VETERAN FINANCIAL
WIZARD MARK J. GRANT PENS LILA: THE SIGN
OF THE ELVEN QUEEN, NON-SCARY MODERN FAIRY TALE FOR YOUNG READERS
“The closest book that I can compare it to is
Alice in
Wonderland, but without any queens
removing anyone’s heads. Mothers and grandmothers will take delight in reading
this book to their children, and older readers will enjoy the marvelous fairy
tale.” — Kristian Lalchan, president of a Montessori school in Canada
Lila (www.princesslila.com) is a polite six-year-old
girl who lives with her mama and papa in New
York City. She has two cats, and would now like to
have a dog–except dogs are not allowed in her apartment building. After
thinking about it for awhile, Lila asks her parents if she can have an
invisible dog. Her parents agree, and together they decide to name the dog Fluffy.
On their way to the pet store to buy invisible supplies for the invisible dog,
a black and white Aussie appears from around the corner and introduces himself
to Lila, saying, “My name is Fluffy.”
In a series of fun
adventures that follow, Fluffy introduces Lila and her family to the invisible
people of Iceland, who live
inside the boulders of Central Park and the cornerstones of New York City buildings. One day, the
invisible people discover that the birthmark on Lila’s left forearm is the sign
of their Elven Queen, and just as she turns seven, Lila is made a princess. Can
anything be better than that?
Author Mark J.
Grant is better known in financial circles than in children’s literature. A
fixture on CNBC and Bloomberg networks, for thirty-seven years he has held
senior management positions on Wall Street, has run capital markets for four
investment banks, and been on the boards of directors of four investment banks.
He writes "Out of the Box," a commentary on the financial markets
that is distributed daily to approximately 5,000 large money management
institutions in forty-eight countries.
So what made him
write a children’s novel?
“There was a dinner
party at my house where any number of parents were complaining that there were
no decent books for children,” Grant explains. “Every book at the book stores,
I was told, was full of ‘he who could not be named’ or giant spiders, or
monsters, or vampires, or skulls and crossbones. I found this hard to believe,
but these parents kept assuring me it was true. So I smiled and promised to personally
write a wonderful story for children. Those who did not know me so well
hesitated, but those who knew me better waited for the book to be written.”
In six months,
Grant wrote LILA: THE SIGN OF THE ELVEN QUEEN, which was inspired by both a
real-life Lila–the young daughter of his friends–and some folklore he learned
in a lecture he attended on a cruise in Iceland. “In Icelandic tradition,
if there’s a new building or road project, there is a federal agency that must
first investigate to see if there are boulders that invisible people might be
living inside. If so, a detour must be made. Lila was excited when I shared
this fact with her. So, I put them together!”
Grant expects the
readership to be ages three and up, with younger children having it read to
them by their parents. “I would like to think that some smiles will brighten
the faces of a child as Lila heads towards being seven and, along the way, not
only grows older but learns to become a young lady. And perhaps some parents,
as they read the story to their young children, will recall the days of their
own youth and the wonder of each new day.” He intends LILA to be the first in a
series.
He emphasizes with
pride that, “There is not one scary thing in this book. It’s just a fairy tale,
and I wrote it that way on purpose. There’s nothing in this book that will prevent
a kid from going to sleep.”
ABOUT AUTHOR
MARK J. GRANT
Mark J. Grant, a
graduate of Occidental
College, has been on Wall
Street for thirty-seven years in various senior management positions. He has
run capital markets for four investment banks and been on the boards of
directors of four investment banks. Grant also writes "Out of the
Box," a commentary on the financial markets that is distributed daily to
approximately 5,000 large money management institutions in forty-eight
countries. He is the author of Out of the
Box and onto Wall Street: Unorthodox Insights on Investments and the Economy
(Wiley, 2011). LILA: THE SIGN OF THE ELVEN QUEEN is his first novel.
Lila: The Sign of the Elven Queen
230 page hardcover,
$14.95 US / $17.00 CAN; ISBN: 978-1-62086-357-2
Published by Mascot
Books (August, 2013)
Available wherever
books are sold
Website: www.princesslila.com
July 2013
Media
Contact:
Charlie
Barrett, The Barrett Company Communications, Los Angeles, CA
Phone: 310-471-5764; E-mail: cbarrett@thebarret
