Writing for young readers is a tremendous honor, says A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity author Nicole Valentine.

“As I’m typing this, millions of people are marching in the streets around the world to demand immediate action on climate change at the urging of a 16-year old named Greta Thunberg,” Nicole told Cracking the Cover via an email interview. “The clearest, loudest voice in the Flint, Michigan water crisis is an 11-year old girl named Mari Copeny; Autumn Peltier, an indigenous girl from Manitoulin Island, was thirteen when she spoke to world leaders at the U.N. about protecting the water supply. … I don’t want to write for anyone else.”

Nicole — whose debut novel follows a 12-year-old boy as he travels through time in an attempt to save his family — has always wanted to write novels. She graduated with a degree in English but struggled to immediately find a career in publishing. Nicole quickly discovered that her tech talent paid more than her writing one.

The entire time she was writing code, Nicole was also taking breaks to write down story ideas. Becoming an author, Nicole says, has been a natural revolution, and in 2010, she returned to school to earn masters in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College for the Fine Arts. “I really wanted to devote myself to the craft,” she said.

Nicole loves stories where the physical and natural world and the magical realm overlap. “I think that is just where my brain is happy to reside,” she said. “I like to study the science and where it falls short, I look for the magic that has intervened. I think science and magic have a lot more in common than people believe.”

That commonality extends to time travel, Nicole says. “There are several sound scientific theories that say time travel into the future via wormholes are a possibility. Traveling into the past is a bit more complicated and more scientists say it is an impossibility.”

While A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity is about time travel, at its heart, it’s about friend and familial bonds. The idea for the book came shortly after Nicole’s father passed away.

“I was 12-years-old when he died of a sudden heart attack,” Nicole said. “I began reading time travel stories in the hopes that I could figure out how to do it. I wanted to warn him that he had a heart problem. I didn’t figure out how to time travel, but I did learn about hope. Those books saved me. I wanted to write a story about the importance of family and love, and most of all forgiveness.”

In addition to writing A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity, Nicole also founded steaMG.org (The Middle Grade Sci-Fi Authors Alliance). The collective is “committed to seeing more sci-fi and science-inspired fiction in the hands of middle grade readers.”

A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity: Twelve-year-old Finn is used to people in his family disappearing. His twin sister, Faith, drowned when they were 3 years old. A few months ago, his mom abandoned him and his dad with no explanation. Finn clings to the concrete facts in his physics books ― and to his best friend, Gabi ― to ward off his sadness. But then his grandmother tells him a secret: the women in their family are Travelers, able to move back and forth in time. Finn’s mom is trapped somewhere in the timeline, and she’s left Finn a portal to find her. But to succeed, he’ll have to put his trust in something bigger than logic.

When Nicole was searching for books about time travel as a kid, she didn’t discover the secret to turning back the clock, but she did discover awe. “Those books filled me with wonder and gave me hope,” she said. “I want to make sure more books in the tradition of A Wrinkle in Time continue to be written and placed in the hands of young readers.”

“I’ve been reading about awe a lot in the last several months. I realized that was what moved me as a young girl, and I found it only in the pages of books. Psychologists are just now beginning to study the emotion of awe and its benefits on the human brain and body. Subjects in psychological studies report a feeling of having more time available, increased generosity, and decreased aggression. Awe generates empathy. Scientists have found that awe also combats stress in an empirical way.

“We need more books that bring hope through inspiring awe. SteaMG is about highlighting those books. It’s also about honoring fiction that is inspired by science and STEM. I personally think our world could benefit from more adults who have a reverence for scientific thought. Reaching middle grade readers is one way to start.”

Learn more about Nicole Valentine and A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity by reading the complete transcript of her interview with Cracking the Cover.

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Since 1981, Claudia Mills has written more than 50 books for children. But it wasn’t until 2002 that she found her true passion.

“I’ve totally fallen in love with writing for the chapter-book audience: newly independent readers in second, third, or fourth grade,” Claudia told Cracking the Cover.

“My early books were all middle-grade novels, and I still love to write for that age group, too — and I published a ten-book easy-reader series as well, the Gus and Grandpa books. But once I wrote my first third-grade-level chapter book, 7 x 9 = Trouble!, I found I adored this format for its peppy pacing and just for the adorableness of how the finished book looks.”

