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WORK TITLE: The Legend of the Last Library
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WEBSITE: https://frankcolewrites.com/
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COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 340
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Lexington, KY; married; wife’s name Heidi; children: Jackson, Gavin, Camberlyn.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author and bookstore manager.
WRITINGS
Also author of the blog The Writings and Rantings of Frank L. Cole.
SIDELIGHTS
Frank L. Cole writes for children and young-adult readers using a mix of science-fiction and fantasy elements along with a dollop of accessible humor. The creator of the “Hashbrown Winters” and “Guardians” series, Cole is a married father of three and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Cole’s “Hashbrown Winters” chapter books are aimed at late-elementary-aged and middle-grade readers. Readers meet the titular hero in The Adventures of Hashbrown Winters, learning that he is a gifted builder of treehouse forts who often winds up in absurd and slightly perilous situations. The second book in the series, Hashbrown Winters and the Mashimoto Madness, was described as “a wild wonderful read especially enticing for … boys” by a Children’s Bookwatch contributor.
Cole focuses on older readers in his “Guardians” novels, which feature a tight-knit group of teenagers with a knack for sifting through clues that link unexplained phenomena to talismanic objects or ancient biblical tales. A Kirkus Reviews critic noted of series installment The Guardians of the Hidden Scepter that its characters’ “daring escapades take it a big step beyond Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys in excitement.”
Cole’s standalone novel The Afterlife Academy features two likable boys who are linked by a paranormal bond. When Walter dies at age twelve in a sudden accident, he finds himself trapped in a realm between the living and the dearly departed. In order to move on to his final after-death home, Walter must serve as the spiritual protector of Charlie, a boy who has chanced upon a rare and ancient manuscript. The Afterlife Academy is told with “the perfect level of sarcastic humor mixed with a realistic view of kids’ social interactions,” asserted School Library Journal writer Clare A. Dombrowski, making Cole’s tale “an appealing ghost story without being creepy.”
In The World’s Greatest Adventure Machine, Cole tells the story of four young kids who won a contest to be the first to test an amusement park ride based on new virtual reality technology. The four preteens include brainiac Cameron and the clairvoyant Devin. Then there are Nika and Trevor, both suffering from medical conditions. Nika cannot feel physical pain, while Trevor does not know psychological fear. Clothed in special suits, the four experience a wide range of disturbing and strange situations, such as the stampede of miniature moose to an actor swinging a cleaver. The experiences involved are tailored to the distinctive qualities of the four test riders. As the story progresses, the four riders realize that there is more to the adventure machine than they were led to believe. “Cole pitches some entertaining notions,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor.
The Eternity Elixir is the first book in the “Potion Masters” series. The book finds twelve-year-old Gordy Stitser being trained by his mother in the art of making potions. Gordy is one of the few people who know about the secretive Board of Ruling Elixirists Worldwide (B.R.E.W.) because his mother serves on the board. Gordy loves making up his own potions in the basement lab, using a wide range of unusual ingredients, from ant eggs to Bosnian tickling juice. When Gordy receives a package containing the Eternity Elixir, he finds himself facing off with evil potion masters who want to steal the powerful elixir, which was created by Gordy’s grandfather and can be used for good or evil. Gordy looks to protect the elixir from falling into the wrong hands. He has the help of his parents and his friends Max and Adilene, whom Gordy has told about the secret society of potion masters. “Fast-paced and humorous, this should have easy appeal for fantasy fans,” wrote Lindsey Tomsu in Booklist. A Cracking the Cover website contributor noted: “ The Eternity Elixir celebrates learning and education.”
Gordy returns in The Transparency Tonic. Gordy is still training and hanging out with his friends Max and Adilene after defeating the evil Esmerelda in The Eternity Elixir. Meanwhile, evil forces still are on the move with the intent of creating a chaotic world. While Gordy is focused on his training and balking at his mother’s seemingly total control of his efforts, Max is thinking about wrestling and Adilene would like to be trained in potion making like Gordy. Eventually, Gordy recognizes that something is not quite right, both with his friends and with the new administration at B.R.E.W. In addition, he is increasingly blacking out while making his potions, which leaves him vulnerable to nefarious forces seeking to destroy B.R.E.W. Noting the “racially and culturally diverse cast,” a Kirkus Reviews contributor went on to call The Transparency Tonic “a clever second volume in a magical series.”
