Deals: Week of 2/23/2009

Julian Pavia at Crown acquired North American rights to Mike Wallace and Beth Knobel’s Heat and Light: Advice for the Next Generation of Journalists; Doug Grad made the sale. The book will offer advice on what it takes to create great journalism, including tips on gathering story ideas, cultivating sources, crafting compelling narratives and conducting interviews. It will also include never-before-heard details of some of the 60 Minutes correspondent’s most high-stakes encounters. Knobel, a former CBS correspondent and producer, is a journalism professor at Fordham. Three Rivers will publish the book, tentatively scheduled for summer 2010.

Alisha Niehaus at Dial Books for Young Readers prevailed in an auction for Jandy Nelson’s YA debut, The Sky Is Everywhere, with Emily van Beek at Pippin Properties selling North American rights to two books. Nelson’s novel explores living through loss through the story of Lennie, a 17-year-old bookworm and band geek who has spent her life in her older sister Bailey’s shadow; when Bailey dies suddenly, Lennie finds herself in the middle of a love triangle with Bailey’s boyfriend and the new boy in town. Tentative pub date is spring 2010; Nelson is a literary agent at Manus & Associates.

Kurt Hassler at Yen Press has signed animator James Burks for his first graphic novel, Gabby and Gator; Kelly Sonnack at Sandra Dijkstra sold world English rights. The book tells the story of the unlikely friendship between a feisty but mute young environmentalist and the troublemaking, dog-and-cat–eating alligator that terrorizes her neighborhood. This is the first acquisition in the Hachette imprint’s new initiative to expand into the children’s graphic novel market; pub date is 2010.

Robert Pigeon at Da Capo has acquired Dominique Lapierre’s A Rainbow in the Night via Jessica Papin at Dystel & Goderich, who sold world English rights excluding India. The City of Joy author will tell the story of the men and women of South Africa whose blood, sweat and tears helped create what is known today as the Rainbow Nation. Pub date is fall 2009.

Elsewhere at the house, Jonathan Crowe acquired world rights to John Park’s The Last Farmer via Mollie Glick at Foundry. Screenwriter Park’s first book will recount the story of an independent farmer from Alabama who took on Monsanto, the biggest seed cartel in the world, and won. Pub date is spring 2010.

Pamela Dorman at Viking has acquired U.S. rights to Melissa Jones’s Emily Hudson; Clare Conville at Conville & Walsh made the sale. Dorman’s sixth acquisition for her imprint is set at the start of the Civil War and tells the story of a young Bostonian who heads to England with her ailing cousin, eventually escaping his machinations to meet her uncertain destiny in a world that doesn’t welcome young women without their own fortunes or good marriages. U.K. rights went to Little, Brown and Canadian rights to HarperCollins; Dorman plans to publish in summer 2010.

At Holt, Helen Atsma acquired world English rights to Wendy Webb’s The Tale of Halcyon Crane via Jennifer Weltz at Jean Naggar. This gothic novel is about a woman who searches for the truth about her family’s dark history on an island filled with ghosts from the past. Holt will publish as a trade paperback original.

On February 9, we reported a deal between Crown and Sen. Christopher Dodd on the senator’s role during the financial crisis last fall. Dodd and Crown do not yet have a signed agreement, and the proposed book will chronicle how Congress and the Bush administration responded to the financial meltdown.