#MMBBR #Reviews #DaxandZippa by Steve Hanson

Series Review:

I adore everything about this book series.  It is such a sweet, funny and very readable series for new or beginning readers.  I found myself fully engrossed in each of the stories because they are all very well written and there was a funny twist and/or mix up in each book that added such a fun to an already delightful story. I simply adore the whole series.  5 stars

Dax is a clever six-year-old boy whose best friend is a balloon-animal poodle. He wants to mail a birthday card to Grandma, but an accident in the small-town post office mixes up everyone’s mail. Can Dax sort out the mess before his grandma’s birthday?

Dax lives with his family in Wallapazoo, Minnesota. Dax and Zippa met at a town carnival and have been best friends ever since. Dax is a great kid, but occasionally gets into trouble. When he does, Zippa is always to blame.

The Great Mail Mix-Up is a short chapter book for children aged 5-8 who enjoy humorous stories. 10 Chapters. 5k words.

Dax is a clever six-year-old boy whose best friend is a balloon-animal poodle. He wants his grandma to have a wonderful time when she visits, but will a giant storm ruin his plans?

Dax lives with his family in Wallapazoo, Minnesota. Dax and Zippa met at a town carnival and have been best friends ever since. Dax is a great kid, but occasionally gets into trouble. When he does, Zippa is always to blame.

The Great Wind Storm is a short chapter book for children aged 5-8 who enjoy humorous stories. 9 Chapters. 6k words.

Dax is a clever six-year-old who wants to have a fun Halloween. When his best friend, a balloon-animal poodle, is injured and the Halloween festival is almost cancelled, can he find a way to save Halloween?

Dax lives with his family in Wallapazoo, Minnesota. Dax and Zippa met at a town carnival and have been best friends ever since. Dax is a great kid, but occasionally gets into trouble. When he does, Zippa is always to blame.

The Great Halloween Fog is a short chapter book for children aged 5-8 who enjoy humorous stories. 10 Chapters. 7k words.

Dax is a clever six-year-old whose best friend is a balloon-animal poodle. When the monkeys escape from the zoo, it’s up to Dax to get them back safely before they trash his small Minnesotan city.

Dax lives with his family in Wallapazoo, Minnesota. Dax and Zippa met at a town carnival and have been best friends ever since. Dax is a great kid, but occasionally gets into trouble. When he does, Zippa is always to blame.

The Great Monkey Escape is a short chapter book for children aged 5-8 who enjoy humorous stories. 11 Chapters. 6k words.

Even as a kid, I loved telling stories. Before I knew how to write, I used to record myself telling stories on a tape player—if you remember those or ever come across one in a museum. I also played with a lot of action figures. My best friend and I invented huge stories about why Skeletor was trying to take over the world. Thankfully, he never did, but I got a lot of practice making up stories!

When I was ten years old, I wrote a monthly fake newspaper. Some of the articles were silly, about monsters or aliens. Others reported what my family was up to (The Hanson Family Bakes Christmas Cookies! Steve Has a Piano Recital). I used to mail the newspapers to my grandparents and aunts every month. My parents even got me special bright-orange paper to print my newspapers on. Only the best newspapers in the world had electric-orange paper!

Every Christmas, my family and I made gingerbread houses (usually out of graham crackers). When we first started, they were the size of small, school-lunch milk cartons, but by the time I was in high school, we were all making houses bigger than cereal boxes.

My favorite subjects in school were art, writing, music, and math. I used to make sculptures out of glue and toothpicks. I took piano lessons for sixteen years. I've made short poem books for most of my life. In the summer I would get my friends together to record movies about math. I even studied all of those things (at least for a little while) in college. Even though I just write now, I'm glad I've done all those things because I love variety.

After college I wanted to laugh more, so I started performing improv comedy professionally in Minneapolis. Improv comedy is when people from the audience yell out suggestions and actors (like me!) create short, funny stories based on the suggestions. I performed for a year and did more than a hundred shows before quitting to move to New Zealand.

I never got a chance to live overseas when I was in school, so I moved to New Zealand when I was twenty-seven. I flew out there with two suitcases, a passport, and a hotel reservation for my first week. I had to figure everything else out when I got there! I eventually found a place to live and met some wonderful friends.

New Zealand is beautiful (green rolling hills next to the ocean with tall mountains in the background), so I spent every afternoon hiking on trails that started in the city. I also read and wrote every day, but most importantly I met my wife while I was there! She came back to America with me, and since then we have lived in Colorado and Minnesota. We have one child, and I'm lucky that I get to spend a lot of time with him.

I am a licensed scuba diver and have been on many dives in the Gulf of Mexico. One of my favorite ones was a night dive. The only light was from my flashlight and the moon. Every time someone kicked their flippers, the water sparkled because tiny sea creatures called plankton shimmer when they are disturbed. It was so cool to watch all the night fish (like crabs and lobsters) roam around the glittery water.

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