Smell of success: Kids’ book a real gas

Smell of success: Kids’ book a real gas

HUNTINGTON, Ind.

A children’s book being created by a Huntington University professor is a real gas.

“Animal Gas” by Brian Ballinger is a scratch-and-sniff book that features animals telling how sweet their flatulence smells. Ballinger said the 24-page book was inspired by an ex-roommate.

He is self-publishing the book, and has raised about half of the $20,000 cost needed through a Kickstarter campaign. Ballinger says he hopes to secure funding so the book can be ready for release on Amazon in November.

Ballinger has worked as an illustrator for VeggieTales, and his artwork has been published in numerous children’s books.

Publication of Flynn’s novel is delayed

MINNEAPOLIS

Publication of best-selling author Vince Flynn’s unfinished novel is postponed indefinitely after his death in June.

Flynn’s longtime editor, Emily Bestler, said the Minnesota author hadn’t completed the manuscript when he died June 19 at age 47, more than two years after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The book, titled “The Survivor,” was planned for release this fall.

Bestler says in a statement it’s too soon to know how much of the book was written or whether Flynn had made arrangements in case he could not complete the book. So she says publication is listed as “postponed indefinitely” instead of “canceled.”

Flynn wrote the Mitch Rapp counterterrorism thriller series. His 14th novel, “The Last Man,” was published last year.

Summer reading book pulled from NYC school

NEW YORK

Sixth-graders at a New York City school no longer have to read a book on their summer reading list after parents objected to its sexual content.

Public School/Middle School 114 in Rockaway Park pulled “The Absolutely True Diary of Part-Time Indian” from the list.

The Daily News says parents objected to passages about masturbation as inappropriate for 11-year-olds.

A Department of Education spokesman said selected texts are school-based decisions.

Sherman Alexie’s book is about a Native American who transfers into an all-white high school. It won the 2007 National Book Foundation award for Young People’s Literature.

The author defended the book after it was pulled from an Oregon classroom in 2008. He said every child deals with the kind of issues presented in the book.

Associated Press