Easy Peasy #author Ky Garvey

A fun, engaging story, perfect for children learning how to do something for the first time.

Easy Peasy follows Ruby, who has just received her first pair of roller skates as a present from her dad. She’s convinced it will be easy peasy to learn how to roller skate and dismisses her dad when he offers to help her. But after a few tumbles, Ruby realizes it isn’t as easy as she thinks and she might need her dad’s help after all.

Author Ky Garvey was initially inspired by her son, who as a little boy loved his skateboard so much that he took it to bed with him every night like a teddy bear. But as she began to write, she remembered the joy of roller skating with her dad at the local rink every Saturday morning. As Ky puts it, ‘It was treasured time together and I wanted to reflect that relationship in my book.’

Easy Peasy will delight skating-mad girls and patient parents while providing a lesson in independence and perseverance. And the hilarious, relatable illustrations by Amy Calautti add an extra dash of shiny, sparkly fun!

Perfect for ages 4+

To connect with Ky ....
https://www.kygarvey.com/
https://www.kygarvey.com/totally-lit-podcast/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ky-garvey-0584a346/
https://www.instagram.com/kygarvey_authorandpodcaster/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good afternoon, Kai Garvey. Welcome to Yellow Shelf. Thank you so much for having me. It's a thrill to be on. Yay! Super excited. Your book is available now. Tell us all about Easy Peasy.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Easy Peasy is a book about roller skating. So if you love that, it's the book for you. It follows Ruby, who is gets a pair of roller skates for her birthday, and she thinks, of course, it will be easy peasy that she can just throw them on and roll around. She figures out it's a little bit harder than she thought, and Dad is in the background going, I can help. And she's saying, No, I can do it. Um, it's a story about perseverance and learning that sometimes it's okay to ask for help. Like it is great for us to be strong, independent, uh young people, but also there's times when we're faced with things that are sometimes a bit harder than our skill set. And so um learning to sometimes say, Hey, I can't do this right now, but I'm willing to learn. Um, because that's that's how we um learn as adults as well to tackle the hard things in life. Is that if you've got a tribe around you that are willing to help you, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Amazing and supportive. Kai, do you want to tell us a bit about? I mean, it is a children's book. Uh is it is it a book parents read to children, children read, like what's your do you have sort of a you know, prof uh a recommendation?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

When when I was writing it, I was reading it aloud over and over to hear how it sounded to read aloud. And what I aimed for was that when you finish the book, you want to pick it up again and read again. And that's the um yeah, the feedback I've had from parents is thanks a lot, Kai. We have to read this every night because when we ask which book you want to read, they say easy peasy. So um, mission accomplished with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah. And tell us what inspired you to write. I mean, you've written, you're an author. I know you're also a podcaster, but tell us a bit about writing easy peasy, the journey, like tell us anything we need to know about you.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Um, so this is quite a personal story, as this is based on myself and my dad. He taught me how to roller skate. I was not as stubborn as Ruby, I was willing to get up and learn, but I also understood like you fall over a lot when you learn to roller skate, and you yeah, so I dad and I had beautiful memories going to the roller skating rink when I was young, and um, especially because he had to learn how to be a girl dad, because I'm an only child. He didn't quite know what to do with little girls, so we went fishing and sailing and all those kind of things, but he would take me roller skating every Saturday morning and he'd put his skates on and he'd I'd be bopping around to the music, and it was like that thing that he was doing that was less of a boy thing, I guess. So I have fond memories of him sort of trying to figure out how to be a dad to a little girl who loved pink and wanted to be a princess and was stingy unicorn, um, and him sort of going, Oh, I've grown up on a farm and I'm mad, man, and sort of us coming together to figure out our personalities and what we could do together. Um, and also he's been a great guide throughout my life, so it's kind of a celebration of having a dad in the background being supportive and there when you need it. Um because I think also a relationship between a little girl and a dad, sometimes it doesn't, it can be complex. And um, I just loved my dad, he's always supported me, and even now he's always sending me like riding competitions and just saw this, you know, this is an opportunity for you. So just that gentle support in the background, even though I'm nearly 50 years old.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Good on you, Dad. Clara, do you want to tell us a bit about your podcast? I mean, I what I should do is get you back on the show and we'll specifically talk about it. But yeah, you've got a podcast show.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Um, so I interview Australian publishing creatives. It originally was just a little hobby that I started that has just grown and grown and grown. Um so it was just once a month, then it became every fortnight and now it's weekly. Um I've got quite a big queue with pictures from uh Australian authors and illustrators all over the country going, Can we be on the pod? So that that's amazing. Um and it keeps me motivated through the because the publishing journey can be challenging and there's a lot of waiting and rejection and then having something else that I'm creating that is all kind of under my control and it's got instant response in that when I hit publish, it goes out into the world. I kind of is a bit like self-publishing, really. Nobody's asking me to do it. I just wrap it on, hit publish, and then um wait to see the clicks as everybody's listening, which um also gives you those little dopamine hits as well when it's um going well.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

So um you're supporting the ecosystem of yeah, you know, and you're supporting readers, kids, adults, you know, it's it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, great. It is a way that you can really support other authors as well. Um especially because when you're starting out, it's such a hard journey and it feels like no one is listening or seeing your work. And um, yeah, I just want to be able to support like the writers, yeah, publishers, and all those organizations that are connected to publishing as well. Like I'm about to do a chapter of the change read a thon in July. And so I'm always jumping on something like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah, wonderful. Well, listen, we're gonna get you back and talk about your podcast show specifically, uh, maybe maybe in a in a few months. Um, tell us about if we're curious about easy peasy, your work, anything about you, your podcast. I'm gonna put some links in the show notes, but do you want to point us in the direction of, I know you're on LinkedIn, there's there's spaces to go to find information. Point us in the direction of where we should go.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Uh well, my website is kaigarvey.com, um, so that's a good place to start. Um, EK Books is also the my publisher, so you can go to their website and purchase Easy PZ. Um, all the um independent bookshops in Brisbane have a copy of it. So um, if you want to get a hard copy and see it on a shelf, that's where it'll be as well. Um, QBD Books stocks it. Um, and I've got copies here. If you want a signed copy, you can always email me and I can organize it. Right as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Wonderful. Well, Kyla, keep writing. Uh are you gonna keep writing and keep persisting away at this writer journey?

SPEAKER_00 6:55

I have just booked in to some assessments with VSAB, which is a um writing conference here in Brisbane for um kid lit author and also sketch and scribe, which is in Victoria. I've just booked in for that today and um fabulous. Book some assessments so everybody keep their fingers crossed.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

That's some good results come from that.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah. Well, listen, thank you for joining us. Um, I would love for you to come back. I'll get you back again about your podcast. But yeah, keep writing, keep, you know, keep persisting because it's uh it's a wonderful um thing you do writing books and supporting the the wider ecosystem. Thanks for joining us, Kai.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Cheers.