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Happy 2015 to you! To start the year off right, we’d like to introduce our New Voices picks for Winter 2015. These debut novels entertained us, enriched us, intrigued us, and made us so excited to witness the beginnings of these authors’ sure-to-be-stellar writing careers.

Click on the links below to read the first chapter of each title, and make sure to keep an eye on these fantastic authors. We can’t wait to see what they do next!

BLACKBIRD FLY, by Erin Entrada Kelly, follows twelve-year-old Apple Yengko as she grapples with being different, with friends and backstabbers, and with following her dreams. Apple has always felt a little different from her classmates. She and her mother moved to America from the Philippines when she was little, and her mother still cooks Filipino foods, makes mistakes with her English, and chastises Apple for becoming “too American.” But it becomes unbearable in eighth grade, when the boys—the stupid, stupid boys—in Apple’s class put her name on the Dog Log, the list of the most unpopular girls in school. When Apple’s friends turn on her and everything about her life starts to seem weird and embarrassing, Apple turns to music. If she can just save enough to buy a guitar and learn to play, maybe she can change herself. It might be the music that saves her . . . or it might be her two new friends, who show how special she really is. Read the first chapter here!

THE KEEPERS: THE BOX AND THE DRAGONFLY, by Ted Sanders, is the first in a four-book middle-grade fantasy series about Horace F. Andrews, a quiet boy who discovers he possesses a power that can change worlds. When a sign leads Horace underground to the House of Answers, a hidden warehouse full of mysterious objects, he unfortunately finds only questions. What is this curious place? Who are the strange, secretive people who entrust him with a rare and immensely powerful gift? And what is he to do with it? From the enormous, sinister man shadowing him to the gradual mastery of his new-found abilities to his encounters with Chloe—a girl who has an astonishing talent of her own—Horace follows a path that puts the pair in the middle of a centuries-old conflict between two warring factions in which every decision they make could have disastrous consequences. Read the first chapter here!

NO PARKING AT THE END TIMES, by Bryan Bliss, is a thoughtful and moving story about losing everything—and about what you will do for the people you love. Abigail’s parents never should have made that first donation to that end-of-times preacher. Or the next, or the next. They shouldn’t have sold their house. Or packed Abigail and her twin brother, Aaron, into their old van to drive across the country to San Francisco, to be there for the “end of the world.” Because now they’re living in their van. And Aaron is full of anger, disappearing to who-knows-where every night. Their family is falling apart. All Abigail wants is to hold them together, to get them back to the place where things were right. But is that too big a task for one teenage girl? Read the first chapter here!

RED QUEEN, by Victoria Aveyard, is a sweeping fantasy about seventeen-year-old Mare, a common girl whose latent magical powers draw her into the dangerous world of the elite ruling class. Mare Barrow’s world is divided by blood—those with Red blood serve the Silver elite, whose silver blood gifts them with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the King, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own. To cover up this impossibility, the King forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything to use her new position to help the Scarlet Guard—a growing Red rebellion—even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal. Read the first chapter here!

LITTLE PEACH, by Peggy Kern, is the gritty and riveting story of a runaway who comes to New York City and is lured into prostitution by a manipulative pimp. When Michelle runs away from her drug-addicted mother, she has just enough money to make it to New York, where she hopes to move in with a friend. But once she arrives at the bustling Port Authority, she is confronted with the terrifying truth: She is alone and out of options. Then she meets Devon, a good-looking, well-dressed guy who emerges from the crowd armed with a kind smile, a place for her to stay, and eyes that seem to understand exactly how she feels. But Devon is not what he seems to be, and soon Michelle finds herself engulfed in the world of child prostitution. It is a world of impossible choices, where the line between love and abuse, captor and savior, is blurred beyond recognition. This hauntingly vivid story illustrates the human spirit’s indomitable search for home, and one girl’s struggle to survive. Read the first chapter here.

SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA, by Becky Albertalli, is an incredibly funny and poignant twenty-first-century coming-of-age, coming-out story—wrapped in a geek romance. Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: If he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing with, will be jeopardized. With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met. Read the first chapter here!

The lovely Lisa Ann Scott, author of the enchanting debut novel SCHOOL OF CHARM, stopped by recently to answer our “opening the book” questions. In case you missed it, here’s a little intro and sneak peek of the book from earlier this year. And now, without further ado . . . Lisa Ann Scott!

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?
I am reading fellow Class of 2K14 member Rebecca Behrens’ adorable middle-grade novel, When Audrey Met Alice. Can I claim the entire Little House series as my favorite book growing up? [WE SAY "YES!"]

What is your secret talent?
While I tend to kill most indoor plants, I have beautiful outdoor gardens and a koi pond. People tell me I should design gardens for a living. But then I wouldn’t have time to write!

Fill in the blank: My two kids always make me laugh.

My current obsessions are . . .
Whatever series I’ve found on Netflix, HBO GO etc. that I will binge watch. (Game of Thrones and Dexter are recent addictions.)

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?
Never give up. (See story below.)

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book . . .
. . . looks for real life magic in their world, and remembers all the wonderful things about themselves that make them unique and special.

How did you come to write this book?
Grab a snack and sit back for this answer. The seeds of this story came from a dream. I woke one morning with the image of a lovely older woman standing in a clearing in the forest. She was surrounded by a small group of girls and it was clear she was teaching them something, but she had a very knowing look on her face, like there was a secret they had yet to learn.  Now most people would have shrugged and thought, hey, weird dream. But when you’re a writer, something like that tugs at the imagination.  So I walked around with this story in my head for a while, trying to figure out who was there and why they were there.  I wrote this during my lunch breaks when I was working as a news anchor back in 2007.  In 2008, I started the query process, looking for an agent. But then I lost my job, and that grief on top of the inevitable rejection that comes with the query process was just too much to take. So I set the book aside and actually stopped writing for a while.  It wasn’t long before I was writing again (romance!) and in 2011, took another look at the manuscript. I thought, hey this is pretty good, and a writer friend urged me to send it out again. So I did.  To one agent. And then I remembered how much I hated the query process and stopped. But that one lovely agent, Jennifer Unter, loved the book and sold it a few months later.

———-

Thanks for visiting, Lisa!

Alexandra Duncan’s debut novel Salvage has taken the world by storm. As Stephanie Perkins (author of Anna and the French Kiss) says, this book is “kick-ass, brilliant, feminist science fiction.” And boy is she right.

Her life is a shadow of a life. Her future is not her own to fashion.

Her family is a tangle of secrets. She cannot read. She cannot write.

But she is Parastrata Ava, the Captain’s eldest daughter, the so girl of a long-range crewe—her obligations are grave and many.

And when she makes a mistake, in a fragrant orchard of lemons, the consequences are deadly.

There are some who would say, there but for the Mercies go I.

There are some who would say Parastrata Ava is just a silly earthstruck girl who got what was coming to her.

But they don’t know the half of it.

We were lucky to have debut author Alexandra Duncan swing by The Pageturn and talk to us about writing, reading, and how Salvage came about!

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

It’s so hard to pick one favorite book. I think I had a new one every week when I was growing up. (Come to think of it, that’s probably still true.) One of the ones that really stuck with me and that I still have on my bookshelf at home is The Girl Who Owned a City, by O.T. Nelson. I loved post-apocalyptic survival stories, especially ones where all of the adults were dead or otherwise incapacitated, which is exactly what happens in The Girl Who Owned a City.

Right now I’m reading A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, the most recent book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. I have to stay ahead of the HBO show!

What is your secret talent?

I make a mean apple pie, crust and all. I have a 96% success rate. I’ve only ever caught one pie on fire, and that wasn’t entirely my fault.

Fill in the blank: _______ always makes me laugh.

My husband. I might be biased, but I think he’s pretty hilarious.

