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I present a passage from Candlewick Press‘s A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd.

Nevertheless, the monster said, standing, the roof beams of his grandma’s office seeming to sigh with relief, that is what will happen after the third tale.

“Great,” Conor said. “Another story when there are more important things going on.”

Stories are important, the monster said. They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.

“Life writing,” Conor said, sourly, under his breath.

The monster looked surprised. Indeed, it said.

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In the wake of Hunger Games success, Lionsgate Entertainment acquired the film rights to the young-adult fantasy series, Patrick Ness‘ Chaos Walking trilogy. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman will adapt the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go.

Here’s more from Deadline: ”The Carnegie Medal winning book is set in a dystopian future with humans colonizing a distant earth-like planet. When an infection called the Noise suddenly makes all thought audible, privacy vanishes, chaos ensues, and a corrupt autocrat threatens to take control of the human settlements and wage war with the indigenous alien race.”

Kaufman won the 2004 Oscar in the Best Original Screenplay category for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He also wrote the scripts for the adaptation of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Adaptation (based The Orchid Thief).

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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In the wake of Hunger Games success, Lionsgate Entertainment acquired the film rights to the young-adult fantasy series, Patrick Ness‘ Chaos Walking trilogy. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman will adapt the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go.

Here’s more from Deadline: ”The Carnegie Medal winning book is set in a dystopian future with humans colonizing a distant earth-like planet. When an infection called the Noise suddenly makes all thought audible, privacy vanishes, chaos ensues, and a corrupt autocrat threatens to take control of the human settlements and wage war with the indigenous alien race.”

Kaufman won the 2004 Oscar in the Best Original Screenplay category for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He also wrote the scripts for the adaptation of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Adaptation (based The Orchid Thief).

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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hosted by Loving Books. Basically, a week dedicated to Patrick Ness’s amazing series, which I found out about from Lisa is Busy Nerding.

Anyway, I have no idea if this is some kind of coincidence or what, but…

…the Chaos Walking series comprises today’s Kindle Daily Deal. If you have a Kindle and haven’t read the series yet, the books are 99¢ each! You can’t go wrong!

I don’t mean to turn this into a buy-stuff-from-Amazon post, since I’m not a fan of many of their practices (I’m not, nor have I ever have been, an Amazon affiliate), but Melina Marchetta’s Finnikin of the Rock is currently (as of this writing) on sale for $3.49. And wouldn’t you know, last week was Marchetta Madness at Chachic’s Book Nook.

There are some awesome posts there, by the way, like Trish Doller on how Jellicoe Road influenced Something Like Normal. Which makes me want to read Something Like Normal even more.

Filed under: Book News, Things That Make Trisha Go, "Hmm"

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On my nightstand is an ARC of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews.  I am having a very hard time getting into it because ...it's about a dying girl.  DUH!  I mean, I already read John Green's The Fault in My Stars.  That's sort of about a dying girl.  And last night, I had the ambiguous pleasure? - honor? - um experience? of reading  A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.  The person dying in that book is a grown-up girl. 

Writing about dying people is not new in books written for younger people - or in any books for that matter.  But it just feels weird that so many books on the subject of cancer have crossed in front of my eyes this Fall/Winter.  Because of the Dad with cancer thing.  That's why it feels weird. Except, God willing, Dad is not dying of cancer - just of living a long life - and not yet.

I am nostalgic for the days when no one from my immediate family had cancer.  It seems like a very long time ago.

Back to the books.  The Monster Calls set me off on a crying jag!  Conor's anger, guilt and pain as he deals - or avoids dealing with - his mother's cancer and imminent death are absolutely wrenching.  The book served as biblio-therapy for me.  But there is nothing clinical about this book.  Ness creates a monster that forces Conor to face what is going on in his life with some very dramatic results.  The narrative is spellbinding.  This book is a worthy opponent in the Battle of the Books.  Read it, but as with The Fault in Our Stars, keep a box of tissues handy.

The book is based on an outline developed by author Siobhan Dowd who died of breast cancer herself.  I think she would like what Ness did with her story.

