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Q & A with Christoph Niemann
German-born author/illustrator Christoph Niemann moved with his family from New York City to Berlin two years ago, but his two new books both focus on the Big Apple,but his two new books both focus on the Big Apple and are drawn from a blog Neimann produces for the New York Times.
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Amy Krouse Rosenthal: Putting All Her Books Under a Yellow Umbrella
What a year Amy Krouse Rosenthal had in 2009. First, with four children's books published that spring, Rosenthal got the coveted invite to be a breakfast speaker at BookExpo America; then, on Mother's Day, the New York Times printed a glowing review of all four of her new titles, Duck! Rabbit! and Little Oink (Chronicle), Spoon (Hyperion), and Yes Day! (HarperCollins); and she hit the New York Times list for Duck! Rabbit! May 24—staying on for weeks and re-emerging later in the summer.
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Q & A with Rachel Vail
She's written picture books, middle-grade fiction, and young adult novels, but Rachel Vail breaks new ground as an author in her latest novel, Justin Case. Aimed at readers ages 7-9 and written as the journal of a third-grade worrywart, the book will be published by Feiwel and Friends.
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Q & A with Louis Sachar
In his first novel since Small Steps, the 2006 sequel to his Newbery-winning Holes, Louis Sachar focuses on a subject rarely explored in fiction for teens: the game of bridge. The Cardturner centers on 17-year-old Alton, who spends a summer accompanying his blind great-uncle Trapp to his bridge club, where the boy acts as the bridge whiz's "cardturner" and finds himself drawn into the game, the mystery surrounding his relative, and a new love interest. Delacorte will release the novel with a 250,000-copy first printing.
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Q & A with Deborah Wiles
Deborah Wiles, author of the Aurora County trilogy, is using the term "documentary novel" to describe her latest release, Countdown, a work of historical fiction set in 1960s Maryland.
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Q & A with Megan Whalen Turner
A Conspiracy of Kings is Megan Whalen Turner's fourth book in the series that began with The Thief, a 1997 Newbery Honor winner. Bookshelf caught up with Turner in California, where her husband's job has taken the family for a sabbatical year.
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The Future Is on the Line...
Author Sarah Mlynowski writes about how a tweet promoting her new book has taken on a life of its own.
Gimme a Call is about a high school senior who accidentally drops her cell phone in a fountain. When she fishes it out, she discovers the only call she can make is to herself—as a high school freshman, at age 14. Since Gimme a Call comes out next week, I thought it would be fun to ask a few fellow YA authors what they would tell their high school selves if, say, they had magic cells of their own. So on Monday I tweeted "Ever wonder what YA authors would tell their high school selves? (If they had magic cell phones that could call the past?) #gimmeacall." What started as a question to fellow authors has spread to their followers and their followers' followers. Click through to read some of my favorite responses. -
Q & A with David Pogue
David Pogue is the personal technology columnist for the New York Times, and is a tech contributor to both CBS News and CNBC. He has authored a number of technology books, including the Missing Manual series of computer guides. Pogue has just written his first children's novel, for middle-grade readers, and he spoke with Bookshelf about it.
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Q & A with Kathryn Erskine
Kathryn Erskine's second novel, Mockingbird, sprang from the intersection of two life-changing events—a daughter diagnosed with Asperger's, and the April 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech near Erskine's home in Charlottesville, Va.
Q: Your daughter, Fiona, has Asperger's Syndrome. When did you decide you wanted to write a novel about a character with that condition?
A: I had been jotting down notes, mulling over the idea of a main character who had Asperger's almost as an exercise—trying to see the world through her eyes, but I didn't have a compelling plot.
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Rick Riordan's Big Year
With two new trilogies launching this year, Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan stands likely to boost his already (ahem) Olympian output—and sales. Disney-Hyperion will release one million copies of The Red Pyramid, first in his Kane Chronicles series inspired by ancient Egyptian magic. An as-yet-unnamed Percy Jackson spin-off will follow, which will combine familiar characters with some new half-human, half-Greek-god kids.