My current obsessions are…

Podcasts. I can listen to them while I’m doing chores or exercising. (Yay, multitasking!) Right now, my favorites are a podcast about pseudoscience and religion called Oh No, Ross and Carrie! and Welcome to Nightvale, which is kind of hard to explain. Just imagine what would happen if H.P. Lovecraft and David Lynch created a town and that town had a public radio station.

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

Support each other. Writing looks like a solitary occupation, but I don’t know a single author who has succeeded without moral support and advice from friends. Celebrate each other’s victories and cheer each other up when you hit one of writing’s inevitable stumbling blocks. You’ll all go farther and be happier for it in the end.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

Sees the world in a new way. One of my favorite things about science fiction and fantasy is that they can be used to re-frame today’s problems and let people see them from an entirely different angle.

How did you come to write this book?

Salvage started life with a short story I wrote called “Bad Matter,” which was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 2009. It took place among the merchant crewes that appear in Salvage. When I finished the short story, I knew I wanted to explore their culture further and tell more stories set in that world.

Salvage was a very personal book for me. A lot of the inspiration for the crewes’ culture came from growing up as the stepdaughter of a minister in a small town church in rural North Carolina. It was a very tight-knit and insular environment where there were very strict expectations about behavior, especially for women and girls. It was very much like growing up inside a large extended family. I also drew inspiration from my travels to Haiti and Nicaragua as a teenager, and my time studying abroad in Spain during college. Those experiences shaped my version of a future Earth.

In some ways, Ava’s journey is similar to my own. I consider myself a feminist, but I wouldn’t have said so as a teenager. It wasn’t until I left home and struck out on my own at 18 that I began to understand my worth as a human being. I hope Salvage helps other girls learn the same thing about themselves. I hope it makes them feel like they aren’t alone.

Salvage is in stores now! 

Yesterday we heard from Mindy McGinnis about her fantastic debut novel, Not a Drop to Drink. Today, we hear from her editor, Sarah Shumway. Sarah, take it away!

There’s nothing like falling into the spell of a new voice, a striking view of reality, and into the life of a character you know you’ll never forget.  Falling in love with a book is sometimes a thing that happens gradually over the course of a story, but sometimes the first words on a page signal that the feelings are going to come tumbling out of a book and straight into your heart. The very first words of Not a Drop to Drink have that spark for me: “Lynn was nine the first time she killed to defend the pond…”

The books I’ve always loved most are those that show me something that I’ve never even imagined and make it real, make me feel. And I love wild books – ones where characters, especially strong girls, have to work to squeeze a good life from a harsh world. I started young with those books, as in Laura Ingalls in the Little House books and Karana in Island of the Blue Dolphins. I love books that challenge me, along with the characters, to rise above difficulty, limitations, and to become more than we knew we could be.  And Lynn, the heroine of Not a Drop, is such a strong character. Not a doubt there. She’s strong in a way that is more than physical or emotional. She’s real. She’s a product of her circumstances, stubborn and rough, but she discovers her heart.   And her story pushes every one of my “appeal” buttons: that strong and distinctive heroine, a gripping survival story, beautiful, sometimes poetic writing, a vivid setting in a fully-realized world, and plot twists like WOAH.  Oh, and it has some good kissing.

One of the most interesting discussions I’ve had with Mindy and with my colleagues here at HarperCollins is about how to categorize this book – is it dystopian? Post-apocalyptic? But I’m kind of proud to say that it really defies genre. While Not a Drop has plenty to offer fans of hugely popular dystopian fiction, what I appreciate is that it’s more than that. It’s different and special because it’s not about challenging a world gone wrong, but it’s about challenging people to be stronger in their own lives and hearts.  And when the trends have come and gone, I think Mindy’s book – Lynn’s story – will persist in grabbing readers’ hearts and imagination, the same way that the frontier or desert island books many of us loved as children and teenagers are still perennial favorites.

I’m so proud to have helped bring Mindy McGinnis and Not a Drop to Drink to an audience. Almost two years after I first read a draft, this book still makes my heart pound, my spine tingle, and my fingers itch to turn pages, and I hope all readers will feel the same when they get their hands on it.

Sarah Shumway is an editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Imagine a world where water is the hottest commodity. Author Mindy McGinnis has done it in a thrilling, terrifying way in her debut novel, Not a Drop to Drink.

Regret was for people with nothing to defend, people who had no water.

Lynn knows every threat to her pond: drought, a snowless winter, coyotes, and, most importantly, people looking for a drink. She makes sure anyone who comes near the pond leaves thirsty, or doesn’t leave at all.

Confident in her own abilities, Lynn has no use for the world beyond the nearby fields and forest. Having a life means dedicating it to survival, and the constant work of gathering wood and water. Having a pond requires the fortitude to protect it, something Mother taught her well during their quiet hours on the rooftop, rifles in hand.

But wisps of smoke on the horizon mean one thing: strangers. The mysterious footprints by the pond, nighttime threats, and gunshots make it all too clear Lynn has exactly what they want, and they won’t stop until they get it….

Of course, after reading this fantastic dystopian novel, we jumped at the chance of having Mindy come by and open the book with us!

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

Choosing is so hard! I’ll say A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. Right now I’m reading Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Tucholke.

What is your secret talent?

Um… I can flip a stack of quarters off my elbow and catch them in my palm. Also I have very fat thumb pads.

Fill in the blank: _______ always make me laugh.

British men.

My current obsessions are…

SHERLOCK, local history and the roots of criminal profiling.

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

Do your homework. Half the battle is learning the industry.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

Didn’t steal it from the library.

How did you come to write this book?

I watched a documentary called Blue Gold, which is about a projected shortage of potable water on our planet due to overpopulation. It was a horrible thought – we all need water to survive, and it’s something we can’t make. I went to bed very grateful for the small pond in my backyard, and that night I dreamt I was teaching a young girl how to operate a rifle so that she could help me protect the pond. I woke up and thought, “Hey… I wrote a book in my head just now.”

I asked myself what this child would grow into, and my main character, Lynn, was the answer. I don’t plot at all, I simply write. With Drink I was very fortunate in that the book really wrote itself. It wanted to be told. Lynn’s transformation from isolationist to human being had to be slow and believable, but not at the expense of pacing. I knew I needed supporting characters that could make this an interesting read without lots of explosions and fight scenes. Stebbs walked in and saved me there!

—

Thanks, Mindy! You can find Not a Drop to Drink in stores now!

One of our absolute favorite new reads this season has to be Caroline Carlson’s THE VERY NEARLY HONORABLE LEAGUE OF PIRATES: MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT. It has girl power, adventure, and of course, a missing treasure.

There are three qualities a treasure map must possess: It must be suitably ancient, have an atmospheric title, and include a dotted line leading to an X.

When Hilary Westfield escapes from finishing school to pursue her dream of being a pirate, she finds herself in possession of such a map. But the map is missing an X, and everyone is almost certain that the magical treasure she’s hunting doesn’t even exist. Hilary soon becomes caught up in a madcap quest involving a rogue governess who insists on propriety, a talking gargoyle, a crew of misfit scallywags, and the most treacherous villain on the high seas.

If that doesn’t hook you, I don’t know what will.

We had to get to know the person behind such a piratical tale. So, today, Caroline stopped by to answer some of our hard-hitting questions!

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

I have so many favorite books that it’s hard to choose just one, but one of my all-time favorites is HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE by Diana Wynne Jones. Right now, I’m reading THE STOCKHOLM OCTAVO by Karen Engelmann.

What is your secret talent?

Like Hilary, the heroine of MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT, I can tread water for a really long time.

Fill in the blank: _______ always makes me laugh.

The movie CLUE. I’ve memorized all the jokes by now, but they never get any less funny.