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After completing the “Potion Master” series with The Seeking Serum, Cole turned toward a younger audience for his “Champion’s Quest” series. It was also a fantasy series in which a pair of boys and a pair of girls find themselves transported into a strange world of goblins and ogres. Even as he worked on those series, however, Cole also continued to write standalone novels.
One particularly successful one was The Legend of the Last Library. Its heroine is a thirteen-year-old girl named Juni, whose parents died when she was six. Now she is trying to auction some items to pay for her grandpa’s medical bills when she comes across a book for the first time in her life. The book was hidden by her grandfather when an evil corporation took over the world and sought to control all information. The book also includes clues about a mysterious lost library, and Juni and her friends set out to find it. “A thoughtful yet action-driven tale,” wrote a reviewer in Kirkus Reviews. They praised Cole for how he “weaves lovely testimonies to the power of reading” and predicted that readers would be eager to share the book with friends.
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, November 15, 2017, Lindsey Tomsu, review of The Eternity Elixir, p. 55.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, November, 2015, April Spisak, review of The Afterlife Academy, p. 139.
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2011, review of The Guardians of the Hidden Scepter; July 15, 2015, review of The Afterlife Academy; May 1, 2017, review of The World’s Greatest Adventure Machine; October 1, 2018, review of The Transparency Tonic; July 1, 2024, review of The Legend of the Last Library.
School Library Journal, July, 2015, Clare A. Dombrowski, review of The Afterlife Academy, p. 74.
ONLINE
Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/ (October 12, 2017), Deborah Kalb, “Q&A with Frank L. Cole.”
BookTrib, https://booktrib.com/ (March 19, 2020), author interview.
Cracking the Cover, https://www.crackingthecover.com/ (January 5, 2018), “Frank L. Cole Brews Up Exciting Adventure in The Eternity Elixir.
Frank L. Cole website, http://http://www.frankcolewrites.com (January 7, 2025).*
Mindy McGinnis, https://www.mindymcginnis.com/ (April 7, 2020), author interview.
Frank L Cole
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Frank L. Cole has lived in such exotic places as the Philippines and Kentucky, and currently lives with his wife and three children out west. While he strived for years to earn his publishing credits, Frank considers sharing his message of Exercising Your Imagination to over 45,000 kids across the country as his greatest accomplishment.
Genres: Children's Fiction
New and upcoming books
August 2024
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The Legend of the Last Library
September 2024
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Vigilante Sasquatch
Series
Adventures of Hashbrown Winters
1. The Adventures of Hashbrown Winters (2009)
2. Hashbrown Winters and the Mashimoto Madness (2010)
3. Hashbrown Winters and the Phantom of Pordunce (2010)
4. Hashbrown Winters and the Whiz-tastrophe (2013)
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Guardians
1. The Guardians of the Hidden Scepter (2011)
2. The Guardians of Elijah's Fire (2012)
3. The Guardians of the Finisher's Fury (2013)
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Potion Masters
1. The Eternity Elixir (2018)
2. The Transparency Tonic (2019)
3. The Seeking Serum (2020)
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Champion's Quest
1. The Die of Destiny (2021)
2. The Questmaster's Trap (2022)
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Novels
The Afterlife Academy (2015)
The World's Greatest Adventure Machine (2017)
The Legend of the Last Library (2024)
Vigilante Sasquatch (2024)
Frank L. Cole was born into a family of southern storytellers and wrote his first book at age eight. It was, of course, a masterpiece, but it was lost, and Frank has spent the rest of his life trying to remember it. Currently, along with his wife and three children, he resides in the shadow of a majestic western mountain range, which is most likely haunted. Frank has visited hundreds of schools nationwide promoting the value of reading and using imagination to solve problems and he can now say with confidence, “The Library has no need to hide from me.” The Legend of the Last Library is Frank’s 15th published book.
With a good imagination you can solve any problem you ever come up against in life
Frank L. Cole on Brewing Potions and that Special Ingredient Called Imagination
Contributor: BookTrib
BookTrib
March 19, 2020
5 min read
Frank L. Cole has beautifully constructed an imaginative world for middle-graders in which magical potions are crucial to our everyday life. That’s the basis of the fun Potion Masters trilogy, with the final installment, The Seeking Serum, having just been released.