Until now, Riordan has stuck to one book a year. "I've set myself a challenge of putting out two books a year so the readers don't have to wait longer than a year for either series," said Riordan. "That's a pretty big jump for me." -
Q&A with Deb Caletti
Deb Caletti knows she was "meant to be holed up in my room wearing my pjs and talking to my imaginary friends." And, even though becoming a young adult author wasn't part of her original plan, her complex stories about distressed families and complicated romances have certainly connected with teen readers—and critics. Her book Honey, Baby, Sweetheart was named a finalist for a National Book Award in 2004. Here, Caletti talks with Bookshelf about what it's like to write after winning such an honor, the inspiration behind her newest novel, The Six Rules of Maybe, and the actual rules she chooses to live by.
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Q & A with Carrie Ryan
Carrie Ryan is the author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth (2009) and The Dead-Tossed Waves (Mar.), both from Delacorte. Ryan is currently crossing the country on tour to celebrate the publication of her new novel. PW caught up with her via phone on her Lansing, Mich., stop.
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Q & A with Ally Carter
In Ally Carter's Heist Society, a crew of teenage thieves—led by Kat, youngest in a clan of accomplished heistmasters—gets down to the sticky business of retrieving valuable paintings stolen from an Italian mobster. Kat has strong incentive for recovering the masterpieces: to clear the name of her father, prime suspect in the theft, and to return the paintings, plundered by the Nazis decades before, to their rightful place. Launching a series, this latest work by the author of I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You and subsequent Gallagher Girls novels was published by Disney-Hyperion with a 200,000-copy printing. Carter talked to Bookshelf about why—and how—she dunnit.
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Q & A with Elisha Cooper
Author of such picture books as Ballpark, Dance!, and Beach, Elisha Cooper has transported young readers to numerous child-pleasing locales. His latest book takes them to yet another. Due from Orchard, Farm follows the workings of a Midwestern farm over the course of a year.
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Q & A with Ricky Gervais
British comedian, actor, and writer Ricky Gervais's Flanimals and More Flanimals, illustrated by Rob Steen, introduced a cast of absurd creatures, which are now taking on additional zany dimension in Flanimals Pop-Up, due from Candlewick. Gervais spoke with Bookshelf about this and his earlier book projects.
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Q & A with Carrie Jones
Carrie Jones has been spending lots of time with pixies, shape shifters and other fantasy creatures-and it doesn't look like she'll be stopping anytime soon. Her books Need and Captivate, about a smart girl being stalked by a pixie, have struck a chord with readers; both books landed on the New York Times bestseller lists. Now the series could be as many of five books. Jones spoke with Children's Bookshelf about how she became enchanted by pixies, what comes next in the series, and why teen readers need fantasy books right now.
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Q & A with Frank Cottrell Boyce
Q: What inspired you to write this insanely funny and wonderful book?
A: Two things, really. People of my age, we all wanted to go to space. Fly to the moon? That was the dream. So I started with that. And then, my family went away for a year, and when we came back one of my son's friends had had a growth spurt. He was barely recognizable. His mother said something that I actually put in the book. She said, "That's not a growth spurt. That's a mutation." -
When the ALA Calls: Stead and Pinkney on Winning the Big Prize
When you win a Newbery or a Caldecott Medal, you find out in a phone call — usually very early in the morning—and then your life is instantly changed. Both Rebecca Stead and Jerry Pinkney got recently that phone call; we spoke with both of them to find out where they were when the phone rang, what their reactions were, and what came next.
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PW Talks with Gabrielle Zevin
Credit card debt plagues a modern American family in Gabrielle Zevin’s The Hole We’re In, a witty, frightening look at how we spend now.
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Fall 2009 Flying Starts: Nina LaCour
“It was a surprise for me to end up writing a YA novel, but I'm excited about it,” says Nina LaCour, author of Hold Still, the emotionally charged story of Caitlin, a teen photographer struggling to understand the suicide of Ingrid, her best friend and fellow artist.
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