My current obsessions are…

Cooking and baking—after spending all day writing at my computer, I love doing something concrete and hands-on in the kitchen. While I cook, I like to listen to two of my other obsessions: news podcasts and music by Girlyman and Antje Duvekot.

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

Try to learn a lot about all the things that interest you—not just writing. Read newspapers and nonfiction books. Do some exploring, check out your local museums and libraries, or take a class in a subject that fascinates you. If you stay curious about the world around you, you’re sure to stumble across lots of good ideas for stories.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

…laughs out loud at least once!

How did you come to write this book?

MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT actually started its life as a submission for a workshop at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I was working toward a degree in writing for children. I had to write 20 pages of an entirely new story, the deadline was tight, and I was running short on story ideas. I’d always loved pirates, though, and I’d dreamed of writing a book about a grand pirate treasure hunt. I was also rereading some of my favorite books by Jaclyn Moriarty at the time, and I wanted to experiment with Moriarty’s technique of telling a story through letters, postcards, newspaper clippings and other documents. When I tossed both of these ideas together, I ended up with 20 pages about a girl who receives a letter informing her that since only boys are allowed to be pirates, her application to the pirate league has been rejected.

I wasn’t expecting much to come of my experiment, but I ended up loving the results, and when my workshop-mates told me that they wanted to know what happened next to my pirate heroine and her gargoyle sidekick, I knew I’d hit on a story idea with potential. Those pages that I wrote for my workshop 3 years ago are still more or less the first 20 pages of MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT. And the story took on a life of its own from there—I wrote the first draft in 4 months flat, which was a whole lot faster than I’d ever written anything before! Plenty has changed since that first draft; in revisions with my editor, I strengthened the magic system of my fictional world, I turned a minor character into a major one, and I rewrote nearly the entire ending from scratch. But MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT is still the kind of book I loved to read when I was growing up: an adventure full of twists, humor, and magic. I had a wonderful time writing it, and I hope readers will enjoy it, too.

—–

Thanks, Caroline! You can find THE VERY NEARLY HONORABLE LEAGUE OF PIRATES: MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT in stores tomorrow!

2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Children’s Picture Book Award: New Voices Award

While the population of the United States is skewing toward more and more “persons of color,” the publishing world has yet to catch up. In a press release, Lee & Low publishers say that less than 7% of children’s books published are by persons of color. To help encourage writers, Lee and Low has opened submissions for its 14th Annual New Voices Award. The Award is given for a picture book manuscript by an unpublished writer of color.

The Award winner receives a cash prize of $1000 and Lee & Low’s standard publication contract, including their basic advance and royalties for a first time author. The contest is open to writers of color who are residents of the United States and who have not previously had a children’s picture book published.

Past New Voices Award-winning books have gone on to win major awards such as the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent.

For full details on submission, see Lee & Low’s New Voices website.

Children’s Novel Award: New Visions Award

TU BOOKS, the fantasy, science fiction, and mystery imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS, award-winning publisher of children’s books, has just announced the first annual NEW VISIONS AWARD. The NEW VISIONS AWARD will be given for a middle grade or young adult fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novel by a writer of color. The Award winner receives a cash grant of $1000 and their standard publication contract, including our basic advance and royalties for a first time author. An Honor Award winner will receive a cash grant of $500.

TU BOOKS was launched in 2010, dedicated to diversity in the beloved genre fiction market for young people. Titles include Wolf Mark, Tankborn, and Cat Girl’s Day Off.

Submission details will be available in June; see Lee & Low’s New Visions website.

Award Winners

Here are three examples of recent winners; I was surprised that the most recent I could find was 2007, which means that some of the award winning titles are waiting more than five years to be published. When I asked, a Lee & Low representative said, “This depends on a lot of factors including the amount of editing the manuscript needs upon acquisition and the schedules of the illustrators. Several of our New Voices authors have been paired with established illustrators who are often working on several books at once, which lengthens the process – but their illustrations are well worth the wait. New Voices Award winning-books have gone on to win major awards such as the Ezra Jack Keats Award, the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent, and a spot on the Texas Bluebonnet Masterlist.”

2007 New Voices Award Winner

2006 New Voices Award winner

2005 New Voices Award winner

If you checked in with us yesterday, you read the behind the scenes editorial perspective of Michael Hassan’s debut teen novel, CRASH AND BURN.  Today Michael responds to our notoriously strenuous, sweat-inducing Opening the Book questions…

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

I was always into books and a real sucker for the Dr. Suess stuff, can probably still recite Green Eggs and Ham by heart, but the first book that made me want to be a writer was Les Miserables, which I would probably have  named as my favorite book, except for the Princess Bride by William Goldman, who is primarily known as a screenwriter, but has written some incredible novels.

I am currently re-reading several William Goldman novels, including Marathon Man and the Color of Light.  You can learn a lot as a writer from reading his books. .

More importantly, I am back to reading hardcovers and paperbacks after spending too long  with e-books.  While I’m a techno nut, the truth is there is nothing better than holding a real book, being able to thumb back and forth through the pages and knowing exactly where you are at any given point.

 What is your secret talent?

I play keyboards.  I am, in fact, really bad musician and have been fired from some pretty talentless bands when I was younger.  Thankfully I record nothing so no one has to know.  Until now.

Fill in the blank: _______ always makes me laugh.

Mean Girls.  I could watch this movie constantly and still laugh at every line.

Also, fart noises and Gilbert Gottfried, not necessarily in that order.

My current obsessions are…

Headphones, I have like 20 pairs.  I need loud music when I’m working.

Also, Uncharted 3D, in fact almost every videogame, movie and documentary in 3D.

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

Know where you are going before you start.  Make an outline and stick to it and then keep on going without looking back until you hit THE END. And then, take whatever you’ve done and put it on the highest shelf in your room for 6 weeks without looking at it.

And then make a new outline and start over with the brightest red pen you can find.

And don’t, under any circumstances, get stuck playing Uncharted 3D or watching anything else in 3D.  In fact, disconnect your television and your internet and throw away your iPads, playstations and smartphones.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

Forgets that they are reading;

misses a train stop because they need to finish a chapter;

recognizes the characters so much that they find it difficult to believe that its fiction;

Buys another book the second they finish this one;

Or is inspired to write one themselves.

Tell us more about how CRASH AND BURN was born.

I was challenged by my son, who has ADD to write something that he would be willing to read.  Spending time with him and his friends, playing videogames and watching movies, I wanted to come up with a form of entertainment that they would consider to be as fast paced and captivating, something that would make them think differently, more deeply  about themselves and their world.   Using him and his friends as models, I went back in time and thoroughly researched the everyday occurrences in the world they lived in, the language they used,  the legal and illegal drugs they were experimenting with and the social interactions between them and the adults in their world.   When I realized how difficult the struggle was for most kids, I knew that I had something that I wanted to write about.

Thanks Michael!  CRASH AND BURN (which has received 2 starred reviews– from Booklist and BCCB!) is on sale in stores now.

Next in our Winter 2013 New Voices series is teen debut novel CRASH AND BURN, by Michael Hassan, a book that quite literally stopped us all in our tracks the first time we heard Michael’s editor, Jordan Brown, formally present it.  Today I’ll let Jordan’s powerful words speak for themselves…

Of all the qualities of a manuscript that get me interested in working with an author, one of the most exciting is when I feel like I’m reading the work of  someone who looks for untold stories in places where we don’t expect to find them.  Of course, the most prominent plot elements of Michael Hassan’s debut novel Crash and Burn—the story of a profoundly troubled senior who takes his school hostage at gunpoint, and the profoundly untroubled student who stops him—are, sadly, not unusual or unobvious ones.  But what is unique and unexpected about Mike’s story is the perspective from which he chooses to tell it.

