About
Born in Richmond, Virginia, and carted back and forth between Virginia and Baltimore, I blame my rootless, restless personality on my father. He was and is a traveling salesman with a keen gift of gab, great wit, a ready joke, and could sell white tennis shoes to coal miners.
It was during these sojourns up and down the east coast I soaked up the stories that would later be Tobacco Sticks and Mica Highways. I think authors should exploit their family history before raping the rest of the culture for material.
Dad finally got tired of the east and moved to the Midwest when I was fourteen. We settled outside of Chicago. It is here I came of age and went off to college for seven years -- two degrees and one novel later I returned to Chicago and lived in many different apartments, trying to get a little two hundred page manuscript called Ripples published.
When a local printer said he would take a chance on my book, I jumped and had my first novel published by a man who had never published anything. Great reviews and moderate sales put me back to my jobs as a janitor, baker, waiter, construction worker, teacher, real estate tycoon, mortgage broker, professor, security guard, salesman -- anything to make a buck and keep writing. The printer lost his mind and published my second novel, too. That landed me with Bantam after some rave reviews and a paperback auction for my second novel, Tobacco Sticks.
A third novel, Mica Highways, was sold on less than one hundred and fifty pages to Bantam and then I did a strange thing -- I settled down to writing in Ernest Hemingway's birthplace in Oak Park, Illinois. I have since been looking for the Great American Novel up in the old red oak rafters and I think I might have finally found one... we'll see.
Description
<p>"I am strong, and my flash is bright, And I will defend you and make things all right." These are the magic words to call upon Manner-Man - a superhero who can help control bullies and teach children ways to be considerate of others. Manner-Man arrives, shouting "To the Rescue", helping children learn about sharing and warning about not 'hitting with words.' He teaches that if someone starts pushing, just shout out "not nice!" Meet the children who form the Manner-Man team and find out how to join! Manner-Man incorporates messages and characters found within some of Cannon's earlier books - helping children learn how to cope with bullies and look within themselves for their inner superhero! This is the fifth rhyming children's book by this award-winning author whose other bestselling books include Gimme-Jimmy, The Magic Word, Peter and the Whimper-Whineys and Santa's Birthday Gift. Former teacher Sherrill S. Cannon has won a dozen awards for her four previous rhyming books and is also the author of six published and internationally performed plays for elementary school children. She has been called "a modern day Dr.Seuss" - GMTA Review. Publisher's website: http://sbpra.com/SherrillSCannon</p>
Story Behind The Book
My mother in law told me an old pitcher lived across the street from her in Florida. One night my son and I went out there to play in the street. I could see the old pitcher by his ankles with his garage up a quarter of the way. This went on for three nights and then on the fourth night he came out and watched my son pitch. He then gave my son his philosphy of pitching and went back into his garage. I found out later he had won the World Series in 1968. That's how I thought of The Pitcher, the story of a Mexican American boy and and a pitcher at the end of his career who coaches the boy to make the highschool team.