As his books are so creative, it’s no wonder he is drawn to creative people. “People with great imaginations — ones that think outside the box — are my kind of people. My favorite characters in stories are the ones who take risks, fall down a ton, pick themselves back up and are finally triumphant.”
In Book One, The Eternity Elixir, 12-year-old Gordy Stitser has a special talent most children his age do not: an ability to brew magical potions. Gordy has been learning from his incredibly skilled Elixirist mother for years and is quite the prodigy. When his mother disappears and Gordy receives a package containing a mysterious potion, he is inadvertently sent on a life-and-death adventure.
We had the chance to talk with Cole about his books, magic potions and his commitment to young readers.
Q: So you have this thing for potions. Why the fascination, and why are they the centerpiece of your Potion Masters Trilogy?
A: It started when I was very young. I always wanted to be able to mix stuff together and make my concoctions do amazing things. Mostly, I made messes. And now my daughter does the same thing — she makes slime! I just love the possibility of being able to create something magical from otherwise normal ingredients. Creating the potions and the ingredients for them was probably my favorite thing about writing these books.
Q: Here’s a phrase you’ll recognize: “With a good imagination, you can solve any problem you ever come up against in life.” Explain why those words are so important to you.
A: I firmly believe it! You may have to get creative to get yourself out of a jam, but people with great imaginations — ones that think outside the box — are my kind of people. My favorite characters in stories are the ones who take risks, fall down a ton, pick themselves back up and are finally triumphant. I think a great imagination doesn’t keep you from failing, that’s all part of life, but it definitely helps you recover and eventually succeed.
Q: In the series, you establish a strong sense of character and characters — fun people that kids can relate to. Where do your characters come from?
A: All my characters could be linked to people I know or have known in the past (my own kids, my classmates growing up, my family members, myself). There’s a little bit of me in Gordy, but there’s also a little bit of me in Max too. Max is obnoxious, he’s boisterous, he loves his snacks, but he’s also completely loyal to his friends, even if he does drive them crazy from time to time. I love to write about clever, good-natured characters with a bit of mischief sprinkled in.
Q: What would our world be like if the many unusual potions that you create in your stories really existed?
A: So much more interesting! If we all had the potential to be an Elixirist, think about the creativity that would take place. We would only use our technology to look up recipes, we would be actively involved in creating magical potions and we would all be scientific geniuses! Man, that’s a world I want to live in! Even with the bad Potion Masters hanging around, causing problems, it would be worth it to have the possibility of real magic.
Q: What does the future hold for you?
A: There will definitely be more books in the future. I’m actually hoping to announce my next project very soon. And as far as school visits and presentations go, it really is my favorite thing to do. Nothing inspires me more than young, creative minds getting excited about my novels and just books in general!
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About Frank Cole:
Frank L. Cole was born into a family of southern storytellers and wrote his first book at age eight. He is the author of the middle-grade Potion Master trilogy: The Eternity Elixer, The Transparency Tonic, and The Seeking Serum. Highly superstitious and gullible to a fault, Frank will believe in any creepy story you tell him, especially ones involving ghosts and Big Foot. Currently, along with his wife and three children, he resides in the shadow of a majestic western mountain range, which is most likely haunted.
Frank Cole On The Freedom to Create
April 7, 2020
Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.
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Today’s guest for the WHAT is Frank Cole, author of the Potion Masters series. The third title, The Seeking Serum, released in January of this year.
Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?
I tell this often to kids when I present at schools, but the origin for Potion Masters came to me when I was sitting at my desk and I was trying to think of something to write about next. I had just finished a novel (one that’s still sitting unpublished on my hard drive) and I was struggling to come up with something else interesting. - For some explanation, I often will just imagine weird scenes that may or may not make it in one of my books. The more unusual the better for me. I really do try to put just crazy weird things in all my stories and somehow make them feel like it’s normal, at least for my characters. - As I was sitting there at my desk, from out of the blue, I thought about a random family sitting in a dining room, eating dinner, and at the center of the table was a mason jar with a human tongue. The tongue was licking the glass and the family was okay with this. I remember thinking to myself, like oh man! That’s so weird and so cool! What could be the reason for this bizarre tongue in a jar being a normal situation in this household? Originally, the book was going to be about a family of hexers that curse people for a living and that idea never really caught hold. But when I latched onto the idea of a society of secret potion masters called Elixirists, the story just exploded.
Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?