As for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl?  I haven't finished it yet but the premise of the book is one I bet a lot of teens can identify with.  Rachel - Greg dated her in sixth grade - has been diagnosed with leukemia and Greg's mom has decided that Greg should spend more time with poor, poor Rachel.  Awkward!  Greg is a good kid.  And he's got a manic motormouth that is very funny.  So his renewed friendship with Rachel seems to actually help her. There's something about film making here, too.  I'll give you my final verdict when I get through the whole book.

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Who says February is a bummer? Imagine my joy this morning when my sleepy eyes spied the announcement in my Twitter feed that the 2012 BoB contenders had been announced! I adore the Bob's (also known more formally as the School Library Journal Battle of the Kids Books.) I love the guest judges. I love the monkey wrench of the Undead contender. I love the debate and conversation and

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A Monster Calls
By Patrick Ness
Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd
Illustrated by Jim Kay
Candlewick Press
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5559-4
Ages 11 and up
On shelves now

I don’t mind metaphors as much as I might. I think that generally I’m supposed to hate them when they show up in children’s literature. I don’t if they’re done well, though. Maybe if I were an adult encountering The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time I’d find the Jesus allegory annoying, but as a kid it flew right over me. Similarly, if I were an eleven-years-old today and someone handed me A Monster Calls I could read this whole book and not once speculate as to what the monster “really means”. Author Patrick Ness (who also wrote a book called Monsters of Men just to confuse you) writes a layered story that can be taken straight or at an angle, depending on what you want out of the book. What I wanted was a great story, compelling characters, and a killer ending. That I got and so much more.

The monster comes at 12:07. It would probably be easier for everyone, the monster included, if Conor were afraid of it, but he isn’t. Conor’s afraid of much worse things at the moment. His mom has cancer and this time the treatments don’t seem to be working as well as they have in the past. He’s plagued by a nightmare so awful he believes that no one else ever need know of it. Bullies at school pound him regularly, his grandmother is annoying, and his dad lives with a different family in America. The crazy thing is that Conor kind of wants to be punished, but the monster has a different purpose in mind. It’s going to tell him three stories and when it’s done Conor will tell him a fourth. A fourth that is the truth and also the last thing he’d ever want to say.

For the record, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate a book that includes the word “monster” in the title and then proceeds to include lots o’ monster. Since we’re dealing with the serious subject matter of a boy learning to forgive himself as his mother dies of cancer, Ness could also be forgiven for just putting a dab of monster here or a dribble of monster there. Instead he starts with the monster (“The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.”) continues to pile on the monster scenes, and by the time you reach the end there’s not a kid alive who could say they were mislead by the cover or title. The monster in this book isn’t the only wild Green Man to be published this year. Season Of Secrets by Sally Nicholls

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I had heard so much that was so good about A Monster Calls, the Patrick Ness novel inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, that last night, when my arms were too achy to type a single letter more, I downloaded the book onto my iPad2.

Had I known that this book was so beautifully illustrated, I would have gone out to the store and bought myself a copy instead, so that I could, from time to time, look at these extraordinarily interesting, wildly textured Jim Kay drawings.  A Monster Calls would be a very different book without these images, just as Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the Ransom Riggs books enlivened by surreal old photographs, would not be the book it is had not a publishing house decided that teens, too (and the adults who inevitably read teen books) need, every now and then, to stop and see the world not through words but through images.  Maile Meloy's new historical YA book, The Apothecary, is due out soon—a book that (if the preview pages on Amazon are accurate) features some very beautiful illustrations by Ian Schoenherr.  And let's not forget The Boneshaker by Kate Milford, with its beautiful Andrea Offermann images. (And, of course, there are so many, many more.)

A Monster Calls reminds me, in so many ways, of the great Roald Dahl story The BFG.  Dahl's books, illustrated by Quentin Blake, sit beside The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer) on my shelf—books that take me back to some of my favorite mother-son reading days.  We loved the stories.  We loved the illustrations, too.  We loved the entire package.

