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Sean Covel is a Film and Television Producer who grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Covel’s credits include Beneath for Paramount Pictures, The 12 Dogs of Christmas directed by Academy Award Winner, Keith Merrill, and the iconic independent film, Napoleon Dynamite. Together, Covel’s films have won multiple awards, generated over one-quarter-billion dollars in revenue internationally, and gotten nerds prom dates across the globe. He very much wishes that would’ve been the case when he was in high school.
Covel is also a best-selling children’s book author. His recent book series, Porter the Hoarder, has been developed into an interactive reading initiative for elementary-aged kids.
With the help of the United Way, over 60,000 copies of the book are given free of charge to 1st-grade students, teachers, and libraries each year. The books are accompanied by a reading program designed to create parent engagement at home and boost grade-level reading successes.
Covel's latest book, Marlon McDoogle's Magical Night, is a Christmas adventure set on a magical train that explores the importance of family and the power of self-actualization. The book has garnered many awards in categories ranging from Action/Adventure to Inspirational Fiction and several awards for the gripping Illustrations.
Covel holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, where he guest lectures each spring.
Covel enjoys traveling, writing children's books, and lecturing at universities and film festivals internationally, but he hangs his nunchucks in Deadwood, SD.
Reviewed by Tiffany Ferrell for Readers' Favorite
All twelve-year-old Marlon McDoogle wanted for Christmas was a model train set to play with. When his grandpa shows up in the middle of the night with a present, he expects just that. When he unwraps the gift to find a scarf, he is secretly disappointed. Grandpa McDoogle reminds the boy that a simple gift can hold a world of adventure. Taking Marlon to work at the train station, Grandpa McDoogle shows him just how important his engineering job is on Christmas Eve. Once they arrive, he is introduced to some very special workers and the jolly man that makes Christmas possible.
I really thought Marlon McDoogle’s Magical Night by Sean Covel was a unique and fun holiday read. It wasn’t like your typical Christmas books that you come across. It starts off in a very traditional way but soon goes off into a storyline all its own, making it very enjoyable to read alone or read to a child. The two main characters are very likable and well established for a fifty-sixty page picture book. The grandpa is a very fun and creative character and I like the phrases he uses that have a very inspiring effect: “It’s your choice to make, isn’t it?” and “I choose to be something more.” The illustrations were also beautiful and fitted perfectly with the story. Diego Velasquez did an amazing job of creating such detailed pictures. Overall, I found it a very pleasant read and one that I will definitely recommend to others with children.
