Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.151 | feat. Candith Block

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Author Candith Block on Her Children’s Book “Marshmallow and Cocoa” Matt Major of Good News York shares an update from the show’s new Clickstream Studio space and interviews local author Candith Block in the guest area. Block discusses her children’s picture book, “Marshmallow and Cocoa,” about Marshmallow the skunk who is rejected by other animals but ultimately befriends Cocoa the porcupine, emphasizing belonging, kindness, and celebrating differences. Inspired by a homework assignment and experiences with bullying, she wrote the book to help children feel worthy of friendship; she also previously authored a 2017 book on divorce. Block explains working with Christian Faith Publishing to retain rights, the yearlong editing and illustration process, distribution to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and her responsibility for marketing. She hopes to develop a series and possibly a cartoon, and mentions a future book about her father, “Bobby’s Ice Cream Adventure.” 00:00 New Studio Update 00:44 Meet Candith Block 01:18 Story of Marshmallow and Cocoa 02:31 Illustrations and Inspiration 03:49 From Divorce Book to Kids Message 04:55 Age Range and Where to Buy 06:18 Future Series and Animation Ideas 08:02 Publishing Process Explained 11:27 Faith Message and Epilogue 13:08 Favorite Part and Final Wrap

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If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode, and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads. ads like this, even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com. Hey guys, Matt Measier from Good News, York. Welcome back. We are in our new studio, but we're not using the full-blown set yet. And I know I'm driving Danny crazy because he's like, come on,

can we just, can we just shoot this thing? But it's not ready. So we're working on it. But we are taking a portion. You've seen a few things. You've seen our set in the train so far. You've seen some interviews there. You've seen some interviews at some of our client sets in the back, and you're going to see more of that. And today, we are at our guest area here at the Good News York set here at ClickStream Studio. So I'm very excited. I'm also very excited to kick off this little corner area for the first time with a really interesting person who has done an incredible thing, which is write a book. And to me, that is just absolutely incredible. It's a children's book, and we're going to learn a little bit about it and her and how she got here.

But we were just talking about how needed it is to actually have a physical thing. I'm always very impressed with people that create things that you can hold in your hands. Without further ado, Candeth Block has joined us. Welcome to the show. Hi, Matt. Thank you. So, Candeth, tell us a little bit about this book that we're looking at in front of us here. Well, it's a children's picture book.

It's called Marshmallow and Coco. It's about marshmallow skunk. trying to make friends, but, you know, who wants to be friends with a skunk because they stink. And on his journey, he tries to make friends with a porcupine, a chimp munk of squirrel, and even rabbits, but they all reject him. And he actually comes across Coco, the porcupine, who also wants to be friends with the porcupine because of the quills, you know, and actually marshmallows afraid of cocoa. So, but on his journey, he encounters him.

And he realizes that, you know, he's afraid also and that he doesn't have any friends. So towards the end, he meets him and decides, you know, we all need friends. You know, maybe he's just as lonely as he is. So they actually become friends. This is such a cool book. And we'll show some close-ups. I don't know how well you can see here. But it is a true.

It reminds me a little bit of the, you know, the little golden books, the classic. Yes. Children's Story Books. You've got some great... Where did these awesome drawings come from? Are you an illustrator as well, Candid? No, I wish I was. But no, I had the input.

I told my publisher what I wanted, how I wanted it. It was a little bit longer process for the illustration. They look great, though. That's the thing, is they... Like I said, they remind me of the classic children's book. Yes. Goes so well with your story. What inspired this?

Well, it actually started up as a homework assignment. Oh, wow. But, you know, kids nowadays, or even when I was growing up, you know, some of us got bullied because we didn't look like the in-crowd or we didn't dress like them or. And, you know, I think children need to feel loved and that they're different. shouldn't stop them from having friends. Sure. That they're worthy of friendship. You know, that we're all creating God image.

And our differences should be celebrated and that they should feel that they belong and that they're worthy of friendship. That's incredible. Now you, this isn't your first writings, right? You've done some other work previously? Yes, I wrote a book on divorce. divorce. Oh, wow. Came back and came out in 2017.