Maybe we have Brian Selznick to thank for this return to the visual—to ageless picture books.  Maybe it was just plain time.  I only (with absolute surety) know this:  I recently completed a young adult novel amplified by (in my eyes) gorgeous illustrations. I can't wait to see where that project goes, and on what kind of journey it takes me.

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As you all know, I absolutely love A Monster Calls, which was just published a few days ago. So when Candlewick offered me a chance to send some interview questions to Patrick Ness as part of a blog tour*, I jumped at the chance. (Even though I also felt more than a bit intimidated, because, hello, Patrick Ness. He’s brilliant!)

Anyway, for more background information about A Monster Calls, read this interview with Ness at The Mountains of Instead. Here’s my interview:

The Chaos Walking series and A Monster Calls were written for young adults but have earned you a passionate adult fan base as well. Do you have any thoughts about why your books have attracted such ardent adult readers?
I always say that I never write for a particular audience, that I just write for myself. It’s the principle that if I don’t like it, then no one else ever will (you’d be surprised at how many writers don’t do this). And so I have to be the one who’s entertained and who laughs and who cries. If I don’t, then I feel like I’m lying to my reader. The result being, possibly, that since I’m responding to them, maybe other adults do as well? I really do write them for me, though. And then it’s up to the book to find its natural audience. I’m good with that.

There were several occasions in A Monster Calls when the monster said something that I thought could have come straight out of the Chaos Walking books. I’m still not quite sure how to phrase my question here, but mostly I’m curious about whether this was coincidental or a conscious decision, a reflection of some of the same thematic concerns explored in Chaos Walking?
Not necessarily conscious, but I suppose I didn’t change the person I was between each book. The same things still concern me, my beliefs about ambiguity, complexity and redemption remain the same (but also evolving), so any writer’s personal concerns are going to shine through, I think, because those are the types of stories we’re going to keep responding to and want to write. For me, human complexity is our blessing and our curse, and I find it absolutely fascinating, so it’s no wonder it keeps popping up in my stuff.

You touched briefly on emotion vs. sentiment in the interview that’s available on the Candlewick website. Can you expand on this? And, when you are writing, how do you hone the emotion and eliminate the sentiment in your work?
I think sentimentality is mostly a nice lie we tell ourselves, and I’ve always had a real allergy to it. Sometimes it can be nice, sometimes sprinklings of it can improve a story, but I think the real emotions underneath are always far more dangerous (but also more thrilling and deeply felt) than the safety sentimentality lets us feel. And the very last thing I want to do for a character like Conor is to chicken out and not go with him all the way to the hardest places.

I don’t think it’s all that hard to get away from in writing, in that I think writers instinctively know when they’re spinning bullshit. But I also think it’s the writer’s sacred duty to look at something and write about what’s ACTUALLY there, not what we think should be there, not what we expect to be there, not what others have written is there before us, but what we actually se

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Thanks to @doseofsnark for the link.

Ah, Banned Books Week.  It only comes but once a year (as opposed to banning books which appears to be a year long occupation).  For the one stop shopping round-up everyone needs, bookshelves of doom has compiled just a top notch collection of links for the occasion.  One of these is to the blog for ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom.  They’ve started posting video testimonials from authors.  One of them?  My man Jay Asher.  Tell it like it is, Jay!

Also recommended, the Bigfoot Reads Scientific Approach to Book Banning.

Were it not Banned Books Week, of course, I would have begun with what I’m going to far as to declare the Best Book Trailer of the Year.  See if you agree:

Seriously.  That rocked my socks.

Speaking of sock rocking, I don’t know if you were aware of the creation of the animated take on Mary Norton’s The Borrowers out there, but the film is done and coming out.  Doesn’t look half shabby either.

Those of you curious as to how good it is (and how it diverges from the book) may want to visit this review over at Fantastic Reads.

I’m awfully grateful to this next video because it clarifies for me what exactly this new collection of Dr. Seuss stories being promoted right now (The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories) actually is.  As you’ll see, they weren’t some stories left in a drawer that Seuss “didn’t think were good enough” for publication.  I think that’s an important distinction to make and I love that this tells you a bit of backstory as well.