Steven “Crash” Crashinsky is unlike any of the teen male characters one finds in contemporary teen literature.  He is not the brooding, complicated, brilliant outcast; he’s not the bad boy with a heart of gold; he’s not the irredeemable jerk; he’s not the heartthrob who can distill his interior struggles in a moment but is still paralyzed by indecision.  He is all of these things, and none of them.  He is the kind of male character who is remarkable only for being so typical: a teen whose self-image has been defined by his learning disabilities, whose behavior has been shaped by society’s indulgent “boys will be boys” attitude, who has realized that life’s a lot easier when you just don’t care.  He’s the kind of teen we all know, and yet the kind we don’t often find populating teen books—perhaps because he’s the kind we don’t often find reading teen books.

But he is not unreachable, as Mike’s knockout of a first novel shows us.  This is a book—one of the first I’ve seen—that speaks directly to these young men, telling a story they need to hear.  The element of the book that was paramount to both Mike and me in the editing process was keeping Crash’s voice and experiences as authentic as possible.  And thus we have a story that doesn’t pull any punches, that reads more like a chronicle than a novel, that speaks to these readers in a language they can understand.

Crash and Burn is not a book for everyone.  The truths it draws out and elucidates don’t provide many answers for the desperate struggles today’s teens experience.  But I’m a big believer in the idea that the process always starts with asking the right questions.  And Mike asks these big questions while writing a story that is hilarious and frightening and touching in turn; one about friendship and tragedy, first love and first hate; one that shows us that the untold stories can sometimes be the most important.

Thanks Jordan! And don’t forget to visit us again tomorrow for an interview with the author, Michael Hassan.

Yesterday we took you behind the editorial curtain of debut teen novel PIVOT POINT.  Today I bring you the inside scoop on the adorable, hilarious Kasie West herself…

What is your secret talent?

Secret talent? If I tell, it won’t be a secret anymore. But since I’ve never passed up on an opportunity to brag (that might not be a true statement), I will tell you that I am super good at proving I’m not a robot. I rock word verification on blogs and websites. Seriously, I have like a 99% success rate at figuring out those impossible to read words. Is this a talent?? I think yes.

Fill in the blank:                         always makes me laugh. 

My husband (He is so funny. The main reason I married him, by the way).

My current obsessions are…

twitter, garden salsa Sun Chips, naps (I’m only obsessed with naps right now because I haven’t been able to take them and I need a nap so bad).

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

Read read read and keep writing. Make sure you are constantly feeding your mind with new books and plots by reading whenever you can. And when you are done writing a book and it’s ready to query, start immediately on your next one. Don’t spend a lot of time editing a book over and over (note: I’m not telling you not to edit. Definitely edit.). But keep moving forward.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

Laughs, loves, and appreciates the friendships in their lives.

Tell us more about how Pivot Point was born.

Like with other books I’d written before Pivot Point (books that were not published) I find inspiration in life: things I see, movies I watch, experiences I have. My husband and I often discuss plots or ideas that would make a good book. Pivot Point was inspired by the movie Sliding Doors. I love that movie. I love the idea of one pivotal choice that can change everything; The idea of exploring alternate realities and seeing how small decisions can change outcomes. We may not have mental abilities like the people in this book, but I truly feel like choice is power. We have the power to choose to work hard and follow our dreams or to give up. We are in charge of our fate, our destiny, and that is power.

Thanks Kasie!  PIVOT POINT is on sale in bookstores now– and once you read it, you’ll be happy to know this happy news: there will be a book 2, out next year!

Next up in our Winter 2013 New Voices series is  the teen debut novel PIVOT POINT, by Kasie West.

Addison Coleman’s life is one big “What if?” As a Searcher, a special type of clairvoyant, whenever Addie is faced with a choice she is able to look into the future and see both outcomes. So when her parents ambush her with the news that they are getting a divorce and she has to pick who she wants to live with, the answer should be easy.

However, as Addie searches her two possible futures, one where she leaves with her father to live off of the paranormal compound and the other where she stays with her mother and the gifted in the life she’s always known, she realizes how hard the choice really is. With love and loss in both lives, it all comes down to which reality she’s willing to live through…and who she can’t live without.

This one was love at first sight (or should we say love at first read) for us: it’s bright, fun, well-plotted, and clearly the beginning of a very promising career for Kasie!  Let’s hear why Kasie’s editor, Sarah Landis, loved it immediately too…

When the agent pitched Kasie’s novel to me, it immediately reminded me of one of my favorite rainy-day movies, “Sliding Doors”, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  I’ve been let down more times than I can count by a great idea that doesn’t come through in execution.  But in this case, not only did it live up to my expectations, it exceeded them!  Addie is such a winning protagonist.  She has attitude, spunk, intelligence, and a sense of humor (girl heroines rarely have a sense of humor!). The whole idea that one decision can potentially alter the course of your life has always intrigued me.  I think we’ve all made a decision and then wondered… What If?  In PIVOT POINT, when Addie is faced with a decision, she has the ability to look down both of those roads and decide which one has the better outcome.  But…as we find out, knowing both paths doesn’t necessarily make choosing any easier.  In fact, sometimes it makes it even harder.

 PIVOT POINT had me on the edge of my seat trying to figure out how it was going to end.  As editors, we see the same recycled plots over and over, and I feel like I’m rarely genuinely surprised.  And I totally was!  When I first read it, the ending was so good but so, so frustrating.  Without giving anything away for anyone who hasn’t read it, I begged and pleaded with Kasie to change the ending (that is how strongly I felt about these characters fates).  The way she revised the ending is so completely perfect now.  That brings me to what a dream it is to work with an author who you know is going to be around for a long time.

Thanks Sarah!  And don’t forget to check back tomorrow to hear from Kasie herself.

Today I have the privilege of introducing you to Jeff Baron, author of I REPRESENT SEAN ROSEN, the charming and hilarious middle grade novel about an ambitious kid with an admirably clever but potentially disastrous plan to make it in Hollywood.  Jeff’s own work for the theater has been has been published and performed all over the world, but Sean Rosen’s story is his very first novel. Want to know more about Jeff?  So did we! Read on…

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

I loved the Hardy Boys books. I read them all and then I read my cousins’ Nancy Drew books.  I liked starting a book already knowing the characters and then getting to know them better and better. With every book I love, I don’t want it to end.  With a series, it doesn’t end for a long time.

I know I’m late to the party, but I’m finally reading the Harry Potter books.  My friend Melinda, who’s 12, told me I should read them in order, and then when I finish each book, I should watch the movie, so that’s what I’m doing.  The only problem is Melinda always asks me what part I’m up to, then she wants to tell me what happens two books from now.  She should wear a sign around her neck that says SPOILER ALERT.

What is your secret talent?

I love to write music, even though I don’t know how to play any musical instruments.  I’ve always written words to songs, even songs that got published and recorded, but I always worked with composers.  My secret desire was always to write the music myself.  Sean Rosen has the same desire, but he’s braver than I am.  He also never studied music, but he puts the songs he writes on his website (www.SeanRosen.com) for the whole world to hear.

Fill in the blank: _______ always makes me laugh.

Dogs always make me laugh.  They’re always their goofy selves, and never try to act any cooler or smarter than they are.  I wish humans were more like that.

My current obsessions are…

Figuring out how things work, especially computer programs, electricity and plumbing.  I rely on those things all the time, and I love being able to fix things myself.

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

Read everything you write out loud, whether it’s a short story, a history paper or an e-mail.  It’s the closest you can get to being inside your reader’s head when they read what you’ve written.  I always do it, and I always catch something that didn’t quite make sense, and I always make changes that make it sound better.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

I hope a person who reads my book will see from Sean Rosen’s experience that it’s good to dream big and go after what you want.  There are always bumps along the way, sometimes big painful bumps, but getting past them makes you stronger and more likely to succeed.

Tell us more about how I REPRESENT SEAN ROSEN was born.

