National Reading Month Special: Excerpts From The Children's Book, "Lamar Montgomery and The Freaky Faces Club" by Barbara Gene

To celebrate National Reading Month, MarketingNewAuthors.com (MANA) presents excerpts from the children's book, Lamar Montgomery and The Freaky Faces Club by Barbara Gene, which is available on MANA's website. 

Listen to the audio below and follow along with MANA's Dr. Fairy-Hayes Scott as she does an interpretive reading of the first few pages of the book: 

Lamar Montgomery felt very sure of himself as he stood in front of the huge mirror inside Ms. Minerva’s elementary school gymnasium. Standing with his hands on his hips, he smiled at his own reflection. “Well,” he said to himself, like Mama says, “Lamar Montgomery, you are not only smart but good-looking, too. Mama’s pride and joy,” 

Lamar was six years old, but he already stood a full 5 feet, 1 inches tall, and he was the proud inventor and President of The Freaky Faces Club.
 
Lamar giggled as he practiced his moves in the mirror for today’s meeting. He wiggled his nose, flapped his ears, and puffed out his cheeks. Slowly releasing the air from his cheeks in small bursts, it sounded just like kernels of corn popping. He was loosening his lip muscles by furiously pouting them in and out when he noticed the reflections of the other club members filing into the gym behind him. 

Quickly, he stopped his exercises and, playing it cool, turned toward the other kids. “Hey guys, how’s it going? Okey dokey, let’s get this show on the road. The Wednesday afternoon meeting of The Freaky Faces Club is now called to order.” 

Sounding very grown up, he continued. “When I call your name please step up to the mirror and make the freakiest face that you can. Jonathan O’Toole? Are you present?” Jonathan jumped up off the floor where he had been sitting cross-legged. “Yep, I’m here,” he yelped, at the same time tugging at the shoulder strap of his blue jean overalls. He just could not keep those straps fastened. 

Looking directly into the mirror, Jonathan stuck out his pink tongue and curled it up, over his lips until it stretched out all the way and touched two green freckles on the tip of his little pug nose. He resembled an anteater about to chow down on a couple of green ants.

 “That was really super, Jonathan. I didn’t know that a tongue could stretch that far,” Lamar continued. 

“José Arroyo? You’re next.” José, a little clumsy to begin with, was having a problem getting off the floor. He tried to push his chunky little body up with his hands but only managed to pull himself back down because he was standing on top of his own untied shoelaces.

José always wore his favorite shocking neon-orange, high-top, basketball sneakers, and the laces were constantly untied. Jonathan, Julie Chen, and Lamar giggled and shyly glanced toward the floor pretending not to notice. 

Finally, José wrestled himself away from the grip of his laces and made it to the center of the mirror. “Darn hair,” he mumbled as he looked into the mirror. Then, he spit into the palm of his hand and tried to slick down the stray hairs that always stood up from the crown of his head. “Sí, aquí,” he continued. “I am definitely here,” and, with a great deal of flair, he neatly folded the outside part of his ears into the inside of his ears. “Pretty good, huh? Bet you can’t do that!”

To learn more about Lamar Montgomery and The Freaky Faces Club by Barbara Gene, go HERE to MANA's website.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/lamar-montgomery-and-the-freaky-faces-club_202403" width="500" height="60" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>