It's a big difference. Very big difference. Was that one illustrated as well? No. No, no, no. There could be some funny pictures, you know, I don't know. Yeah, no. That was actually kind of helped me heal from the divorce as well.

That's great. But if I could help one person with that book, you know, because divorce is devastating. Sure. But I just felt just a few years. ago led to to write this so I could help children. I love that to feel like they belong and feel accepted and that you know kindness matters more than fitting in sure you know and I love that and I think I think that's a message that that kids want to hear and they want to see reinforced that's that's almost sort of their default nature I feel like until something

kind of takes it away from them and and I love reinforcing these messages how have you how has it been received with folks that have been looking at the book so far? They like the message. They just love it. They love the illustrations. It's great. Is there a target age range? Or what would you say if people were considering it? Is it too old, too young for their children? What would you say? I would say ages from two to ten, maybe 12. Yeah. So you've got a good range there. And obviously a fun but easy to understand message, which is pretty cool. Where can folks find this? You can get it on Amazon, Bardenobo, books a million, anywhere. They're sold online. You can also Google Play, you know, any e-book. That's great. It's so neat that we can have these

things so accessible. Are you from the area? I don't know if we even asked you that. You're from the greater Syracuse area here? I am born and raised. I love it. I love it. And that's the thing that's so neat is that somebody can come up with something like this and have it available in places like Amazon where people all over the globe can get this thing and do.

We've seen it. It's very high-rated on Amazon. When we first met, we took a look and very impressed by that and seeing it all over the place. What would you like to see happen with the book? What would you like to see the next steps are from here? I would actually like to create a series. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Okay. Maybe even a cartoon-type series as well, in addition to the book series. I got you. So would that follow the same characters or would you introduce new folks? Yeah. Same characters, probably, you know, new characters. Sure.

They've got to meet some new friends, right? Yes. Along the way. Can you give us a preview of like what types of things might they do later in the series? Well, I haven't really thought about it. I realize that might be a work in progress, so I don't mean to put you on the spot. Yeah, no, just about coming across, you know, other characters that have maybe a disability or just making more friends.

I haven't really given it too much thought. Sure, sure. You know, it's just an idea that I have thought of. You know, I just want to... You should... I'm thinking I need to introduce you, if you don't know already, the local animation guy. I don't know if you know Dean.

Dean Lyons, awesome guy. Hollywood-level animator, movie producer and stuff right here in Syracuse. Oh, that would nice. It might be a good introduction for when you're ready for that. He actually runs a training camp for students that want to get into animation and they do all kinds of things. So he may love something like this. And I think that's pretty neat.

One thing I'd like to talk about, because being the businessman that I am myself, I'm always interested in how these things work, right? Like behind the scenes. So could you tell us a little bit of the process of, you know, you have this idea. Maybe you've even written the book. But how do you get to the point to having it. in a physical form and available on Amazon and things. Who do you even reach out to to make that happen? Well, I decided to go with a publisher.

Okay. I didn't go with traditional because I didn't want to lose my rights. I see. Because I didn't want them changing the story and the meaning behind it. Ah. So sometimes when you do that, you give them the capability to modify everything, huh? Yes. And especially with this book, I didn't want to do that.

Sure. That makes sense. You know, I didn't want the meaning to change, like I said. I did find a publisher, Christian Faith Publishing, and I signed up with them. We went through the editing phase, and then I started the illustrations. And like I said, I told them what I wanted, how I wanted it. Sure. And it takes probably about a year.

So once it was ready for publication, you know, they have, I guess they're connected with Ingram Sparks, I think it's called. Okay. And they, you know, they are the ones, obviously, it comes in paperback, hardcover and e-book, and they all have their own ISBN number. And they put them on Barnes & Noble's, Amazon, and other book retailers online. So they helped all the distribution for you. Yes. That's awesome. And the marketing is my responsibility.