I was sitting on the beach, and I had an idea.  What if a kid with a big entertainment idea and no connections whatsoever, tried to sell his idea to Hollywood.  How would he break through?  Having done that myself (though not as a kid), I know what a closed world Hollywood can be.  I thought this story might make an interesting movie.

The next day I was back at the beach, and now I thought, “Could this be a book?”  I had never written a novel, and it was a little bit scary to even think about.  But as a writer (I was already a screenwriter and a playwright), you learn that the things that scare you usually make the best stories.  So I spent a little time thinking about who this kid was, and then I just started writing.

Sean Rosen begins the book by saying, “I have an incredible idea.” At that point, I didn’t know what Sean’s idea was, but just writing those words on paper (I write by hand) got me started, and Sean just took over.  I heard his voice in my head, and fortunately, he never stopped talking.  I just wrote it down.

I loved spending time with Sean and his family and friends, and when I finished and showed it to my cousins who are Sean’s age, they felt that way, too.  Then I read chapters of the book to seventh grade classes, and when they liked it, that gave me the courage to try to get it published.

Thanks Jeff!  And if you missed yesterday’s post, be sure to check out Jeff’s editor’s take on the delightful, wholly original I REPRESENT SEAN ROSEN.

Kicking off our Winter 2013 New Voices series is the middle grade debut novel I REPRESENT SEAN ROSEN, by Jeff Baron.

Sean Rosen has a really good idea. So good, in fact, that he’s not going to tell you exactly what it is. What he is going to do is pitch it to a major entertainment company. But first he’s going to take his grandmother’s advice and go on a “trial run.” That trial run has some surprising results in this hilarious story about a middle school kid who, with the help of his manager Dan Welch (not his real name), sells a movie idea to a major Hollywood studio.

This a totally funny, fast-paced, and original novel that we think will appeal to fans of Jack Gantos and Carl Hiaasen. But enough from me– I’ll let Jeff’s editor Virginia Duncan, VP and Publisher of Greenwillow Books, tell you a little more…

“Sean Rosen is my hero!”—Lincoln Peirce

“I Represent Sean Rosen is the best book I’ve read in a while. Equal parts Hollywood satire, Louis Sachar‒style deadpan fable, and old-fashioned tale of American gumption, it introduces us to a character who is surprising . . . and quietly heroic. . . . I happily represent Sean Rosen.”—Ned Vizzini

The manuscript began: “I have an incredible idea. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what it is.” Well, that was enough for me. I was hooked. And when Sean Rosen named his fictitious manager Dan Welch after rummaging around his kitchen for a snack (yogurt? grape juice?), I was sold. Sean Rosen’s “fries-texting” (spelling out a dinner table message using french fries) his mom? Icing on the cake.

I REPRESENT SEAN ROSEN is a bit different, and it is perhaps not your usual middle-grade fare. But it is an adventure nevertheless. I was on the edge of my seat the whole way through. What was this kid going to do next? What was going to happen next?  How was Sean going to convince a major Hollywood studio to buy his movie? Does Sean even have a movie to sell? Would Sean take the deal? How was Sean going to survive middle school? How would Sean dodge Collectibles Dan Welch (a real guy who, unfortunately, shares Sean’s imaginary manager’s exact name). And what was up with his friend Brianna?

Jeff Baron is a great new voice, and he’s thought a lot about voice. It is the voice of this novel that made it irresistible to me. I love the piece Jeff posted on the Greenwillow blog recently about voice. You can read it here.

One of Sean Rosen’s claims to fame in the book is that he produces podcasts—it’s his hobby. What fun that you can actually hear Sean’s voice and listen to his podcasts at www.seanrosen.com. You will want a donut! (And I hope you’ll want to read I REPRESENT SEAN ROSEN.)

-Virginia Duncan

Thanks Virginia! And stay tuned for tomorrow, when we’ll hear from Jeff himself.

Yesterday we brought you an inside scoop on UNRAVELING, and today we’re giving you some insight into the author herself, Elizabeth Norris.  Be warned: by the end of this, not only will you be dying to read the book, you’ll be sighing with envy at Elizabeth’s romance and craving banana pudding.

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

When I was first learning to read, my mom bought me a collection of picture books about characters from the Disney movies and I read them over and over again until I could practically recite them. Then in fourth grade I read A Bridge to Terabithia and it was the most incredible story. I begged my mom to buy me a copy since I had to give the school its copy back. Right now, I’ve just started reading Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta, and it’s wonderful.

What is your secret talent?

I’m not sure if it’s a talent, but I always manage to find myself in strange or awkward situations that make hilarious stories after the fact. My friends in college used to joke that I should put all my embarrassing stories together in some kind of memoir and title in Only in My Life.

Fill in the blank: _______ always makes me laugh.

My sister. Whenever we’re together it’s like the stars have aligned and everything is hilarious.

My current obsessions are…

I recently discovered the banana pudding at Magnolia Bakery and I swear I have dreams about it. I’m also super obsessed with Game of Thrones–the books and the television show. I feel like Westeros is a real place and I want to go visit it (but after the war ends).

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

There are a lot of highs and lows when you’re writing a book and even more when you’re trying to get published. You have to savor the highs and let them inspire you, and then let the lows roll of your back.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

…feels something.

Tell us more about how UNRAVELING was born.

Like most of the crazy stories in my life, this once starts with “So I met this guy…”

Only, I didn’t actually “meet” the guy in a traditional sense—I became friends with him over the internet. He was a friend of a friend, funny, intelligent, charming. We traded meaningless comments or jokes with friends, but the more I got to know about him, the more it seemed we had in common. We liked the same movies and television shows, we both loved to read and to write, and we just seemed to be on the same intellectual wavelength. We recommended books to each other and we could talk about anything and everything.

And somewhere along the line, I realized he had become my best friend—and then we met, and it just felt like we belonged together (I’m a hopeless romantic, I know). Of course, he lived in another state and neither one of us had any ambitions to ever move so we started muddling through a long distance relationship, making up our own rules and trying to figure out what worked best for us.

Which got me thinking about long distance relationships. They’re hard—flawed and tragic. Most of them are doomed from the beginning. The emotional highs and lows in that type of relationship add an intense stress to even the most calm lives.

In June 2010 (during one of those emotional lows), I thought about how universally unfair it was, that I’d finally found this guy who was perfect for me, who really belonged with me, and yet he actually also belonged somewhere else. And that was the moment of inception of UNRAVELING. Because at its heart, it’s a star-crossed love story. Janelle and Ben are from different worlds, and in their darkest moments, they find each other.

I am also a huge science fiction and fantasy nerd, and I hate the perception that science fiction isn’t cool so I wanted UNRAVELING to be accessible to people who don’t know a lot about science or who don’t normally read science fiction. I love shows like Fringe and The X-Files and I wanted to do something with science fiction that was very grounded in reality. I spent about two months thinking about the plot and writing down character ideas in a notebook while riding the subway, and then I started writing pieces of dialogue and a few key scenes. And then before I knew it, the book was almost complete.

Thanks Elizabeth!  UNRAVELING is on sale now.  And you’ll be happy to know that this won’t be the last you’ll hear from Ben and Janelle. Check back next summer for more!

And that wraps up our Summer New Voices!  We’ll be back January to share our amazingly talented debut writers of the winter with you.  Until then…

It’s just two days before the beginning of your junior year when you’re hit by a pickup truck. And killed. And brought back to life. And somehow, you know that it was the loner you’ve never spoken to before that did it. And then, as impossible as it seems, things get even weirder. Sucked in yet? We certainly were. Welcome to UNRAVELING, the debut thriller/sci-fi/romance by Elizabeth Norris.

Let’s hear from Elizabeth’s editor, Kristin Rens, about how she knew immediately that UNRAVELING was something really special:

“I knew I wanted to publish Unraveling before I even finished reading the first page.

