High Hopes for Early Favorites

Ambitious readers will have no problem keeping busy this fall, with the arrival of many major works for children and teens. Several highly anticipated sequels are on deck, including Christopher Paolini's Brisingr, Cornelia Funke's Inkdeath, and the follow-up to M.T. Anderson's National Book Award-winning The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. The multi-volume 39 Clues series launches next month, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins seems poised for success.

However, as in every season, a few other titles have risen to the surface as potential hits, based on pre-pub buzz, online chatter and word-of-mouth. We've singled out four for particular notice: three are inventive fantasy novels, and one is a harrowing memoir. Publishers and booksellers alike believe these books have what it takes to cut through the noise of a very full season.

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The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman
(HarperCollins, Oct.)
The hook: Though Neil Gaiman has been plenty busy in the years since his 2002 bestseller Coraline, The Graveyard Book is his first full-length middle-grade novel since that title. In it, a toddler—whose family has been murdered—finds his way to a graveyard, where he is raised by ghosts, werewolves and other phantasms. Kate Jackson, editor-in-chief at HarperCollins Children's Books, says, “Neil has a passionate fan base. They hang on everything he does.” The novel arrives with a 250,000-copy first printing.
 

Neil Gaiman. Photo: Philippe Matsas.

The backstory: Gaiman's Sandman graphic novels put  him on the map with adults, and Coraline broadened his popularity. Jackson says that Gaiman's  appeal spans all ages, and that his brand of dark fantasy is “something that children crave. He can scare the life out of you, but  not in a graphic way.” This year Gaiman published two other works for kids: The Dangerous Alphabet, a picture book with Gris Grimly, and a graphic-novel adaptation of Coraline; that story hits the big screen next February.
The plans: During an eight-city author tour, Gaiman will read one chapter from the book at each stop. Jackson calls it “fortuitous timing” that The Graveyard Book arrives a month ahead of Halloween, but believes it will sell strongly year-round. For their part, readers are already clamoring. “He has a very active Web site,” she says. “There's a countdown and a lot of fan interest swirling around it.”
—John Sellers

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Eon: Dragoneye Reborn
by Alison Goodman
(Viking, Dec.)
The hook: This second novel from the Australian author of Singing the Dogstar Blues is poised to cash in on the post-Christmas gift card rush. Goodman's 400-page fantasy tome concerns teenage Eon, who's been studying the ancient art of Dragon Magic for four years and is hoping to be chosen as apprentice to one of the 12 energy dragons of good fortune. But if Eon's secret—that he's really Eona, a 16-year-old girl—gets out, Eon faces a terrible death.
The backstory: The book was originally slated for an September  publication, but Don

Alison Goodman. Photo: Naomi Jones.

Weisberg, newly installed chief of Penguin Books for Young Readers, was so impressed with the book and the “tremendous groundswell of excitement internally” that he moved the publication to December 26—to distance it from Christopher Paolini's Brisingr (a Sept. 20 pub) and allow it to cash in on kids' holiday gift cards—and upped the print run to 200,000. “You need to react to the marketplace and listen to what the marketplace is saying,” Weisberg says.
The plans: Penguin printed 4,000 ARCs and will launch a $150,000 marketing campaign, including a five-market pre-publication bookseller buzz tour; a consumer ad campaign; a Web site that will include a book trailer, author podcasts and downloadable wallpapers; and online promo including banner ads on sci-fi, fantasy and teen Web sites. It will promote Eon at next year's Comic-Cons in New York City and San Diego.
—Lynn Andriani

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The Year We Disappeared
by Cylin Busby and John Busby
(Bloomsbury, Aug.)
The hook: In this true-crime memoir, father and daughter (then age nine) describe in alternating chapters what happened on the night John Busby, a police officer in Falmouth, Mass., was shot, as well as the aftermath—he and his family were forced into hiding. The book has revived interest in the 30-year-old case, for which no arrests were ever made, though Busby identified a potential suspect immediately after the shooting.
The backstory: The book is getting the kind of prepub buzz that shows it could cross

John Busby and Cylin Busby.

over to adult readers, as did Nic Sheff's recent Tweak. That the crime at the center of the book has been kept alive in local newspapers like the Cape Cod Times hasn't hurt, and the shooting will be the subject of a CBS News 48 Hours investigation. “Everyone in the group responded with the same vehemence I felt,” says Melanie Cecka, publishing director of Bloomsbury Children's Books. “This book has something powerful to communicate about family and violence and survival.” Advance orders were so strong that Bloomsbury went back to press pre-pub for another 25,000 copies, for an in-print total of 32,500.
The plans: Given the response of booksellers like Tish Gayle at the Blue Marble in Ft. Thomas, Ky., who calls the story “gripping and unforgettable,” Bloomsbury has reason to believe that the book's appeal extends well beyond New England. It will be featured on front-of-store display tables at Barnes & Noble, and the Busbys will do a national satellite radio tour to 20 markets.
—Judith Rosen

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Graceling
by Kristin Cashore
(Harcourt, Oct.)
The hook: This debut novel, which Harcourt publicist Sarah Shealy describes as “fantasy for people who don't like fantasy,” is set in a world of seven kingdoms, where a small number of people are born with an extreme skill—a Grace. Katsa, niece to a king, believes her Grace to be killing, but in the course of a grand adventure (and love story) she figures out her true identity. Cashore's editor, Kathy Dawson, praises the author's storytelling abilities, calling Graceling “the kind of book you wait your entire career for.”
The backstory: The buzz started at ALA midwinter in January, 

Kristin Cashore. Photo: Daniel J. Burbach.

with a dinner with key librarians, who went home with bound manuscripts. Raves soon appeared on listservs and blogs, and the chatter grew louder after Harcourt gave out galleys at BEA and ALA. Laura Spies, children's book buyer at Inkwood Books in Tampa, Fla., loves Graceling's “amazing characters,” and predicts the book will be a great handselling success. “I've already lent my ARC to five people, and it's a mess. The last time that happened was with Like Water for Chocolate.” Harcourt is printing 75,000 copies.
The plans: Customers across all channels—retail, library, online and mass market—are excited about Graceling, according to the publisher. Foreign sales have been robust; Cashore's agent Faye Bender has sold the book into seven countries so far, and several film studios have expressed strong interest. A companion title, Fire, is scheduled for fall '09. “I think Kristin's career is just going to build from here,” Dawson says.
—Diane Roback