But they did create some of my social media pages on Instagram and YouTube. So they're giving you some support as well as helping you produce the thing, sounds like. That's a pretty decent deal. And I did a reader roundhouse. I don't know if I'm saying. Roundhouse Reader podcast and then I did

a Zoom interview about the book and that's great that's great Candeth again tell folks I want to reiterate

this all the best places or maybe even out of all the places you can get the book what's the one you'd prefer they go to to check it out? Probably Barnes and Nobles

and Amazon okay those are the most popular those are the easiest one So that's great. That's great. Marshmallow and Coco are, is the name of the book. It's the name of the characters. I'm going to, hold on, I want to guess here.

I'm just going to guess because it's left and right that the skunk is marshmallow. Correct. Okay. See, I figured it out. He didn't stump me. I love, I just love everything about this. This is such a neat thing. I just don't want kids feeling like lonely because they don't have friends.

You know, I don't want them to give up. You know, they need to be hopeful about making friends. I love that. This is such a neat, such a neat thing, Candace. You've got a little bit of, you mentioned it was published by a Christian publisher, it sounds like. So there's a little bit of a religious message. But talk about that a little bit, because I think it's, I think you've done it really well to where, folks are into that or not correct it's not gonna bother them it's not there's not a

sermon here you know no talk about that a little bit if you could well well in the story I wanted to you know I wanted him to go on this journey to find a friend and in the editing process I referenced God and stuff but the way the editor suggested that this refrain about marshmallow singing a song about making friendship because every time he got rejected he would sing this song so oh wow he would be encouraged um so at the end i in the epilogue is when i talked about god how we're different i'm different you're different we're all different and that we're created in his image and that we're special to him and that we need to you know embrace everybody's differences

and I even have a little prayer there for a child that might want to pray and ask God to help them make friends. That's great. That's so nice. What a great thing to do. I love that you've been able to take this idea, turn it into a reality, share it with children and families around the globe, really. Like I said, all those distribution channels get you everywhere, right?

Yes. That's kind of neat. Candid, the last thing I'll ask you, and then I'll let you get back to all of the cool things that you're doing. Throughout the book, what's been your favorite process, not even necessarily just writing the book, but all of this, talking about it, promoting, and all these different things,

what's been your favorite part of this whole activity so far? Seeing it come to life. Yeah? Yeah, all my work in writing it and putting it, telling the illustrators what I want and then just actually holding it in my hand and thinking, wow, this is a reality. I love that. Like I said, I said at the very beginning, it's such a neat thing to create a physical thing.

I've always worked in kind of service-based businesses, and I've done a lot of things for people. I've built websites and all these things. But a physical product is just, I don't know, to me it feels like such an achievement. So I can only imagine why that might have been the best part. Yeah, and inspiring children and bringing glory to God is my goal. You know, I don't, children are very important. Sure. 100%.

100%. That's what drives everything, right? Yes. Yes. We need somebody to take care of us when we are at a home somewhere, right? Yeah. So you've always tell people, you know, raising children is a little bit selfish because you want good people around when they're in charge. So I love it.

Candeth, thank you so much for joining Good News York. This has been an awesome, awesome time. Thank you for having me, Matt. Come back in the future. When we do have new books and fun things and different activities to talk about, we would love to have you back anytime. And I'm planning on another book kind of dedicated to my father. Oh, wow.

It's a Bobby's ice cream adventure. Oh, wow. Because his favorite thing in the whole world was ice cream. And it was just kind of a God thing that the last thing he ate was ice cream. Oh, wow. before he passed, yeah. What was his favorite flavor? Hmm.

Or he was such a connoisseur. He just loved ice cream. He just loved ice cream, but I think it was pralines and cream. Okay. I could be wrong, but I know he liked that. That's quite a choice, so I love that. But he loved ice cream no matter what. Well, that's going to be great, and we'd love to hear all about that as that project moves along, too.

So thank you again for joining us. This is great. for stopping by. And thanks to everybody for watching. This has been a great interview for Good News York. We've got a lot more lined up this week. And then coming up soon, we're going to have our full regular segments, as you're used to with the full-blown show.

So we're almost back to that from our new location here at Clickstream Studios. Don't forget our sponsor, Ads on the Go. Get Ads on the Go.com is the website. Our man, Zach, with the billboard truck out there, spreading the message of everybody's business and we love that. So with that, peace out. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more.

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