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I was very excited to read that Dutton is set to publish a series for kids! I have always loved his work and to see a children’s series is triple exciting!
Penguin Young Readers Group in the U.S. and Hodder & Stoughton in the U.K. announced today that they will be publishing bestselling author John Grisham’s first series of books for children. The middle-grade series will focus on 13-year-old Theodore Boone, a legal whiz kid. In the first book, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, Theo gets caught up in a high-profile murder trial in his town. It’s scheduled to be released by Dutton Children’s Books on May 25, and on June 10 by Hodder in the U.K. The second book, as yet untitled, is scheduled for release in 2011.
Penguin bought the series yesterday in a two-book deal with Grisham’s longtime agent, David Gernert of the Gernert Company. Don Weisberg, president of Penguin Young Readers Group, and Julie Strauss-Gabel, associate publisher at Dutton, acquired North American hardcover and paperback rights to the series, and Strauss-Gabel will edit the two books. Oliver Johnson, publisher at Hodder & Stoughton, will edit Grisham in the U.K.
“Since children’s books is a completely different area of publishing than adult, and since John had never experienced any publishing in the children’s area, we went out and spoke to a very, very small number of people we felt were particularly good at children’s books,” said Gernert, adding that Random House, Grisham’s adult publisher, was in the mix. “We tried to figure out who had the vision for launching Theo that most matched John’s, and it ended up being Penguin and Don Weisberg.”
Both Johnson and Weisberg have previous connections to Grisham, though neither Penguin nor Hodder publish his adult books. Johnson was Grisham’s longtime editor at Random House U.K. before moving to Hodder, and Weisberg oversaw sales for Grisham’s books when he was head of the sales department at Random House U.S. “I’ve worked with John for many years,” Weisberg said in an interview. “What makes John Grisham so successful as an adult writer just lends itself to the middle-grade format and age group. The pace, the intelligence, the way he respects his audience, it’s just terrific.”
According to Weisberg, publicity plans for the series are “still being discussed. Our marketing plans and promotional plans will be very aggressive, obviously. Details to come. We’re in the planning stages.” Gernert said that his agency is just beginning to look into selling the series into foreign territories. Grisham has more than 250 million books in print worldwide, and his books have been published in 29 languages.
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