Thanks to Mary Van Akin for the link.

So I’m in my library the other day and who should just waltz through the door, easy as you please, but none other than Sam McBratney of Guess How Much I Love You?

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A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, illustrated by Jim Kay) is, quite simply, the best book I’ve read this year and also my favorite book of the year. If I only convince you to read one book this year, make it this one. It is brilliant and unforgettable and I don’t think I’m capable of doing it justice, but I’m going to try anyway.

So…

The nightmares are nothing new to Conor—he’s had them for months now, ever since his mother got sick. But the monster who comes for him and calls his name one night, well, the monster is new to Conor. Not that the monster itself is new. The monster is ancient and timeless. And it has come for a reason.

Here is what will happen, Conor O’Malley, the monster continued, I will come to you again on further nights.

Conor felt his stomach clench, like he was preparing for a blow.

And I will tell you three stories. Three tales from when I walked before.

.

Conor blinked. Then blinked again. “You’re going to tell me stories?”

Indeed, the monster said.

“Well-” Conor looked around in disbelief. “How is that a nightmare?”

Stories are the wildest things of all, the monster rumbled. Stories chase and bite and hunt.

“That’s what teachers always say,” Conor said. “No one believes them, either.”

And when I have finished my three stories, the monster said, as if Conor hadn’t spoken, you will tell me a fourth.

Conor squirmed in the monster’s hand. “I’m no good at stories.”

You will tell me a fourth, the monster repeated, and it will be the truth. (p. 35-36 of ARC)

What follows is a magnificent story that is both straightforward and layered, direct and subtle. The layers to this story are so rewarding, though it’s actually told pretty simply in terms of structure and narration (no dialect or misspellings a la Ness’s awesome Chaos Walking trilogy), and, boy, does it pack an emotional punch. There are some truly devastating moments, heightened by the unflinching narration and the largely chronological structure—a directness that I think makes the story even more powerful. And yet despite this simplicity, there is so much depth, so much heart to this story.

Of course, A Monster Calls also has the remarkable backstory of being based on an idea by the late Siobhan Dowd. And knowing—knowing she died of breast cancer—makes some scenes later in the book even more gutwrenching. The book is further enhanced by Jim Kay’s numerous black and white illustrations, which add to the sense of wonder and magic, and are seamlessly intertwined with Ness’s words.

A Monster Calls is quite different from the Chaos Walking books, plotwise, as well as being quieter and more accessible. But they share a willingness to address big themes with intelligence and honest emotion, instead of sentimentality or a calculated detachment.* And, actually, emotion is what comes to mind first when thinking of A Monster Calls. Not plot, not action, not the lack of those breathtaking Chaos Walking cliffhangers. Instead, I think of how much I

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Guess who just won a Carnegie Medal? Not me, of course, but Patrick Ness for the fantastic Monsters of Men: Chaos Walking: Book Three, the third in the wonder Chaos Walking series.

Last fall, I had the pleasure (and the panic) of interviewing Patrick live onstage at Wordstock.



We talked about how he came up with the idea for Noise. In the books, people can overhear any man's thoughts. Patrick made the point that this generation is living their lives on line, and arguably has the least privacy of any generation ever.

We also talked about the heat he got for killing off a much-loved character in the first book (no spoilers!). Patrick said he never second guessed that decision, and that he cried when he wrote it, he cried when he edited, he cried when he copy edited, and he still cries if he reads it.

He also said that he knew the last line of each of the three books before he started writing them.

And we talked about A Monster Calls, the book he is finishing for Sibohan Dowd, the author who had four books published, most of them posthumously after she died from breast cancer at 47. It comes out in October and I can't wait to read it!

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Last week, I finished reading Patrick Ness's Monsters of Men: Chaos Walking: Book Three.

Pretty much every chapter ends with a cliffhanger. Call it a cheap trick if you like, but man, does it keep those pages turning.

