Amanda Cleary Eastep

When I was a kid, I won a goldfish at a carnival. The fish was swimming in circles in a small, round bowl surrounded by other goldfish swimming in circles in small, round bowls. The goal was to toss a ping pong ball into this segregated school of fish and hope the ping pong ball would somehow defy physics and actually stick a landing on the surface of the water in one of the bowls.

By some miracle, this is exactly what happened. The carnival game worker soon handed me a plastic bag full of warm water and a fish very slowly swimming in circles. That’s where the miracles ended because the fish died the next day.

My winning streak also died that day.

That’s what makes today, decades later, quite the milestone.

Last night, my children’s book Lions to the Rescue!, book 3 in the Tree Street Kids series from Moody Publishers, won a Selah Award at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. Ironically, this conference is one I’ve wanted to attend for years, and I now live a short distance away. But I wasn’t able to attend, so I watched a live online chat on the conference website as winners in all the categories were announced. (Here’s the list of finalists.)

A few things make this event especially meaningful.

First, book 3 was the most challenging to write.

Why? Because sports were involved, which for me is similar to understanding geometry. I had to learn a lot about pee wee football.

“What does that tell you?” my husband asked last night.

Fortunately he answered because I was too excited to quickly formulate a quotable response: “Sometimes the greatest challenges come with the greatest . . . [long pause] . . .

“Rewards,” I finished. (We work well together.)

Besides the sports angle, this is also a book about the love of books. How do you make that exciting for kids 8-12?

You crash something.

Finally, this story touches on racism. My hope as I wrote was to present this in a way that showed how children who haven’t experienced racism may first come into an awareness of it, especially when it’s directed at a friend.

I’m grateful this book has received this recognition. It’s a fun and meaningful story. And–as with the other books in the series (with more to come!)–Lions to the Rescue! is the fruit of the good work of my editor Marianne Hering, illustrator Aedan Peterson, publicist Jeane Burgess, and many talented people at Moody Publishers.

Besides a shiny, gold digital badge, I’m not sure what I’ll receive. Maybe a certificate suitable for framing, which is far better than a goldfish, but not quite as wonderful as the reward of writing stories for children.

You can learn more about the Tree Street Kids series on this nifty website!