Claudia’s latest book geared for 7- to 10-year-olds is Nixie Ness, Cooking Star. The book follows Nixie as she starts an after-school program without her best friend. It’s the first book in Claudia’s After-School Superstars series published by Holiday House.

Claudia loved school as a child, and she’s written numerous school stories, but this time around, she thought it would be fun to explore what happens after the final bell rings. “Millions of kids attend after-school programs, and that would give me a chance to show kids engaged in a wide range of activities that go beyond the standard school curriculum,” she said.

With so many activities to choose from, Claudia thought cooking would be a fun topic to explore. Cooking, she says, is generally more of a middle- and high-school focus. Nixie Ness, Cooking Star turns it into an elementary-school experience.

Writing about cooking was new for Claudia, who admits she doesn’t enjoy the culinary arts herself. For this project, the author found herself searching out recipes that would be enjoyable for her characters to make and for her audience to read about.

In the end, writing Nixie Ness, Cooking Star pushed Claudia into her own kitchen. “My family was so pleased when I had to try out the recipes for Nixie’s camp and so finally made them something tasty to eat!” she said.

Claudia thinks she might have learned to like cooking if she had gotten an early start on cooking like Nixie. “Kids today cook so much more than I did as a child, so I hope they’ll want to see what kinds of things Nixie is cooking and get ideas for their own adventures in the kitchen.”

But Nixie Ness, Cooking Star isn’t just about cooking. As a writer, Claudia likes to explore questions that have some deeper ethical resonance. “In Nixie’s story I found myself asking: What does it mean to be a friend? If you have many friends, does this diminish the significance of each friendship? If you hurt a friend, how do you restore the friendship?”

Most of Claudia’s characters start to develop only when she sits down and starts writing about them. Still, Claudia admits all her characters, in one way or another, draw on some part of who she is. “As a child, I was heartbroken if I thought one friend liked another friend better than she liked me — what a betrayal! Like Nixie, I’ve always been a planner — trying to think up ways to make my dreams come true. And like Nixie, some of my plans turn out better than others….”

Claudia worked with a teacher/librarian friend who has run many after-school programs to make sure the programs in her series would be plausible. After all, there are more After-School Superstars books currently in the works.

Claudia’s already finished Vera Vance, Comics Star, set in a comic-book camp, and is currently working on Lucy Lopez, Coding Star, set in computer-coding camp.

“[Lucy Lopez, Coding Star] is the most challenging of the three books so far for me,” Claudia said. “I said I’m not a good cook — you should see how bad I am at coding!! I even hired a sixth-grader to serve as my coding coach — I kid you not! But by trying to write about something I’m NOT good at, I hope I can connect with kids who struggle to learn — and show the joy of finally coming to master something that initially seemed impossible.”

*Learn more about Claudia Mills and Nixie Ness, Cooking Star by reading the complete transcript of her interview with Cracking the Cover.

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Deborah started out writing stories for her toddler daughter. Picture books are short, and the length seemed doable for a parent who also had a full-time job. “It made sense to start with picture books,” Deborah told Cracking the Cover. “Now I write books of 500 words, and some with more than 300 pages!”

In 2014, Deborah left a career in fundraising, writing grants for colleges and universities, and turned to writing full time. That change has afforded her the opportunity to tackle projects that require more research — projects like How I Became a Spy.

How I Became a Spy tells the story of Bertie who becomes a spy after an American girl goes missing and he discovers her coded notebook. With the help of Eleanor and his friend David, a Jewish refugee — and his trusty pup, Little Roo — Bertie must decipher the notebook in time to stop a double agent from spilling the biggest secret of all to the Nazis.

Like many of her books, the idea for How I Became a Spy was born out of one of Deborah’s earlier projects. “I’ve written three longer nonfiction books about World War II, including D-Day: The World War II Invasion That Changed History (Scholastic Focus 2018). When I was brainstorming ideas for my next historical fiction project, I thought it would be fun to use some of what I learned in my research about secret agents in a fictional setting,” she said.

As Deborah developed her characters for How I Became a Spy, she was again inspired by other work. Though Eleanor was always a “main supporting character,” David’s role grew as Deborah began researching the Kindertransport for her forthcoming nonfiction title, Refugees And Survivors: Escaping The Nazis On The Kindertransport (Scholastic Focus, Spring 2020).

