A new 40-page "memoir" by Shreveport children’s author and illustrator William Joyce puts to rest a pressing question he’s fielded for years: What was your first book?
“It’s something I wrote in the fourth grade titled ‘Billy’s Booger: The Memoir of a Little Green Nose Buddy.’ People laugh or they cringe,” Joyce said.
The founder of Moonbot Studios revisits his entry in the fourth grade book writing contest at Shreveport’s A.C. Steere Elementary. The children’s book, published by Simon & Schuster, is inset with a recreation of the book that was his very first effort.
“The fraying, crumbling old Manila paper is done up in green crayon. It’s a story about a boy like myself who is bad at math and who gets hit in the head by a meteorite. His boogers get superpowers and help him with math and fight crime,” Joyce said.
The grown-up Oscar winning Joyce fills out the Booger story with context (Billy was crestfallen to lose the writing contest), a moral (his writing about boogers could influence adults and classmates), and a happy ending (he would go on to write many more books). All true.
“That was really the beginning my career. The way that it played out in real life was, I felt empowered to do books,” Joyce said.
Joyce will have a book signing on Saturday, May 30, from 3 – 5 p.m., at Toy Fair, 4801 Line Ave., in Shreveport. “Billy’s Booger: A Memoir (sorta)” will be released June 2. Moonbot Studios is developing an app for it – a booger app.
