Earning My Spots

by Mark Eastburn

Overview

In this shape-shifter fantasy novel for young readers, it’s no laughing matter when a young werehyena discovers his true identity and inner strength.

Sam and his family are the only werehyenas in town. While they do their best to hide their shape-shifting from their human neighbors, they are routinely mocked by the more aggressive shifters in the area. But Sam sees no other life for himself, as he believes what he is told: he is inferior to the other shifters.

But when a pack of shifters kidnap his family, Sam must embark on a journey from Vermont to South America to rescue them. Along the way, he meets various shifters who aid him on his quest, including a tribe of werehyenas in Louisiana who teach him about his hidden power and ancestry. From them, Sam learns he has a great destiny to fulfill.

As Sam draws closer to finding his family, he begins to see the unrest between shifters and humans that exists. Beyond his town. It becomes clear that Sam is the only one who can stop a war that’s on the brink of erupting.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510707795
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	11/01/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	180
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	1 - 12 Years

About the Author

Mark Eastburn studied biology at Villanova University and is now a middle school teacher. He works to promote educational opportunities and research on vegetarian jumping spiders in Latin America, where he lived for some time. Earning My Spots is his debut novel. He lives with his family in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

Sky Pony Press, with our Good Books, Racehorse and Arcade imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of books for young readers—picture books for small children, chapter books, books for middle grade readers, and novels for young adults. Our list includes bestsellers for children who love to play Minecraft; stories told with LEGO bricks; books that teach lessons about tolerance, patience, and the environment, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Editorial Reviews

11/01/2016
Gr 4–6-The idea that shape-shifters live among us, in forms as varied as the regions of the world from which their ancestors hail, is the basis for this adventure tale filled with farts, fights, and chase scenes and featuring a young werehyena named Sam. Sam's journey begins when his family members, who live a fairly isolated existence in the woodsy town of John's Gore, VT, are abruptly abducted by harpies. With the help of a new friend, Manny, and Manny's mom (both jaguar shape-shifters), Sam travels to New Orleans and eventually to the jungles of Brazil. Eastburn's idea is novel, but the scope of Sam's journey rushes the story and leaves the settings feeling rather flat. The characters aren't fully developed—Sam meets many personalities, often with cool shape-shifting abilities, but readers rarely get to know much about them. Sam himself has a dry narrative voice and is sometimes humorously wild (the hyena side of him dictates some unflattering behavior in the airplane bathroom), but he seems oddly unshaken by his family's sudden disappearance, not to mention the possibility that they've met an untimely end. With the tale's entire impetus resting on Sam's quest to find them, more time delving into his feelings would have been well spent. VERDICT A good premise that's never fleshed out to its full potential. A secondary purchase except for the most avid adventure readers.-Abigail Garnett, Brooklyn Public Library

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