From the moment I met Janelle, the main character, I was pulled in by her lively, no-nonsense voice and her take-no-prisoners style—she’s tough, and she’s strong, and she’s loyal to the folks she loves—and her voice is so vivid that I knew within minutes that this was a character I would follow to the ends of the earth. And the fact that she’s up against a clock-ticking countdown that just might lead to the end of life as she knows it? Well, that was the icing on the cake.

In the current wave of paranormal and dystopian YA, Unraveling feels refreshing and different—it’s a high-stakes thriller, a Veronica Mars-esque mystery…and it’s got a light sci-fi twist that would even appeal to readers who don’t necessarily consider themselves sci-fi fans (I know, because I’m one of them). And holy cow, does Liz Norris know how to write a love story—because at the heart of Unraveling is the sweeping romance between Janelle and Ben Michaels, who in many ways are the ultimate star-crossed lovers.

Liz was a high school teacher for a couple of years before she became an author—and it shows in her writing, and in her characters. Because more than anything else what makes Unraveling such a compelling read is that she’s a writer who knows teens—knows how they talk, how they act, what they want. And this comes through in every page of the book—in Janelle’s relationship with her brother Jared, which is heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time; in her sarcastic yet fiercely supportive dynamic with her best friend Alex; in the romance between Janelle and Ben, which is sweet, and tender, and completely believable. And there’s a depth and complexity to the characters and to their story that makes Liz a very special writer indeed.

I like to call Unraveling the love child of I Am Number Four and the TV show Fringe. But it’s also very much its own story, one that keeps surprising you as you read. And the result is a breathtakingly romantic sci-fi thriller about one girl’s fight to save her family and her world.

I absolutely love it.”

Thanks Kristin! We also want to share a few of the great reviews that UNRAVELING has received:

“Readers will enjoy the nonstop action and romance.”
— School Library Journal

“A satisfying puzzle full of novel twists and provocative clues.”
— Publishers Weekly

Read a hearty excerpt of UNRAVELING here– the book is out in bookstores now. And come back tomorrow for an interview with Elizabeth herself!

Yesterday we brought you a few words from the editor on the dystopian YA debut, THE SELECTION, and today we ask the author herself, Kiera Cass, the really tough questions…

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

My favorite book from childhood is probably The Giving Tree. I was BFFs with a tree for a week in the first grade because of that book. And I’m currently making my way through Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson.

What is your secret talent?

My secret talent? I can touch my tongue to my nose. It’s pretty magical.

Fill in the blank: _______ always makes me laugh.

This picture ALWAYS makes me laugh. I have a pinterest board of ridiculous things to look at when I get stressed, and it helps me every time!

My current obsessions are…

…cranberry apple juice, Rob Pattinson, cupcakes, and Dance Moms.

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

I always tell aspiring writers to learn everything they can now. There’s so much happening behind the scenes of making a book that it’s a bit dizzying sometimes. There are lots of great blogs out there, helpful authors on twitter, and informative books. I also make a series of Behind the Book videos on my YouTube channel to show others what it’s like to get your first editorial letter or deal with doubt or any of the other things that pop up along the journey.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

… just has fun reading it. I write stories to entertain myself, and I hope that other people can just enjoy the ride with me.

Tell us more about how INSIGNIA was born.

The idea for The Selection came from thinking about Esther and Cinderella. I always wondered it Esther maybe liked the boy next door before she was shipped off to compete to be queen. Even if she lost, she was never coming home. What was going on in her heart? And Cinderella never asked for a prince. She asked for a night off and a dress. Did getting a prince make her happy? Or was being a princess too much for her? Those two thoughts meshed in my head, and I knew I wanted to write a story about a girl from a humble background who would get the attention of a prince, but she would already be in love and not want him. And I knew she would go through something (which ended up being the Selection) that would show her more of the world than she was ever prepared to see.

I fell in love. Every time I get to sit down and work on The Selection, I get excited. I really hope that people stick with America, Aspen, and Maxon through all three books, because I think their journey is fantastic!

Thanks Kiera!  You’ll be happy to hear that THE SELECTION is available for purchase now.  And once you’ve read it, you’ll be equally happy to know that the next in the trilogy, THE ELITE, is due out in Summer 2013.

The idea behind our next Summer New Voices pick is almost too good to be true– Cinderella meets The Hunger Games meets The Bachelor? But that’s what THE SELECTION by debut novelist Kiera Cass is, no exaggerations, we swear.  We fell for the main character, America Singer, as she’s torn not just between two boys, but between two possibilities for her future. After all, who among us wouldn’t feel at least a little bit tempted by a chance to be royalty?

Kiera’s editor, Erica Sussman, tells us why she fell for THE SELECTION:

“Move aside William and Kate! There’s a new royal romance to fawn over.

I am a total sucker for a happy ending, a sweet romance, and healthy helping of drama. So when The Selection was pitched to me as a lightly dystopian Cinderella meets The Bachelor, I knew it was right up my alley. What I didn’t realize was how head over heels in love I would fall for it. Even now, I can remember finishing the book and desperately wishing I had the next one right then and there; I needed to find out what was going to happen. Right from the start, I was swept up in America Singer’s world. The poverty she leaves behind for the glittering gowns of palace life. The competition with other girls for a prize she doesn’t even care about. Her all-encompassing love for Aspen. And her steadfast friendship with Prince Maxon, which blossoms into an unbelievably sweet courtship.

One of my most favorite things about The Selection is its author, Kiera Cass. From the moment I first corresponded with Kiera I couldn’t stop gushing about her enthusiasm, her kindness, her humor, and her intelligence, all of which bubble over in everything she says. And her videos? Well, her videos are a masterpiece in and of themselves. From the first one I ever watched – in which she celebrates her book deal with epic dancing, I was hooked. If you haven’t checked out her YouTube channel, please do. I promise, it’s impossible not to watch her videos without smiling:  http://www.youtube.com/user/KieraCass.”

Thanks, Erica! And check out an excerpt of THE SELECTION here.  And stay tuned tomorrow for a few words from Kiera herself.

Today it’s my pleasure to introduce you to S.J. Kincaid, author of INSIGNIA, the super engrossing sci-fi thrill ride that we all love around here.  Yesterday we gave you a few words from S.J.’s editor, Molly O’Neill, and today we have a few words from S.J. herself (follow her on Twitter @sjkincaidbooks).

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

My favorite book from childhood has to be a novel I first read in seventh grade called ‘Legacy’ by Susan Kay. It belonged to my sister, and I picked it up one day and couldn’t stop reading for a couple days until I’d finished it. That novel honestly changed the course of my life. It stirred a fascination with history that completely changed my interests in high school and college.

Right now, I’m re-reading Catching Fire, and getting ready to read Neil Tyson Degrasse’s Space Chronicles.

What is your secret talent?

I can draw faces reasonably well. Mostly when I’m in lectures. And I’m supposed to be listening to whatever’s going on. Actually, I’ve been out of school for about a year, so I’m probably rusty, but as soon as I’m in an enforced sitting-somewhere situation again, I’ll pick it up again.

Fill in the blank: _______ always makes me laugh.

Dogs. They’re just so cute and quirky and loveable.

My current obsessions are…

Michio Kaku. You know a guy is a genius when he can make principles of astrophysics comprehensible to me.

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

Persist. It took me seven novels to get published. The mantra I heard that really kept me motivated was this: “The only way to be sure I’ll fail is to quit.”

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

…enjoys the hours they spend reading it.

Tell us more about how INSIGNIA was born.

INSIGNIA came to me in pieces. I had this story I’d started about a gamer kid traveling around with his father, but it was just sitting there alongside maybe twenty other stores with about five-thousand words on my hard drive that I never picked up upon.

