About Stargazer

Synopsis

Marni is a young girl dealing with the recent death of her grandmother, which has left her emotionally devastated and struggling to cope. Granny Hitchins was a wonderfully curious woman, responsible for giving her granddaughter a rich sense of imagination and adventure, as well as an old and mysterious "Artifact." Granny Hitchins found the Artifact when she was herself a child and, with origins unknown, it provided a lifetime of adventure, speculation, and storytelling for herself, her son, and finally, her granddaughter. While not a replacement, the Artifact is nonetheless a treasured memento for Marni after her grandmother's death.

With the love and support of her two best friends, Sophie and Elora, and the magic of the Artifact to comfort her, Marni is just beginning to cope with the loss of her beloved grandmother when her life takes an abrupt and strange turn. While the girls are examining the Artifact on a backyard camping trip, the object suddenly takes on a life of its own, transporting the three friends and their tent to a strange and distant world. After exploring the tent and their immediate surroundings, the girls discover that the Artifact has vanished, leaving them alone and afraid under a very alien sky.

After summoning their courage, Marni, Sophie and Elora venture out to explore their alien surroundings, where they find a surreal world containing a robot, a mysterious far-off tower, and an illusive yet terrifying monster. Scared, yet buoyed by the stories and songs that they've heard while growing up, the three girls gather their meagre supplies and head out into the wilderness, determined to find a way home.

A magical tale with the most unlikeliest of heroes, Stargazer is an exploration of friendship, loss, and hope. By turns terrifying, poignant, and humorous, Stargazer is part fairytale, part science fiction, and part adventure story. Anyone who has ever opened a book, looked up at the stars, or dreamed will love this story....and wish they'd been the one to find the Artifact.

Product Information

Stargazer has an ISBN of 978-0-9781237-2-7, an SRP of $14.95 US/$15.95 CDN, and the art is presented in black and white. The tip sheet, high rez images of the front cover, shelf talkers and other information can be found at http://stargazer.vonallan.com/2010/07/downloadable-support-material.html. Sample art work can be found here.

Characters

From my original writing notes: Character-wise, Marni is a dreamer. She was the one that was always attracted to the Artifact; it filled her with wonder and imagination and she’d have long talks with her granny about it. A bit of a tom boy, Marni is quite happy tramping in the woods exploring. She’s probably a bit of a builder, too. Maybe constructing a milk carton boat to plop in some stream somewhere. A carrrot-top with shoulder length hair. Maybe some freckles sprinkled over her nose.

An only child, Marni is fairly disconnected with her parents, not being really that close to either one of them. So the things that fire her imagination (say a book, a movie, or even her own writing or other creative things) aren’t things that she would share with her parents. If they walked into her room when she was busy scribbling down a story, she’d quickly open a drawer and hide it away from them. Not subtly, ‘course, but not to be mean. I don’t want it to be a result of her parents being too busy for her when she was younger; rather, she just feels that they don’t get her nearly as much as other people do. Definitely not nearly as much as her granny did.