“I also added Warden Ita after finding the fascinating and moving memoir of a Nigerian-born air raid warden in the Blitz,” she said. “And while my dog Rue became Little Roo from the outset, the importance of my dog Brooklyn, who appears in the story as Hero, definitely grew as I kept revising the story.”

Even though Deborah sets out researching along what appears to be a clear path, she often stumbles upon surprises.

“In Spy, Violette [the American girl]is an agent with the Special Operations Executive (SOE),” Deborah said. “I first learned about the SOE while writing a nonfiction book about the Danish resistance and the rescue of the Danish Jews (Courage & Defiance). But what surprised me as I continued to research was the role of young women as secret agents in World War II. I read several memoirs that inspired the character of Violette in the story. Tragically, a number of female SOE agents gave their lives for the Allied cause.”

Deborah hopes young readers will like How I Became a Spy. She loves to put dogs into her books, and hopes they’ll enjoy Little Roo. “I think readers also are fascinated by ciphers, spies, mysteries, and Sherlock Holmes (I am!) and so I hope they like those aspects of the story,” she said. “I like to include aspects of STEM and STEAM in my work whenever I can.”

Deborah says the main reason she writes is to learn. “Whenever we write about something, it prompts us to pay close attention to what we’re reading,” she said.

“Still, I’d have to say writing itself is as daunting and challenging a task as it was when I began. It never gets easier (at least for me) and oddly, that’s one of the things I like best about being a writer.”

Learn more about Deborah Hopkinson and How I Became a Spy by reading the complete transcript of Deborah’s interview with Cracking the Cover.

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Jennifer Castle writes because she’s always written. When she was a kid, she would make up serialized stories in her head while riding the bus to and from school. She started writing her first (unfinished) novel at the age of 13. 

“When something has always been a big part of who you are, and you find that you just love it (even when it’s hard), then there’s pretty much no way you can stop,” Jennifer told Cracking the Cover. “The fact that my writing gets published and shared with actual readers is a giant bonus!”

Meet Jennifer

Jennifer is the author of 12 books for middle grade and young adult readers, including Blaire and Blaire Cooks Up a Plan featuring American Girl’s Girl of the Year 2019 Blaire.

Jennifer came to writing books well prepared. Before moving on to writing full time, she produced educational interactive media for young people, including a website for PBS Kids called It’s My Life.

“I researched and wrote quite a bit about social-emotional issues for preteens, so when it came time to write fiction, I had a good range of knowledge about heavier topics,” Jennifer said. “As a result, my YA novels explore themes such as grief, friendship, identity, depression and learning differences.”

Read Cracking the Cover’s review of the Blaire doll and books.

Having grown up in the “Barbie generation,” it wasn’t until her niece became obsessed with the early historical (BeForever) dolls, that Jennifer learned about American Girl.

“Once I had two daughters of my own, AG quickly became a large, positive part of their imaginative play and reading,” the author said. “I always read the books and admired how well-written and carefully crafted they were and knew I would love to author one someday.”

Meet Blaire

Fast-forward a couple of years. Jennifer had finished writing her fourth YA novel in a row and was looking to switch things up. American Girl had launched its publishing partnership with Scholastic, and Jennifer’s agent suggested submitting her for future projects.

“Of course, I said yes,” Jennifer said. “I knew I was being considered for something when they sent me a list of specific story elements and themes, asking if I had personal connections to any of them. It was an amazing surprise to hear that I’d been selected to write the books for the Girl of the Year 2019!”

Jennifer says she was chosen based on the strength of her previous work, especially her novel Together at Midnight, and her background writing about social-emotional issues.

“The fact that I have experience with adjusting to a food restriction — my younger daughter has Celiac disease and is gluten-free, and I struggled with Crohn’s Disease when I was an adolescent — and live in one of the areas AG was considering as a setting (New York’s Hudson Valley), also came into play. I’m told these selection processes are very competitive, with AG dedicated to finding the right author fit for a character, and I feel extremely fortunate to have been the match for Blaire!”

By the time Jennifer was asked to join the “Blaire project,” American Girl had already decided the character would live on a sustainable farm that included a farm-to-table restaurant and event space, and that she enjoyed cooking and using her creativity to make things beautiful.

Collaboration

From there, it was up to Jennifer to flesh out Blaire’s world, which includes a bed-and-breakfast, animals, a barn renovation and first farm wedding. Jennifer also created characters like Cat (the farm manager), Grandpa, and Blaire’s best friend, Thea.

