If you’re unfamiliar with The Scary Me series of books for kids, you may not be for long. The first book in a planned nine-chapter saga by Saugerties resident Andre Whittle is just out, and the author has found inspiration in the world around him. Sage Town: The Library Kids is centered in the fictitious Lennard County Library, where Bobby Jean Frost, his cousin Nick Frost, their friend Gemma Ricci, and new kid in town Matilda Johnson follow science and the unknown into a world of the paranormal.
Whittle was drawn to the idea of setting his series in his own corner of the world after he and his girlfriend visited Maine and immersed themselves in the world of legendary horror and suspense writer Stephen King, who often used his own surroundings to bring the fictional New England town of Derry to life.
“We saw the place of Stephen King and we realized that this place does resemble Stephen King’s book and his movies and everything,” said Whittle. “You won’t believe it but I sincerely got jealous. But it was a positive jealousy.”
By the end of the visit, Whittle was determined to bring Saugerties and the surrounding area to life in his own books, and within six months he’d written and self-published a series of stories under he described as “gory, very explicit.” And then his girlfriend suggested he write a book for kids.
“Mind you, I wasn’t a type that was going to write a novel,” Whittle said. “And then I asked her why she said you were a very good writer you’re different but you need something that could appeal to kids and adults at the same time.”
As Whittle pondered this, he scrolled through photographs on his phone and found a younger picture of himself, and suddenly he had Bobby. Gemma is inspired by Whittle’s girlfriend; Nick by his young cousin Nick; and Matilda by another cousin who came to visit him in Saugerties, a fan of Jenna Ortega, who played the titular role in the recent Netflix horror comedy series Wednesday.
The four can be seen on the cover of Sage Town: The Library Kids standing in front of a library that to Saugertesians might have a very familiar feel. Whittle said drawing each of the characters for the cover gave him a sense of how their personalities would work in the pages of the book.
“Bobby is the focused one, Nick is the jolly friendship type of one, Matilda is a straightforward. She doesn’t care. She’s just straightforward with you and Gemma, she likes to argue a lot, very argumentative.”
The Saugerties Public Library was obvious inspiration for Whittle, who lives nearby.
“I could almost literally just step out of my house and step into the library of Saugerties,” he said, adding that he worked hard to try and bring the area to life in the pages of Sage Town.
“I realized that there are no books or movies that capture the essence of Upstate New York,” Whittle said. “If you go anywhere in the world and they ask you where are you from and you said New York they’re always gonna say Brooklyn or Queens, New York City. And upstate New York is so cool.”
Whittle has big ambitions for the Library Kids and the Scary Me series. In addition to his planned nine books, he can see the characters on the big screen.
“I believe that if it’s made into a movie or cartoon it will have the same effect as Harry Potter,” Whittle said.
Future books will see the Library Kids travel to Sicily, Jamaica, England, and even other dimensions. Whittle said that in addition to Saugerties and the Hudson Valley, he also drew inspiration from his Jamaican upbringing, which he sees locally in the popularity of reggae music and pockets of Jamaican culture.
In plotting out his nine-book series, Whittle decided to tackle some big issues that go beyond the adventures his characters will undertake.
“Not only do I see a story, I can see a way where people could understand how to deal with friendship, how to deal with life itself, how to know how you’ve got to follow the positivity, how to choose what is right,” he said. “I see that in the story.”
Sage Town: The Library Kids is available as a hardcover, paperback, and eBook on Amazon, and will soon be found at Barnes & Noble and in local independent bookshops as well.
Whittle is also a musician, producing more than ten albums under the name of jlawremone, which can be found on various streaming services. He picked the name in part as a tribute to his late brother Junior Lennard, who he said was shot and killed by police in 2013. The rest is his own name, the a and w from Andre Whittle, and Remone from his middle name.
“I wasn’t interested in music,” Whittle said.“I just love to listen to music, but my brother wanted to be the musician. I couldn’t get over his death so I decided to do the music for him.”
Whittle also hopes to one day form a nonprofit to help invest in unusual writers from Upstate New York.
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