Familiar characters from three acclaimed middle grade novels will soon make return appearances, this time in the pages of picture books. Katherine Applegate revives her spunky aquatic mammal in Odder: An Otter’s Story, featuring art by Charles Santoso, due from Feiwel and Friends on April 29. Introduced in Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s Fish in a Tree, neurodiverse fourth grader Oliver stars in Wish in a Tree, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter, which Nancy Paulsen Books will release on May 20. And on June 24, Peter Brown will bring back his intrepid Wild Robot in Little, Brown’s The Wild Robot on the Island.

Odder Makes a New Splash

Katherine Applegate’s 2022 novel Odder, about a young otter whose life takes a dramatic turn when she encounters a hungry great white shark, was inspired by the true story of a Monterey Bay Aquarium program that pairs orphaned otter pups with surrogate mothers. The idea of adapting the book, which has sold more than 400,000 copies in North America, was sparked by a serendipitous comment.

After the author’s The One and Only Ivan won the 2013 Newbery Medal and she adapted it for younger readers in 2014’s The Remarkable True Story of Ivan, the Shopping Mall Gorilla, the novel and picture book (illustrated by G. Brian Karas) were frequently selected together for One Book, One School reading programs across the country.

Deborah Armstrong, a now-retired librarian from California, mentioned to Applegate that it would be ideal to have a picture-book version of Odder so that it could be similarly paired with the novel for such reading initiatives. “When I shared the idea with my editor, Liz Szabla, she agreed,” Applegate said. “I love that this picture book was truly generated from the input of a wonderful librarian in Marin County, where I used to live.”

Adapting Odder’s story into picture book format was not a difficult undertaking for Applegate. “Since the novel was written in free-verse, I’d essentially already done a lot of paring of the text,” she explained. And her task, she added, was made significantly easier by Santoso, who also illustrated the original novel (as well as Applegate’s Wishtree and Willowdeen).

“The wonderful thing about collaborating with an illustrator like Charles is that there is so much you can leave out,” Applegate said. “You don’t have to talk about emotions or expressions or adding a dollop of humor—Charles will take care of that! He can take six words and make them blossom into a full-page spread that takes your breath away. When you have this wispy dream in your head, and someone brings it to life, it is a wonderful experience. I’ve been really lucky.”

The Importance of Being Oliver

Oliver’s brain is always bubbling with curiosity and imagination, which makes it difficult for him to focus at school or to feel like he fits in. First met in Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s 2016 novel, Fish in a Tree (which has 2.2 million copies in print worldwide), the boy has a starring role in her spinoff picture book for readers ages six and up, Wish in a Tree, a celebration of creative thinking and things that set us apart.

Hunt did not have to search far to find her inspiration for Fish in a Tree and its companion. “This is my own story,” she said. “As a sixth grader with ADD, I vividly remember hearing other kids’ pencils scratching across their papers and thinking, ‘I cannot do that. I must be really dumb.’ My teacher literally saved me that year by speaking to me about how I was doing, and asking me to tutor first graders in math.”

Those experiences ignited Hunt’s interest in becoming a teacher, and she taught third and sixth grade for 10 years before turning to writing. Though as a child she longed “to wave a magic wand and be able to focus and get rid of the mind movies that made my life miserable,” she said, “it turned out to be a gift. I love kids and as a teacher the fact that I have ADD has meant that I was able to help them in useful ways, and that means more to me than anything else.”

Attesting to the fact that her sensitivity and empathy run deep in her fiction, Hunt often hears that her books make readers cry. “I almost never cry writing novels,” she said, “but when I wrote the line in which Oliver makes the wish, ‘Please… please make me more like the rest of them,’ it made me tear up. I was right back there with that same childhood longing. It is so important that we continue to deliver the message that you are who you are, and you have to honor that. As I say in Wish in a Tree, ‘The tree is most beautiful when all the leaves are not the same.’ ”

Roz the Robot Rolls into Picture-Book Role

When she washes up on an island in Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot, published by Little, Brown in 2016, Roz is on unfamiliar turf. Not designed to live in the wilderness, the robot must learn from her animal neighbors how to survive—and thrive—in her new surroundings. Roz’s adventures continued in two subsequent novels, The Wild Robot Escapes and The Wild Robot Protects, bringing the series’ worldwide sales tally to five million copies. DreamWorks Animation’s 2024 film adaptation of The Wild Robot has grossed more than $300 million worldwide, and was nominated for three Academy Awards.

On June 24, Brown brings Roz’s saga to life for picture book readers in The Wild Robot on the Island. “When I first started imagining The Wild Robot, my ideas were big and layered and the story naturally developed into a novel,” said Brown of launching his robot as a middle grade heroine, despite his extensive picture book canon. “I began to see how that story might be adapted into a picture book and eventually decided to make The Wild Robot on the Island, which brings Roz’s world to life with vivid illustrations, so readers can experience her origin story in a new, visual way.”

The Caldecott Honor illustrator found that adapting the 288-page The Wild Robot—which was eight years in the making—into a 48-page picture book was a smoother process than his initial creative endeavor, but it came with its own challenges. “Obviously, Roz’s life story had to be simplified, but deciding which details to keep, which details to cut, and what new details to add was tricky,” Brown said. “As with all picture books, getting the right balance between the words and pictures was essential. More than anything, I wanted the art to be really beautiful and emotional. My hope is that The Wild Robot on the Island can introduce younger readers to Roz’s world, but I also hope fans of the novels will enjoy seeing the big, detailed illustrations of life on her island.”

Brown expressed gratitude for the reception that his Wild Robot sequence has received to date. “I love working through little story ideas to see which have potential,” he said. “Most don’t go anywhere, so it feels like a miracle that my idea about a robot in the wilderness grew into a big story world that I can share with readers in the form of novels and now a picture book. The fact that readers have connected so deeply with the Wild Robot stories makes this whole chapter of my career feel like a dream.”

Odder: An Otter’s Story by Katherine Applegate, illus. by Charles Santoso. Feiwel and Friends, $18.99, Apr. 29 ISBN 978-1-250-32359-0

Wish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, illus. by Nancy Carpenter. Penguin/Paulsen, $18.99, May 20 ISBN 978-1-5247-3968-3

The Wild Robot on the Island by Peter Brown. Little, Brown, $19.99, June 24 ISBN 978-0-316-66946-7