Guest Post from NeonSeon, Author of 'Life of Shouty: Food and Fitness'

About NeonSeon

Creating Shouty Mack as a comic strip for a high school newspaper, NeonSeon developed Life of Shouty as a book series for children in 2010. NeonSeon grew up in Chicago's Hyde Park community and currently resides in Atlanta. Honors include a Mom's Choice Award for Life of Shouty: Good Habits.

For more information, visit www.SHOUTY.com.

Guest Post

I pulled my first all-nighter in third grade for a paper on Zimbabwe, which I typed on a brown and tan typewriter in our guest bedroom. I got an A. This was the beginning of a long string of all-nighters that lasted well into graduate school. I learned I could play while everyone else studied and still get the same grade or better for one night's worth of effort. What's the big deal? It's not hurting my grades, right? Well, if it was good enough for an A with little time spent, imagine how great it could've been with more time put into it. I was stifling my own potential.

Procrastination is a bad habit and just one of the many topics I address in my book Life of Shouty: Good Habits, the first in the Life of Shouty Series. The main character, Shouty, finds himself with a messy room, an overgrown lawn, and bills that are overdue.

Hmm. It doesn't look like procrastination is working for Shouty either. In fact, the main item he accomplishes on his to-do list is watching the game. Shouty keeps trying to change, but laziness gets the best of him and his lack of progress leads him to start thinking negative thoughts about himself.

But Shouty doesn't give up.

When I visit schools to discuss this book, children laugh heartily at Shouty's messy room, and his head peeking over his lawn, but I know they are getting the message by their responses to my questions. The book opens with a young Shouty with bad habits, and then he becomes a grown-up Shouty with bad habits. A great lesson this book teaches is that bad habits from childhood do follow you into adulthood, unless you change them. I know because they followed me, and I'm changing them one bad habit at a time. :-)

Happy reading!

About Life of Shouty: Food and Fitness

Life of Shouty Food and Fitness
Life of Shouty Food and Fitness

Shouty returns with a new challenge: his health. The second book in the Life of Shouty™ series by award-winning author and illustrator NeonSeon shows Shouty's ups and downs on the path to wellness.

Like many of us, Shouty places a premium on being a productive person, and crossing items off his daily to-do list. While healthy food and fitness don't make his list of priorities, Shouty is unaware of the impact this has on his declining health. Over time, Shouty becomes painfully aware that he must make lifestyle changes to improve his health, quality of life, and self-esteem.

Touching on themes of overeating, obesity, and inactivity, Shouty's journey is illustrated in a way that captures his despair, as well as his ultimate triumph.

Debuting on Child Health Day, it is NeonSeon's hope that this book affirms the importance of making healthy choices in one's life and helps readers envision healthier versions of themselves. If you've ever found yourself on either end of the health spectrum, or are making your way somewhere in the middle, Shouty hits several notes on his path that will surely sound familiar.