“The process of working with American Girl and Scholastic on a story is super-collaborative,” Jennifer said. “I think of it as a DNA spiral: my ideas would help evolve theirs, and theirs would come back to push mine further along, and so forth until the finished book.”

Along those lines, “coping with food sensitivities” was part of Blaire’s character sketch from the beginning, but the American Girl editors left it up to Jennifer what type of sensitivity that was.

“I would like to clarify here that a ‘food allergy’ and a ‘food sensitivity’ are different and shouldn’t be confused,” Jennifer said. “The obvious thing would have been to make Blaire gluten-free, like my daughter, but after a lot of pondering and research, I felt dairy would be more challenging for Blaire as a cook and as a kid in general. Gluten-free food options out there are plentiful and excellent, while dairy-free options are not so much. Dairy sensitivity is also more common. But I aimed to write the story in such a way that Blaire’s struggles could be about any type of food restriction.”

Before drafting Blaire’s books, Jennifer read a few contemporary AG books she was not familiar with and reread a few beloved ones.

“What struck me is that when you have different authors bringing different characters to life, in different settings, each book really stands on its own,” she said. “I was encouraged by the editors at American Girl to bring my specific voice and humor to Blaire’s narrative, and that was also very freeing. I will say that the editors at American Girl are incredible and really help make these stories the best they could be. As an author, I learn with each book, and I learned in spades from them.”

Becoming an American Girl author has certain benefits, Jennifer said. “Some authors get lucky and see their characters come alive on a stage or screen. I’m a different kind of lucky: I got to see my character in doll form and give her a big hug!

“It’s an almost surreal feeling to know that this character, who I spent a year thinking and writing about and rather feels like a third daughter to me, will become part of the imaginations and childhoods of so many kids. I hope young people forge connections with her that inspire, entertain, comfort, and last a lifetime.”

Learn more about Jennifer Castle and Blaire by reading the complete transcript of the author’s interview with Cracking the Cover.

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Blaire launched Jan. 1, 2019, with an 18-inch doll and several outfits, accessories, and products that reflect her experience planning events and working on the farm. As with other Girls of the Year, Blaire also comes with books. Blaire is included with the purchase of the doll. It, along with Blaire Cooks Up a Plan, can be purchased separately for $7.99 each from American Girl or Scholastic.

American Girl sent me Blaire and her books for review and gave me the opportunity to interview the author behind the books, Jennifer Castle. Scroll down to read my review of Blaire and her books and to read my interview with Jennifer, or just click on the links to take you to a specific section: BOOKS — DOLL — INTERVIEW WITH JENNIFER CASTLE

THE BOOKS

MEET BLAIRE

Two books are currently available in the Blaire line, both written by Jennifer Castle and published by American Girl and Scholastic.

BLAIRE, by Jennifer Castle, American Girl and Scholastic Inc., Dec. 26, 2018, softcover, $7.99 (ages 8-12)

Chef. Decorator. Chicken wrangler. Blaire does it all at her family’s restaurant, inn, and farm. Her recent food sensitivity has made her time in the kitchen — and time with friends-a little tough. But now she’s got the perfect distraction — a wedding to plan! With her BFF by her side, and a million creative ideas saved on her tablet, Blaire is sure she can make the farm’s first wedding an epic celebration.

BLAIRE COOKS UP A PLAN, by Erin Teagan and Lucy Truman, American Girl and Scholastic Inc., Dec. 26, 2018, softcover, $7.99 (ages 8-12)

A goat that does tricks. A lamb in pajamas. A celebrity who offers Blaire the opportunity of a lifetime. Things are never boring at Pleasant View Farm! Things get interesting at school, too. Blaire’s determined to find a BIG idea for the Community Service Challenge. Her project becomes personal when she befriends a young girl at the local food pantry. With a love of cooking and a farm full of fresh ingredients, Blaire soon has a plan for making a difference. But it’s going to take help from her whole class — including a mysterious new kid, Eli — to keep Blaire’s creativity from becoming a catastrophe. . . .

REVIEW

I think of all Blaire’s character elements, it’s her food sensitivity that will resonate with most readers. Even if young girls don’t have one themselves, they most likely know at least one person with a food sensitivity or allergy. This gives readers an outlet to share their own experiences or better understand those of others.

Author Jennifer Castle is an experienced author having already 10 books in addition to the Blaire books. That experience comes across in her writing, which is smooth and immediately accessible.

