little Johnny can read well long before he can spell well. Should you be worried? Should you send him to a tutor? Problem-solving technique can be deductive/analytical or inductive/synthetic. Stated another way, an approach can be convergent or divergent. For every youngster striving for literacy, learning to read and spell requires both convergent and divergent
Teaching Contract Bridge to Intelligent Women
February 17, 2011 – 3:16 pm
I learned contract bridge at 13 and played through grad school. Then came almost 40 years without a bid. But for the last year or so, I’ve been teaching bridge to a group of women. It has been a particularly satisfying endeavor for two reasons: 1) they are members of AAUW—American Association of University Women—and [...]