Here are some examples:
- And Angharrad leaps forward into battle.
- "Viola?" I hear from out of the darkness.
- Then we're really in trouble.
- The Spackle are on us--
- Because her mouth has dropped open. And I can see fear move right across her face.

Those are just in the first 30 pages. But you have to read on, to find out about the battle, about who's calling from the darkness, about what the trouble us, about what the Spackle do, about why she's so afraid.

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I'm a huge fan of Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking triology. So it was a huge honor to be asked to interview him on the Columbia Stage at Portland's very own Wordstock.

The bad thing about being the interviewer is that I have a hard time remembering all the answers to my questions. I was too busy focusing on how I would segue to the next. And at one point, when I looked down out of the corner of my eye, I saw little white stars. You know, the kind you get when you're dizzy. It was all I could to keep talking and not think What if I pass out? But I soldiered on.



We talked about how he came up with the idea for Noise. In the books, people can overhear any man's thoughts. Patrick made the point that this generation is living their lives on live, and arguably has the least privacy of any generation every.

We also talked about the heat he got for killing off a much-loved character in the first book (no spoilers!). Patrick said he never guessed that decision, and that he cried when he wrote it, he cried when he edited, he cried when he copy edited, and he continues to cry when he reads it.

He also said that he knew the last line of each of the three books before he started writing them.

And we talked about A Monster Calls, the book he is finishing for Sibohan Dowd, the author who had four books published, most of them posthumously after she died from breast cancer at 47.



All in all, it was a great time - even if I don't remember parts of it. (And thanks to Sara Gundell, Wordstock's YA stage coordinator, for the pics.)

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I'm going to be part of the Pacific Northwest Bookseller Association's Author Feast in early October. In these type of events, luckily, you don't get eaten (although your brain might get sucked out). Instead, you go from table to table of booksellers and talk about yourself. It's kind of like speed-dating, only there's one of you and like nine of them.

When I've done it before, you got like five or ten minutes. But at this one, it's going to be 20 minutes apiece. I'm worried I don't have 20 minutes of anecdotes in me.

But then I took a look at the list of attendees and realized there are several authors I can talk up as well. The two I am most giddy about:

Patrick Ness! Who wrote The Chaos Walking series. I have been counting the days until Monsters of Men: Chaos Walking: Book Three comes out. And now I'm going to be able to have my own signed copy! And maybe sit next to him at the author's dinner (we eat together before we start going table to table). I will try not to gush. Or at least not very much.

Another author I'm super excited about meeting at the Author Feast is David Shannon! Who wrote No, David!. Which is pretty much the cutest book ever!

And not only that, but when Teen was in second grade, she wrote her own book called "No, Grandma!" (a frank homage to No, David! I made a photocopy of it and sent it to him care of his publisher. And he wrote back! Someone at his level!) I'm going to have to see if I can find that again and bring it with me.

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After hearing so much about this one, I definitely had to get my greedy book-loving hands on it, especially when I learned about it's dystopian theme!

Patrick Ness has created a strange world in The Knife of Never Letting Go: Chaos Walking, Book 1. The main character, young Todd Hewitt, is the only boy left in a town full of men. Women disappeared a long time ago, after the noise germ infected the settlers. Everyone in town can hear each other's thoughts or "noise," making it incredibly difficult to keep secrets, as Todd quickly finds out.

With only a month left until his birthday, when he will legally become a man, Todd learns of a secret that forces him to flee his town and his family, with only his loyal dog at his side (whose thoughts can also be heard...very cool). He meets a girl in the woods, a species he previously believed was completely gone from the Earth, and together, they must not only stay alive, but warn other villages of the problems Todd's former town is out to create.

Filled with action, this title will definitely be pleasing to those loving dystopian novels or just looking for a good, if not a tad bit strange, adventure. Unfortunately, I didn't think it quite lived up to all the amazing buzz, but that could just be because I had set it at a level that is almost impossible to reach. I felt the story at times a bit confusing, but overall it was enjoyable and I'm looking forward to Book 2!

To learn more or to purchase, click on the book cover above to link to Amazon.

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