As with the other GOTY books, both books do follow the formulaic American Girl pattern — girl is happy; girl faces problem; girl is sad; girl and friend/s work together to solve problem; happy ending. It’s a formula that’s been around for a long time, and it works, especially in the book-doll format.

Blaire herself, doesn’t come across as mature as Luciana, last year’s GOTY. I think some of this comes from the setting, and I don’t think it’s a huge problem.

I have seen a few complaints on Instagram and Facebook wishing Blaire was either more STEM oriented of a girl of color. I’d like to address both complaints.

1. More and more, research is pushing for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, ART, math) instead of STEM alone. Blaire is a combination of both. She is artistic and creative and uses math in the kitchen and while planning events. I appreciate this whole-minded approach and understand that not every girl is going to want to be a scientist or astronaut even if she’s consistently exposed to those possibilities.
2. Blaire is white. Last year’s GOTY, Luciana is Chilean-American — in other words, a girl of color. In 2017, Gabriela McBride, who is Black, was introduced. While it is true that there was significantly less diversity in previous GOTYs, it seems that American Girl has taken feedback to heart. It also makes sense, based on the previous two years, and the release of BeForever character Nanea Mitchell who is Polynesian in 2017, that the company would release a Caucasian character now.

THE DOLL

The Blaire doll is lovely, and like most American Girl dolls, she’s much prettier out of the box than in. Below is a rundown of the pros and cons to purchasing Blaire:

• Price: Blaire is an 18-inch doll, which runs $115 for the doll and paperback book. The 18-inch Truly Me customizable dolls are $115 for the doll.
• Body: Blaire features a cloth body and plastic extremities. Because her dress is a square neck, you do see where her plastic head and neck are attached to her cloth body. Her skin tone is lighter than previous dolls, but fits with her red hair.
• Face: Blaire’s face mold is the same one used for the Josefina doll. She has green eyes and bright lips.
• Eyes: Each doll seems to have some “controversy” surrounding it, and for Blaire, that debate is over her eyes, which are weighted differently than previous dolls. The complaint is that Blaire appears to be looking down. Upon opening her, I can attest to this observation. As other dolls appear to be looking out while sitting, Blaire appears to be glancing down. Her eyes are a beautiful green color, but if I were buying her as a collector, I may be concerned about the eye angle.
• Hair: Blaire’s hair is a beautiful red/orange shade and comes braided back from her face with big ringlets cascading over her shoulders.
• Box: Blaire comes in the classic American Girl box, which displays her face and lifts open. Rather than being fastened with rubber hair ties, Blaire is held in the box with a heavier plastic, which makes it harder to reattach for storage.
• Clothes: Blaire arrives in a white sundress decorated with bees. She also has a yellow wristband and pink flowers for her hair. Additional clothes include a bridesmaid dress, a floral flair outfit and a gardening outfit with wellies.

MEET JENNIFER

Jennifer Castle writes because she’s always written. When she was a kid, she would make up serialized stories in her head while riding the bus to and from school. She started writing her first (unfinished) novel at the age of 13.

“When something has always been a big part of who you are, and you find that you just love it (even when it’s hard), then there’s pretty much no way you can stop,” Jennifer told Cracking the Cover. “The fact that my writing gets published and shared with actual readers is a giant bonus!”

Jennifer is the author of 12 books for middle grade and young adult readers, including Blaire and Blaire Cooks Up a Plan featuring American Girl’s Girl of the Year 2019 Blaire.

Jennifer came to writing books well prepared. Before moving on to writing full time, she produced educational interactive media for young people, including a website for PBS Kids called It’s My Life.

“I researched and wrote quite a bit about social-emotional issues for preteens, so when it came time to write fiction, I had a good range of knowledge about heavier topics,” Jennifer said. “As a result, my YA novels explore themes such as grief, friendship, identity, depression and learning differences.”

Having grown up in the “Barbie generation,” it wasn’t until her niece became obsessed with the early historical (BeForever) dolls, that Jennifer learned about American Girl.

“Once I had two daughters of my own, AG quickly became a large, positive part of their imaginative play and reading,” the author said. “I always read the books and admired how well-written and carefully crafted they were and knew I would love to author one someday.”

Fast-forward a couple of years. Jennifer had finished writing her fourth YA novel in a row and was looking to switch things up. American Girl had launched its publishing partnership with Scholastic, and Jennifer’s agent suggested submitting her for future projects.

