FARMINGTON — Co-authors J Bean Palmer and Chris Palmer of Farmington were awarded a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award for “ElsBeth and the Call of the Castle Ghosties, Book III” in the Cape Cod Witch Series, published this year.

Moonbeam is a national children’s book contest for independent and major publishers. From more than 1,200 entries, and with medalists last year from 35 states, five Canadian provinces and seven countries overseas, “ElsBeth and the Call of the Castle Ghosties” received the Moonbeam Bronze Medal in the pre-teen fiction category for ebooks.

A print edition, which also includes 21 original illustrations by award-winning Lewiston artist Melanie Therrien, has now been released and is available in Farmington from DDG Booksellers. Ebook and print editions are also at Amazon and other online and brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Earlier this year Midwest Book Review wrote: “’ElsBeth and the Call of the Castle Ghosties’ is about as fine a middle school fantasy as you could get: vivid, packed with ghosts and mystery, and yet tempered with an attention to interpersonal depth that is rare and inviting.”

J Bean Palmer is a University of Maine at Farmington graduate. With a degree in environmental science, her ElsBeth stories reflect a passion and respect for the natural world and its magical kinship. Chris Palmer makes some use of his education in philosophy at Colby College in contributing the poems that are sung or spoken by several characters in the stories.

A 14th-generation Cape Codder, he and J Bean currently reside in a converted barn on the banks of the Sandy River in Farmington.

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