I also had this other vague idea about a massive war fought remotely in outer space. I got this one from an article discussing the likelihood future combat will minimize human involvement, and will instead consist of remotely controlled machines battling it out. I was fascinated by this idea, because it reminded me of a video game, and I thought of all the troubling implications that could arise from further distancing the aggressors in a battle from the damage they’re wreaking.

Anyway, INSIGNIA came about at some point when I mentally jointed that story fragment of a gamer kid with the giant World War III scenario. I didn’t plan to write it because I was going to grad school for a year, and it just seemed too big, but I kept getting idea after idea for this world, and then I began to imagine a fortress right on top of the Pentagon we have today.

The last key? My grad school had a lighter schedule during the summer. I realized it was now or never—I could write the story or just forget about it. I already had so many ideas, I couldn’t bear to just flush them away. So I gave it a shot. The rest is history.

Thanks, S.J.!  Insignia is on bookshelves now, with a sequel set for next summer– thank goodness!

Even though Labor Day is behind us, we’re just not ready to relinquish summer yet! Hey, we have until September 22nd (technically), right?  In that spirit, we still have a few more Summer New Voices titles to share with you, and next up is INSIGNIA, by S.J. Kincaid.  This is delightful, thought-provoking science fiction teen set in a futuristic world at war, and we gobbled it up like Ender’s Game and The Maze Runner– fun, fast-paced, and full of questions about morality, technology, and humanity.

A few words from the editor, Molly O’Neill:

“One of my absolute delights as an editor is when a manuscript takes me entirely by surprise, becoming a book that I had no idea I was dying to publish. And that’s precisely what happened for me a little over a year ago with Insignia, the story of a teenage video gamer recruited to become a superhuman government weapon in World War III.

I’m decidedly not a gamer, so I distinctly remember thinking on page one of the manuscript, “Hmmm, a sci-fi war story about a gamer kid? I’m not quite sure this is gonna be for me….” But by page three, I was hooked: gaming, neuroscience, military boarding school, and all! Insignia is action-packed and intense, full of fascinating technology, high stakes, and provocative questions. But it’s also just pure fun to read—full of masterfully sly humor and laugh-out-loud hilarious scenes—something I’ve found to be a deliciously welcome change from so many of the relentlessly grim futuristic worlds currently jockeying for space on YA bookshelves.

Tom Raines is instantly likeable and relatable as a main character, brimming with perfect measures of sarcastic wit, cockiness and insecurity. His yearning to be someone important, to truly matter will feel utterly familiar to teen readers—and to anyone who’s ever been a teen. And Tom’s not the only character that you’ll adore in Insignia: his comrades at the Spire are by turns hilarious, brilliant, nerdy, and fiercely loyal: they’re characters that feel so vibrant and real that I desperately want to follow off the final pages of this book and become friends with them myself! (Currently, author S. J. Kincaid is working on the second book in the Insignia trilogy and each time she sends new chapters into my inbox, it feels wonderfully like the first day after summer vacation or winter break, back at school, where you can’t help getting giddy about how good it is to see everyone again: “Oh, look, it’s all my friends—we get to hang out again! Omigosh, Tom, and Vik and Yuri and Wyatt, I’ve missed you guys!”)

We’ve just received a blurb from Veronica Roth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Divergent, so Insignia may be just the right book to put into the hands of her fans who are clamoring for a new read. She says Insignia is “A disarming and highly realistic view of the future. The characters are real, funny, and memorable. You won’t be able to put Insignia down.” And bookseller Suzanna Hermans of Oblong Books summed up the reading experience of  Insignia  perfectly, saying: “S. J. Kincaid’s debut is one of the best YA novels I’ve read in years—original, thrilling, funny, smart, and not at all predictable. I will follow this writer to the ends of the Earth—she is the real deal.” I hope you and your readers will likewise want to follow S. J. Kincaid and her storytelling powers to the ends of the earth. ”

Thanks Molly!  Check out an excerpt of INSIGNIA here, or go find it on bookshelves now!

Today we have the pleasure of introducing you to Tim Carvell, debut author of the uproariously funy middle-grade novel PLANET TAD. You can read a FREE, NICE AND HEARTY EXCERPT HERE. Yesterday we gave you a few words from Tim’s editor, Rosemary, and today we hear from the man himself…

(I mean… how great is this? If that mottled blue/gray background doesn’t pull you right back to middle school, I don’t know what will!)

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

When I was 9 or 10, I loved “A Cricket in Times Square”, but I think I loved its sequel, “Tucker’s Countryside”, even more, because I’d much rather read a book whose hero is a talking mouse with a cricket sidekick than a book whose hero is a talking cricket with a mouse sidekick.

As for what I’m reading now, I just finished “Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street”, by Michael Davis, which is pretty great — not just because it’s got weird tidbits like the fact that Oscar the Grouch was originally orange, but also because, for some reason, it’s got a whole chapter that’s just behind-the-scenes stories about Captain Kangaroo’s love-hate relationship with his writers.

What is your secret talent?

I can wiggle my ears. (It’s not so much a “secret talent” as “a talent I have that I’ve been asked not to do in public”.)

Fill in the blank: _______ always makes me laugh.

A talking animal. I don’t know why, but it does.

My current obsessions are…

Cartoon Network’s “Adventure Time with Finn & Jake”, because it’s got such a simple premise, but it keeps finding new directions to go, and new sorts of jokes to tell. Jenny Slate’s “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” shorts, which are very, very funny but come from a place of pure sweetness. And Jon Klassen’s “I Want My Hat Back”, because the drawings are hilarious, and it manages to tell a perfectly-paced joke in book form.

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

Just keep writing — the more you write, and the more feedback you get, the sooner you’ll get better at it, and the quicker you’ll develop your own voice. Also, don’t write a book about an orphan who goes to a British wizarding academy. It’s been done.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book…

Actually, that’s about 90% of what I’d hope for right there — that a person would read my book. But if I could ask for more beyond that, it’d be that a person reading my book would laugh.

Tell us more about how PLANET TAD was born.

Based on a MAD Magazine blog of the same name, PLANET TAD is a seriously funny look inside the mind of twelve-year-old Tad, nerd extraordinaire.  Capturing one full year in the life of Tad, this laugh-out-loud illustrated (by Doug Holgate) novel—written in a captivating blog format—will capture the hearts of everyone who reads it.  One day at a time.

And not only is Tim Carvell the author of this laugh-out-loud funny middle grade novel, he’s also the head writer for the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Yes, that’s right. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Which leads to the fact that this book has been blurbed by two pretty exciting fellas:

• “This book will make you laugh. If you’re not into that sort of thing, consider yourself warned.” –Stephen Colbert
• “Hilarious to anyone who ever went through, is currently in, might go to, or flunked out of middle school.” –Jon Stewart

And if those glowing endorsements are not enough to make you ask CAN I PLEASE GET MY HANDS ON THIS EXCITING BOOK?! (the answer is yes, it’s on sale now!), consider these words from Tim’s editor, Rosemary Brosnan:

I have a confession to make: For years I have raced to the mailbox to filch my son’s copy of MAD Magazine before he has a chance to read it. I’ve been reading MAD since I was twelve, and it’s an addiction I can’t give up. One of my favorite features has been the blog PLANET TAD by Tim Carvell, which has appeared in the magazine since 2006. Fresh and funny, its perfectly on-target voice and humor capture the life of a nerdy middle-school boy—his awkwardness with girls, the travails of living with a clever little sister, his funny takes on popular culture.  The author, Tim Carvell, is the head writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has won five Emmy Awards writing for the show. It seemed natural for me to call Tim and ask him to write a PLANET TAD book. Perhaps then I could stop stealing my son’s copies of Mad.

