Porter Inks Double with Caldecott-Winning Illustrator

In a world rights agreement for two books, Neal Porter signed author Philip Stead and Caldecott illustrator Matthew Cordell. Under the deal, Stead and Cordell will create a picture book called Follow That Frog, along with a second, currently untitled, picture book for Porter’s imprint at Holiday House. Follow That Frog, the publisher said, is about Aunt Beulah Bee who is “interrupted from her sleep by a knock at the door [and then] recalls a tale from her youth in which she travels the globe in search of an elusive, giant frog.” Emily van Beek at Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management represented Stead, while Rosemary Stimola at Stimola Literary Studio represented Cordell. The books are set for spring 2021 and spring 2022, respectively.

Boom! Signs Stine to MG Deal
Goosebumps series creator R.L. Stine signed a world rights agreement with Boom! Studios to pen a new supernatural middle grade series of graphic novels. The four-book deal will see Stine release the horror titles under the company’s KaBoom! imprint, with the first title set for a fall 2019 publication. Bryce Carlson at Boom! brokered the deal directly with Stine.

Redhook Nabs Kessler’s ‘Crows’
Bradley Englert at Hachette’s Redhook imprint took world English rights to a thriller called Seven Crows by Kate Kess­ler (the Audrey Harte series) that the publisher said was pitched as “John Wick meets Taken.” The book, set for October 2019, follows a woman, just released from prison, who finds out that her niece is missing. The publisher elaborated, saying the heroine “must charge her way through both a twisted crime ring and the man who helped put her behind bars.” Deidre Knight at the Knight Agency represented Kessler.

Needell Takes ‘First’ to HarperTeen
Claire Needell (The Word for Yes) sold her sophomore standalone novel, The First True Thing, to Jessica MacLeish at HarperTeen. The book, which Alice Tasman at the Jean V. Naggar Agency sold, is about, the agent said, “the risk of substance abuse and what it means to take control of your life and your future when it seems like the only path forward is the one that will take all of your courage.” Rosemary Brosnan at Harper took world English rights to the YA novel, which is slated for April 2019.

Worden Gets Graphic at Chronicle
Winner of the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (SPACE) Prize, Bruce Worden sold the collection of illustrations tentatively titled Homophones, Weakly to Rebecca Hunt at Chronicle Books. Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Group, who sold world rights in the agreement, said the book features images of “amazing ‘same’ words that we probably confuse way too often... [and shows that] without context, we couldn’t know what someone is really saying.”

For more children’s and YA book deals, see our latest Rights Report.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a character in Follow That Frog.