Picture Book

Title: Hey A.J., It’s Saturday!
Author: Martellus Bennett

Summary: A.J. Is an imaginative girl who finds another world that is strangely right downstairs in her kitchen. So strange there’s already a feast, breakfast being served by creatures and beasts.

Oh! What is going in this kitchen of hers? Pancakes! Waffles! Scrambled eggs! And a Jamaican Giraffe?

Breakfast will never be the same. Ever!

About the Author: Martellus aka The Black Unicorn is a BIG dreamer. He lives in a magical house with his wife Siggi and daughter Jett in where everything comes to life when it gets dark or there’s food on the table ( which is pretty much all the time). He’s usually a bit overwhelmed by all of the creatures bouncing around knocking things over in his head and in his house, but that’s nothing a creative ninja can’t handle. Marty received his PhD in awesomeness from the highly prestigious Orange Dinosaur University where his focus was coloring outside of the lines and making stuff with his creative and funny bones. The A.J series is inspired by his daughter Austyn Jett (A.J.) and their adventures together.

Oh yea, He’s a Pro Bowl Tight End for your favorite NFL team.

Learn More about Marty and A.J.: 

Author’s Guest Post!: It was a hot fall day, early September in Houston, Texas, and I could hear my friends having a wonderful time through my bedroom window. I couldn’t see what they were doing because my view was blocked by the large tree that stood at attention in our front yard, but I didn’t need to see them to know they were having an awesome time. There was laughter, the sounds of high fives, and some loud arguing over who was out and who was cheating.

I knew those arguments all too well. I was known to talk myself out of all types of situations and into the championship game of whatever it was that we were playing on any given day. I was known as the boy with the gift of gab. But on this bright, sunny fall afternoon, I wasn’t talking my way into any championships. In fact, I wasn’t talking to anyone outside of my bedroom. I was grounded! And what I had done was something I couldn’t talk myself out of. I had the gift of ‎gab, but my mom had the gift of punishment‎.

I was on lockdown—no TV, no hide and go seek, no tag, no catch. I couldn’t even leave my room. Mom made my brother deliver my food to my bedroom like I was a prison inmate. The nerve of this lady! “Is this what a mother’s love was?” is what I thought to myself. ‎I mean, all I had done was set off enough stink bombs in the school’s cafeteria to make a skunk faint.

Seriously, did I the 12-year-old Martellus Bennett really deserve to be under house arrest for that? No one was hurt, no animals were harmed, there was just a stench that quickly spread through the entire school. No huge deal.

The worst part was that I realized it had to have been my arch nemesis Jimmy Carter who ratted me out, because no one else saw me do it. I was actually grounded because of Jimmy Carter, not the stink bombs. It was Jimmy’s fault.

So there I sat, trapped in my room with no video games and nothing fun to occupy my time. I had to make do. After finishing up about 4 sets of 15 prison-style push ups,‎ I was burnt out. I laid back and stretched across my bed, arms and legs spread, making a giant X on the bed as if I was marking the spot where the treasure of my boredom could be found. I stared at the spinning ceiling fan, letting it hypnotize me until my head rolled back and my eyes found the decorative bookshelf against the wall full of old books, dust and creepy China dolls. Upside down, I read the green spine of a book. It read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

I had read books before, ‎but those were school assignments. I was always a pretty good student. English and creative writing were my best subjects, followed by P.E and science. So I was a good athlete and a good student. In all honesty, it was partly because I had to earn good grades in order to play sports, since the state of Texas had just created a “no pass no play” rule. If you didn’t pass your classes, you didn’t get to play any sports.

I rolled over backwards and did a backflip out of my bed, but I missed my landing and fell back into the wall, shaking the bookshelf and causing dust flakes to fall like snow on a nice winter day. I grabbed the shelf by its rails to stop it from falling over, then I quickly grabbed the book Hatchet. It had an image of a hatchet over a forest with a small shadow of a wolf in the bottom right-hand corner. It also had a medal on it, which meant it was a winner of some award. I jumped into the bed and cracked it open.

I heard my Mom yell: “Martellus, you better not be having fun up there! You’re grounded!”

I rolled my eyes.

Then I heard my mom say, “Don’t you roll your damn eyes at me.”

How did she know?

I looked around to see if Jimmy Carter was in my room‎, snitching again. “Can’t trust nobody,” I thought to myself. Then I said quietly: “Me, roll my eyes at you, my beautiful and talented mother? I would never do such a thing.”

My mom replied with a southern woman’s “Mmhmmm!”

I turned the first page and began to read. Before I knew it, I was on page 30, then page 75, and so on. The sun had turned into the moon in the sky. I was in the forest, with Brian Robeson trying to survive. I too panicked when the plane crashed, and I felt the water as I, well, Brian swam to shore. Stranded. Alone in the forest with a Hatchet. I only made my way back into the real world when I heard a knock at my bedroom door.

It was the prison guard, my brother Mike delivering my dinner. I had forgotten to eat in the real world, but I do remember the first true meal I celebrated with Brian when we caught our first fish. It was delicious. Ironically, we were having catfish for dinner at my house, how fitting. I wish I could have shared my meal with Brian. I just knew he was hungry. I was a part of the world Gary Paulsen created, and it was amazing.

That was the day I discovered that I could never truly be grounded. I could travel anywhere in the universe with books. People actually created places that I could only go to in stories—what a wonderful concept!

I was no longer trapped in my bedroom. I was stranded on in a forest with a hatchet, learning to survive in a room with no friends or games to play. This was the first time I went on a great adventure without ever leaving the house.

Needless to say, as I got older I fell in love with the places authors could take us to, and the adventures they could take us on. And I wanted create those worlds for others, too. I had so many ideas, so many stories to tell—which is why I am here today writing this blog. That 12-year-old boy who was grounded has written his first book. It’s called, Hey A.J It’s Saturday!

I hope that it takes you on a great adventure and ‎inspires you all to dream bigger and imagine more!

Make sure to go visit other stops on the blog tour!