“Of course, I said yes,” Jennifer said. “I knew I was being considered for something when they sent me a list of specific story elements and themes, asking if I had personal connections to any of them. It was an amazing surprise to hear that I’d been selected to write the books for the Girl of the Year 2019!”

Jennifer says she was chosen based on the strength of her previous work, especially her novel Together at Midnight, and her background writing about social-emotional issues.

“The fact that I have experience with adjusting to a food restriction — my younger daughter has Celiac disease and is gluten-free, and I struggled with Crohn’s Disease when I was an adolescent — and live in one of the areas AG was considering as a setting (New York’s Hudson Valley), also came into play. I’m told these selection processes are very competitive, with AG dedicated to finding the right author fit for a character, and I feel extremely fortunate to have been the match for Blaire!”

By the time Jennifer was asked to join the “Blaire project,” American Girl had already decided the character would live on a sustainable farm that included a farm-to-table restaurant and event space, and that she enjoyed cooking and using her creativity to make things beautiful.

From there, it was up to Jennifer to flesh out Blaire’s world, which includes a bed-and-breakfast, animals, a barn renovation and first farm wedding. Jennifer also created characters like Cat (the farm manager), Grandpa, and Blaire’s best friend, Thea.

“The process of working with American Girl and Scholastic on a story is super-collaborative,” Jennifer said. “I think of it as a DNA spiral: my ideas would help evolve theirs, and theirs would come back to push mine further along, and so forth until the finished book.”

Along those lines, “coping with food sensitivities” was part of Blaire’s character sketch from the beginning, but the American Girl editors left it up to Jennifer what type of sensitivity that was.

“I would like to clarify here that a ‘food allergy’ and a ‘food sensitivity’ are different and shouldn’t be confused,” Jennifer said. “The obvious thing would have been to make Blaire gluten-free, like my daughter, but after a lot of pondering and research, I felt dairy would be more challenging for Blaire as a cook and as a kid in general. Gluten-free food options out there are plentiful and excellent, while dairy-free options are not so much. Dairy sensitivity is also more common. But I aimed to write the story in such a way that Blaire’s struggles could be about any type of food restriction.”

Before drafting Blaire’s books, Jennifer read a few contemporary AG books she was not familiar with and reread a few beloved ones.

“What struck me is that when you have different authors bringing different characters to life, in different settings, each book really stands on its own,” she said. “I was encouraged by the editors at American Girl to bring my specific voice and humor to Blaire’s narrative, and that was also very freeing. I will say that the editors at American Girl are incredible and really help make these stories the best they could be. As an author, I learn with each book, and I learned in spades from them.”

Becoming an American Girl author has certain benefits, Jennifer said. “Some authors get lucky and see their characters come alive on a stage or screen. I’m a different kind of lucky: I got to see my character in doll form and give her a big hug!

“It’s an almost surreal feeling to know that this character, who I spent a year thinking and writing about and rather feels like a third daughter to me, will become part of the imaginations and childhoods of so many kids. I hope young people forge connections with her that inspire, entertain, comfort, and last a lifetime.”
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Susan Fletcher has always wanted to be a writer, though she can’t pinpoint why. The author of Journey of the Pale Bear wrote for fun as a child, writing poetry, random musing and lyrics for songs she composed on the piano.

“I think I loved to write partly because reading was so nourishing for me,” Susan told Cracking the Cover. “And partly, too, because I have always loved words—playing with them, their meanings, their sounds. To this day, I collect words, my most recent acquisition being a word in German, morgenfrisk, which means, ‘to feel fresh or lively in the morning.’ I feel morgenfrisky when I wake up and realize I have an entire morning to play with words!”

Susan’s latest book, Journey of the Pale Bear is based on the real story of a polar bear that lived in the Tower of London. The book follows the bear and Arthur, the bear’s young keeper, as they travel from Norway to England.

Journey of the Pale Bear took years longer to write than any other book Susan has written. Life events did slow the process, but Susan also says writing a novel just takes her a long time. “At the beginning of the process, my story is mostly just fog, and the only way to make things clear is to spend time with it—writing, reading, rewriting, thinking.”

There was a lot of research involved, too. “I had to find out a lot about polar bears,” Susan said. “I had to find out about the menagerie in the Tower of London. I had to find out about life aboard 13^th century ships. And just in general, I had to find out how people lived in the 13^th century—what they wore, what they ate, what happened when they were sick or injured, what sorts of things surrounded them.”