When I met Tim, I found him to be extremely likable…and I thought perhaps he had been a little bit like Tad when he was a kid. How else would he have come up with this blog? Happily, Tim agreed to write a PLANET TAD book; he wrote about two-thirds new material, and we took the other third from the published MAD pieces.  PLANET TAD is a hilarious look at a year in the life of twelve-year-old Tad, revealed in his own blog. It’s a year-in-the-life you’ll never forget, in which Tad takes a summer job wearing a hot dog costume, has an unwilling turn onstage in his little sister’s school play, learns a painful lesson about sunburn, attends an embarrassing Halloween party, and is ignored by every girl in his school.

I think this is the kind of book kids are going to pass around to one another. I would have hidden it inside Johnny Tremain myself. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Cory, a seventh grader, says:

“You will laugh your head off, and if you don’t you probably didn’t read or if you did you didn’t understand it.”

Happy reading!

Return tomorrow when we Open The Book with Tim Carvell, and post a free excerpt of PLANET TAD.  In the meantime, take a peek at the video trailer here!

Meet Christopher Healy, author of the uproariously funny THE HERO’S GUIDE TO SAVING YOUR KINGDOM (read an excerpt here!). In case you missed yesterday’s post about the book, be sure to check it out for some words from Christopher’s editor, Jordan Brown, along with a downloadable activity for the book. And now, let’s Open the Book with Christopher himself…

Which was your favorite book from childhood, and what are you reading right now?

It depends on what age of childhood . . . Back when my mom was reading books to me, my favorite to hear was Winnie-the-Pooh. For first reading on my own—and drooling over the illustrations—it was probably The Rainbow Goblins by Ul de Rico. Once I was into meatier stuff, I think it would be Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game. (By the way, I think my answer on this question changes every time someone asks it.)

Right now, I’m in the middle of Book III of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place (The Unseen Guest) by Maryrose Wood. Those books are just delightful. So much fun.

What is your secret talent?

I like to write and record songs as gifts for my family. I’m a terrible singer, though, so I make sure they’re never heard outside the house.

Fill in the blank: _______ always makes me laugh.

Tina Fey.

My current obsessions are . . .

The Walking Dead, dark-chocolate-and-sea-salt-covered almonds, and that Gotye song, “Somebody I Used to Know” (that xylophone riff plays through my head like a constant soundtrack now; I’m actually getting to the point where I wish it would stop).

Any gem of advice for aspiring writers?

Revise. If you think you’re done, go back and read it again. You will find something you can improve.

Finish this sentence: I hope a person who reads my book . . .

Finishes it.

How did you come to write this book?

I’d wanted to write about Prince Charming for a long time. In all those classic fairy tales, you learn so little about the princes. Those characters were ripe for the plucking. I have a son and a daughter, and I felt that boys and girls could both use some fleshed-out Prince Charmings in their fairy tales. Boys are supposed to want to be the prince and the girls are supposed to want to marry him—but he’s always incredibly boring. So I sat down with a lot of old fairy tales, culled together whatever Prince Charming “facts” I could extract from them, and pieced together fully-realized personalities for four of the most famous princes. Once I’d created these princes, I just sort of let them run free and watched what developed. The plot went into places I’d never expected when I started.

Thanks so much, Christopher!

Now that May is here, it’s officially summer, right? Well, it’s at least right around the corner, and you know what that means . . . a new round of New Voices!

We’re excited to start off the summer leg of our program with a spotlight on debut author Christopher Healy. His book THE HERO’S GUIDE TO SAVING YOUR KINGDOM went on sale this week, and we’re confident that you’ll think it’s hilarious. (We certainly do!)

Get ready to throw out everything you know about fairy tales. For instance, do you know who Prince Liam is? Chances are you don’t, but you should. He saved Sleeping Beauty’s life! Somehow, through the years and the retellings and the adaptations, his part of the story has been almost entirely glossed over. Christopher Healy is fixing that.

Read an excerpt of this story-behind-the-story fairy tale here, and meet Prince Liam, along with Prince Frederick, Prince Duncan, and Prince Gustav (can you guess which princesses these three saved?).

And, for a hint of the story behind the story behind the story, here are some thoughts from the book’s editor, Jordan Brown:

I’ll be honest: Chris Healy’s THE HERO’S GUIDE TO SAVING YOUR KINGDOM isn’t the first retelling/reimagining of classic fairy tales that we’ve read—and odds are you’re probably thinking the same. In fact, when Chris’ agent first called me about the book, and told me how funny and original and fresh and inventive it was, there was still a part of me thinking it sounds great, but . . . another fractured fairy tale?

And then I started reading.

From the first sentence on the first page, Chris Healy’s hilariously funny, completely original, totally fresh, endlessly inventive debut novel is anything but typical. Here, “Prince Charming” is not one prince, but four—the princes who rescued Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty—and they’re none too happy about having been glossed over in the bards’ songs and stories. You see, this is a world where the difference between being famous and being infamous depends on how easily the bards can find things to rhyme with your name, where tales of evil curses and magic teardrops and glass slippers make their way through the countryside like so many viral videos, where the real story begins after happily-ever-after. And it’s in this world where these four princes and their four princesses need to overcome their various neuroses and shortcomings and learn how to be real, honest-to-goodness heroes.

Chris told me that his inspiration came from reading classic fairy tales with his kids and finding out that the most interesting bits of the tales aren’t even included. “Prince Charming” is completely anonymous, all the princesses look and sound the same. He wanted to find out who these people really were. And in doing so, he has created one of the funniest, most heartfelt books any of us had read in a long time. Not to mention spurring a debate that’s still going on here at Harper: who is your favorite prince? (I’m on Team Gustav.) I guarantee you’ll have your own by the end of the book.

Please come visit us again tomorrow, when we’ll

Right now, we’re gearing up to start our New Voices program, and we wanted to give you a little preview.

New Voices will feature eight fantastic novels by debut authors that we think you’re going to love. We’ll be introducing these great new talents here on the pageturn, starting in December and continuing throughout the winter, so be sure to check in regularly for author interviews, letters from the editors, sneak peek chapter excerpts, and more!

Here are the stellar debuts we have in store for you:

Stay tuned! And, if you’re attending NCTE, stop by booth #513 to pick up galleys of these titles (and many, many more)!

It’s Vacation Time around the office lately, especially now that ALA is over.  But one of the delights of being offline is getting to catch up once you’re back online: it’s always fun to see that the electronic world has continued to spin even in your absence.  Here are some of the posts I’ve read and loved since being back in the office:

• From Abby the Librarian: first, I loved her discussion of summer reading clubs – she’s had a phenomenal turn-out for hers…further evidence that libraries and librarians provide vital and popular services.  I also enjoyed her post on ALA’s Emerging Leaders program.  I was an ALA Emerging Leader (Class of 2008) and agree with everything Abby had to say – it really is a great program and I encourage librarians who meet the qualifications to apply (you still have a little time left – the deadline is August 1st!).
• Jenny Brown (of Shelf Awareness fame) over at twentybyjenny wrote a lovely reflection of Kevin Henkes’ JUNONIA: “For a child, sometimes the small shifts can feel like tectonic plates realigning their world. That’s certainly the case for Alice. And with Alice as a companion, children know that if she can survive all these changes, they can, too.“
• The Reclusive Bibliophile created a booklist “if you like cooking, baking, and candy making…”  Some of my favorite foodie books are on there, and I’d love to add THE KING’S TASTER by Kenneth Oppel, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, and just wait until you read our upcoming BLISS by Kathryn Littlewood (February 2012)!
• Jennifer Hubert Swan over at Reading Rants reviews Candace Bushnell’s SUMMER AND THE CITY, the sequel to THE CARRIE DIARIES.  It’s the perfect summer beach read (both Jen’s blog and SUMMER AND THE CITY)!
• Melissa Rabey at librarian by day has a fun cover comparison post that involves Chris Crutcher’s DEADLINE, and she also posted a review of P.J. Converse’s SUBWAY GIRL.
• A lovely review of
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