This is always hard for me, because I tend to overcomplicate things, and I’m not a plotter, at all. If I can’t allow myself to be free to create whimsically, the story often struggles to come to life. Of course, I have to somewhat of a heading in the beginning and usually I start asking myself a whole bunch of questions to answer. Like, why is this happening? Why is this happening now? Why is it happening to this particular character and not someone else? For Gordy, I had to discover why he mattered to the book and how his best friends factored into the equation. Gordy’s family is unique because not everyone in his home can brew potions, but his mom is highly skilled and his grandfather, who Gordy has no relationship with because his grandfather has been banished to Greenland, was once the most evil Elixirists alive. As the series progresses, you learn more about how Gordy’s mom and his aunt and a lot of the people Gordy trusts have kind of a shady history. It makes for a more compelling tale, I think.
Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?
Every time, sadly. That’s the pains of someone who writes by the seat of their pants. One of my previous novels was sold on proposal and when I finally turned in the first draft, it looked nothing like what my publisher initially wanted and paid for. I rewrote a ton over the next month or so, and on the second draft, I found out they were equally dissatisfied. I had to rewrite that book 3 times! It’s way better now than what it was, but man! Was that a pain!
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Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?
I go through idea famines all the time. A lot of it comes from self-doubt, or trying to overthink things. Often, I’ll come up with an idea that I’m so excited about and suddenly I’ll see a movie trailer that’s almost spot-on to what I was thinking about. Then I ask myself, did I create the idea after seeing the movie trailer or before? Then it’s back to the drawing board. Honestly, I can go months sometimes without a fresh idea and I’ll feel this hopelessness that I’m never going to write again and then one day, when I least expect it, something smacks me in the mouth, and I have a revelation. I wish I could find out what it was I was doing prior to the idea, but I’m usually so ecstatic that I have new material that I don’t give it much thought until way later and by then it’s too late to remember.
How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?
I’ve been very fortunate to work with an agent who I can bounce ideas off all the time. She lets me know when I’m hitting the mark or when I’m way off. I also go to lunch with other authors whenever I can to see how my ideas strike them. You can usually tell when you have a great idea just by their reactions. Also, if I don’t have a solid pitch for the story, I tend not to go that route. I want something that I can easily communicate the plot to readers and publishers and everyone else I have to pitch it to before I start diving in.
I have 5 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?
My little dog, Darcy, is my muse. She’s a rescued maltipoo, and she’s a difficult creature because she hates the world, but fortunately loves me and my wife dearly. When I first moved into my house in Logan, I was all alone while my wife and kids finished up the school year back in Salt Lake City. It was just me and Darcy in this house and when she would plop down in my office while I typed, my stories started flowing. That can’t be just a coincidence. But she can also distract me too because she wants to play or attack someone outside or raid the snack drawer while I’m getting into my rhythm. So, it’s one of those relationships.
Cole, Frank L. THE LEGEND OF THE LAST LIBRARY Shadow Mountain (Children's None) $18.99 8, 6 ISBN: 9781639932382
Juniper Knox lives in a post-apocalyptic world: Following a Blight caused by insects that killed the trees, paper is a rare commodity, and information is power.
When Juni was 6, her archaeologist parents died while searching for the Last Library. Now, 13-year-old Juni seeks books, too. She hopes to auction off every scrap of paper she finds so she can buy medicine for ailing Grandpa Edgar. In her quest, she meets Kobyn Garcia and his mother, who reveal the truth about the Blight and the rise of Novexus Corporation, which controls every aspect of people's lives. They explain that all paper was burned a century ago in an effort to end the Blight; with it, the historical record was conveniently destroyed. Now, the populace only learns what Novexus wants them to--and nothing will change unless the Last Library can be found and its information shared. Juni struggles to believe this history, especially given some revelations about her parents. Excitement builds as Juni takes the lead in the hunt for the Library, triggering dramatic conflicts with Novexus. It's possible that all will be lost unless the searchers take a huge risk. In a delight to bibliophiles, Cole weaves lovely testimonies to the power of reading and the acquisition of knowledge into the text. Juni reads white; names cue ethnic diversity among the cast.
A thoughtful yet action-driven tale to read again and again and share with friends. (Dystopian. 8-12)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Cole, Frank L.: THE LEGEND OF THE LAST LIBRARY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A799332678/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=66687153. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.