Along the way, not only did Arthur’s character develop, but the bear’s did, too. When she started Journey of the Pale Bear, the bear was male, and Arthur was going to be its best buddy. A ways in, Susan became uneasy with this plan. Young male polar bears are among the most dangerous animals on the planet. She began to question the plausibility of a child-bear “friendship.”

“So, I changed the bear to a female, a mother bear who maybe had had some cubs, and I began channeling that whole mother-to-cub kind of energy with the bear and Arthur,” Susan said.

In the book, Arthur has a way with animals. His humming in particular is soothing to the bear. It’s a plot twist that just happened as Susan wrote, but it turns out to be based on reality. After changing the bear from a boy to a girl, Susan learned polar bears do hum.

“I found out from Amy Cutting, a curator at the Oregon Zoo, that polar bear cubs do a kind of humming-thing with their mothers,” Susan said. “In real life! And I’d had no idea of this when Arthur began to hum!”

Susan says she also started writing for the “right reason,” too. “I fell in love with kidlit, some writers in particular: Ursula K. Le Guin, Katherine Paterson, Daniel Pinkwater, Susan Cooper, Eloise McGraw, Laurence Yep, Virginia Hamilton, just for starters. When I read their books I was filled with a combination of envy and longing: If only I could do that!”

Now that she’s found her groove, Susan says story situations are much more interesting to her if she can put a youth in the middle of the action. “I love coming-of-age—that most important time in life, when a character is sailing blithely through childhood and then some earthshaking event comes along, forcing the character to navigate a world more complicated and unprotected than she had imagined before,” she said.

Susan is reticent to speak about current writing projects, particularly when they are in the early stages, but she is working on something with “a little romance in it, and it has something to do with the way developments in science today will affect kids in the future.”

Learn more about Susan Fletcher and Journey of the Pale Bear by reading the complete transcript of her interview with Cracking the Cover.

Susan Fletcher is the acclaimed author of the Dragon Chronicles as well as the award-winning Alphabet of Dreams, Shadow Spinner, Walk Across the Sea, and Falcon in the Glass. Ms. Fletcher lives in Bryan, Texas. To read about the fascinating story behind the inspiration for Journey of the Pale Bear, visit her website, SusanFletcher.com

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“I meandered down different career paths — dance, art, teaching composition,” Ginger told Cracking the Cover. “While each of these things provided me with a creative path, writing provided me a way home.”

In college, Ginger took a writing class from Louise and Tom Plummer called “Memoir and the Imagination.” She began to immerse herself in the assignments and lose track of time. It was then that she realized writing gave her “a sort of therapeutic zen. I dipped into that zen occasionally, writing some creative nonfiction, but it wasn’t until I began writing fiction for children that I really found my place.

Ginger’s debut novel, The Splintered Light, is a middle-grade fantasy that follows a young boy from a world of black-and-white to one of stunning color.

After his brother’s disappearance and his father’s tragic death, eleven-year-old Ishmael lives a monotonous and grief-filled existence on his family’s meager farm. In a world without color, the only break in his sorrow is a strange light that pierces a pane of glass in the barn and splinters Ishmael’s world into a spectrum of color he never knew existed. But even that can’t lift Ishmael’s heavy burden. When the worries become too great for him to bear, Ishmael sets out to find his older brother Luc and bring him home. His search takes him to the Commons, where he discovers a place of wonder and beauty that intrigues him and calls to his heart. —Synopsis provided by Ginger Johnson

The Splintered Light was born, in part, from new motherhood, Ginger said. When her oldest son was a baby, the author read a collection of essays about physics, cosmology, astronomy, etc., called Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos by the science writer K.C. Cole. Ginger pondered these essays a lot while on daily walks through the neighborhood with her son.

“I had a few lucid moments during those sleep-deprived walks when my thoughts about the cosmos collided with the world around me, and in those moments, I was completely taken with the elegance of our world,” Ginger said. “I began seeing everything around me in a new way. Really, why was the sky blue? Why was the earth brown? Why were plants green? I decided that I needed to tell that story.”

Ginger was most likely destined to write a story of this nature. She adores color, and began college as an art major. She “reveled” in mixing oil paints into rich colors then, and she still does now.

