Candlewick Signs Picture Book by Obama’s Sister

Maya Soetoro-Ng.

Candlewick Press has acquired a picture book, Ladder to the Moon, by Maya Soetoro-Ng, sister of President Obama. Soetoro-Ng is a writer and educator with a PhD in international comparative education. Candlewick president and publisher Karen Lotz acquired the book and will also edit; Jennifer Gates at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth brokered the deal.

Ladder to the Moon imagines what lessons Soetoro-Ng’s four-year-old daughter might have learned from her grandmother (Soetoro-Ng’s and Obama’s mother) if the two had ever met. Soetoro-Ng is currently a high school teacher at an all-girls school in Hawaii; Ladder to the Moon is her first book. Candlewick has not yet determined the book’s illustrator or pub date.