The Delight of The Billy Chronicles

Ash & Creed is pleased to have published Art Shulman’s The Billy Chronicles. There aren’t many novels that track a growing boy’s journey from toddlerhood to man-boy, year by year, from the boy’s perspective.

Art, a Ph.D. psychologist, has a gift for understanding how children think. He has a gift for writing. And … often, he’s downright funny! As one reader told me, “I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, but I’m really glad to be reading The Billy Chronicles. It’s hilarious! And it captures the mind of a kid so well.”

Here’s an excerpt from the novel. If you enjoy it, think about adding the book to your collection. It’s a wonderful reading experience. Click here to order.

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“No longer being a baby was just fine with Billy, whose second birthday was today! Not everybody agreed he was no longer a baby. But he knew they were wrong.

Now, he could tell his mom and dad what he wanted to eat or drink, rather than rely on their whims. Tell them he wanted meelk, rather than appie chuse or wadder. Or he might want gapefoot chuse! Just this morning, he’d told his mom he wanted a beckfist of seewee-o, towss, and yeggs.

Grown-ups and older kids were less scary-looking now that they weren’t quite as big as they’d been before. And he could get around without falling on his behind.

He could even go in the back yard all by himself, as long as he let someone know where he was going. If he wanted to go somewhere, he could just toddle over, rather than rely on someone to wheel or carry him, or crawl like a baby. He could play with all those grown-up toys in the kitchen cabinets, like soap powder, pots and pans, cans of food, and hammers. He especially liked to bang the drum his mom stole to make spaghetti sauce.

He knew many colors, such as wed, gween, boo, or, his favorite, yeyow! He could even do some counting … un, fee, sis, fi, sebum. And soon he’d know which numbers followed which.

He knew he was a boy, and not a girl, though he wasn’t sure just why. What made him a boy rather than a girl? He knew his mom was a girl, and so was his older sister Susie, and his dad was a boy, and so was that other person. He was sure he looked more like his dad than his mom. He couldn’t understand how some people could say he looked at all like his mom. What does a nose have to do with looking like someone? Especially if they’re a girl! And how could your nose look like the nose of someone much bigger, who naturally has a much bigger nose?

He could play all day, although these days his mom sometimes made him wait to play with her, since there was that new person in the house, who couldn’t feed himself, and couldn’t walk, and couldn’t count, and couldn’t do all of the things he, Billy Harrington, could do. It wasn’t fair when his mom had to stop in the middle of playing because the stupid baby was crying.

He found out he could say “No” if he didn’t want to do something, and sometimes his mom and dad listened to him, though not all the time. They especially listened if he yelled “NO!” really really loud, and said it many times in a row, “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!”