Eleven-year-old Alexa Daley is to spend the summer with her father at Bridewell, a city with high impenetrable walls of stone. Even though “Bridewell is the center of everything in our small kingdom,” Alexa longs to know the outside, the Dark Hills and the valleys beyond. Her reputation for getting into trouble brings disdain from Pervis, the guard (“I’m watching you, Alexa Daley. So much as go near the wall and you’ll find my club against your knees – do we understand each other?”) and cautions from her father (“Can I count on you to stay out of trouble, at least until I get back?”).But inquisitive Alexa doesn’t stop her exploration, which finally does lead her outside the wall, to the animals that talk and the solution to an evil force that endangers Bridewell and the surrounding walled towns.Nearly everyone enjoys a successful yet unconventional story. The “Land of Elyon” is both a success and unconventional story from its inception through printing to the book-to-kids experience.It’s not unusual for a tale to be conceived from bedtime stories or family traditions. (Remember “Winnie the Pooh” and “Alice in Wonderland.”) Patrick Carman spun an ongoing adventure for his two daughters (it was during his wife’s night out!) while keeping journal notes and sketches of the story events.That journal became his outline for “The Land of Elyon,” a story of an 11-year-old heroine who in her own right is unconventional. But Carman was not a published author. In fact, as a successful businessman, he owned an advertising agency, designed and sold board games and dabbled in film and music production. This entrepreneur didn’t take the expected publishing path for his book either; he published it himself. He even contacted a well-known artist, Brad Wienman (“The Thousand Balloons”) and made a personal contract for cover art and inside sketches. Now that is unconventional!Self-publishing is a risky venture often with much difficulty in private marketing. When “The Land of Elyon” sold 10,000 copies, a number that immediately called attention to the book’s popularity, Scholastic offered a contract for printing rights. “The Land of Elyon” will become a trilogy, with Volume 2 to be published in fall 2005 and the third in 2006.That could be the end of this success story, but it isn’t. “The Land of Elyon” is being promoted on interactive Web sites (patrickcarman.com and www.scholastic.com) that include biography, a teaching guide with spaces for chat and questions from readers. There’s even a chance to earn Jocasta stones. You’ll have to read the book to find out what they are!Above all is the four-month, 22-city tour traveling in the highly visible Land of Elyon bus (this scoots across the Web page) accompanied by his wife and two daughters. Readers are encouraged to “follow the tour” and add their own experiences to the Web site.Is this the end of the unconventional success story? I don’t think so. My prediction is that we’ll see the name of Patrick Carman for a long time to come.

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