“From the beginning, this story was always about color,” Ginger said. “In fact, its original title was Spectrum. It wasn’t until later that I realized that this story was much larger than I had originally intended, and that if this were truly a story about creating and creation, it would, of necessity, require other aspects of creation.”

Ginger began to consider what other halls (building blocks) would need to exist alongside the Hall of Hue. She studied movement, sculpture, smell, taste, biology, and sound, but they weren’t all suited to the most basic units of creating.

So Ginger went back to the beginning. “I asked myself, if I were to create something, how would I go about it? I would first have to design it. Thus came the Hall of Shape. Someone would need to build what was designed. My husband mentioned the word Manufactory, which was perfect — pragmatic, but not artsy. Once I had something designed and built, it would need to move, hence the Hall of Motion. Those three halls were the basic building blocks. From there, came the elements of beauty: Hue, Sound, Scent, and Gustation.”

The Splintered Light is the culmination of a lot of research — the science of light and color; the psychology of color; and the meanings of color were just the beginning.

“When I noted that there were seven colors in a spectrum and there were seven musical notes, I wondered if there could be seven delineations in the other halls,” Ginger said. “I researched each of them, looking for seven basic building blocks for each hall. Surprisingly, most had seven or else they came close. Seven dimensions (Shape). Seven simple machines (Manufactory). Seven types of movement. Seven scents. Seven flavor profiles. I did use a bit of artistic license in formulating some of these groupings, but I tried to stick to science as much as possible to lend an element of believability.”

Ginger is currently working on a companion novel to The Splintered Light that isn’t set directly in the Commons, but there is reference to the Hall of Scent and to the Commons in general. The book is about scent, which, Ginger said, “is really hard to write about. I dare you to try describing a scent without using another scent as comparison.”

Learn more about Ginger Johnson and The Splintered Light, including which hall the author would join and how the book evolved, by reading the complete transcript of her interview with Cracking the Cover.

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“I was raised to believe that storytelling is essential to the human experience, that we need to tell stories to make sense of what happens to us, of our dreams, and of our fears,” Jessie told Cracking the Cover.

Fast-forward to adulthood and Jessie is now the author of The Doughnut Fix, a middle-grade novel about a boy whose world is turned upside down when his parents decide to move from the city to Petersville — a town with one street and no restaurants.

Tristan’s suspicions about his new town are confirmed when he’s tricked into believing the local general store has life-changing, chocolate cream doughnuts, when in fact the owner hasn’t made them in years. And so begins the only thing that could make life in Petersville worth living: getting the recipe, making the doughnuts, and bringing them back to the town through his very own doughnut stand.

Stories often come from unexpected places. In the case of The Doughnut Fix, the spark of an idea came from two seemingly unconnected events.

The first spark came in 2008. Jessie watched as kids were pulled from her son’s school mid-year. It was during the financial crisis, and these families had been hit so hard they had to leave homes and community.

“It was clear that these kids sensed something had gone terribly wrong, but they were never told the complete story,” Jessie said. “Moving can be traumatic enough, and I wondered what that experience would be like if the decision was taken suddenly, and you knew you weren’t getting all the facts.”

The second spark came from a sign in the window of a small market in a very small town that Jessie frequently drives through. It reads: “Yes, we do have Chocolate Cream Donuts!”

“It always made me laugh and wonder what the story behind it might be,” Jessie said. “There was something about the store, one that had seen better days, that made me suspect that it didn’t actually have chocolate cream doughnuts, which made the sign so much better, not as a potential doughnut source, of course, but as story material. A lying sign really got my imagination going.”

Jessie believes there are a number of reasons young readers will be attracted to The Doughnut Fix. “For kids who have siblings, I believe the sibling dynamics will resonate with them,” she said. “And I believe (and have observed) kids really responding to the sense of empowerment that Tris attains through his struggle to start his own doughnut business. In fact, it’s inspired me to launch The Doughnut Fix Start-Your-Own-Business Challenge so they can experience a bit of that for themselves.”

Jessie is currently revising the sequel to The Doughnut Fix, which is set to be published spring 2019.

Learn more about Jessie Janowitz and The Doughnut Fix, including Jessie’s “apprentice novel,” by reading the complete transcript of Jessie’s interview with Cracking the Cover.

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When Grump author Liesl Shurtliff thinks of the books that have meant the most to her in her life, she always goes back to those she read as a child.

“Roald Dahl, Shel Silverstein, Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, just to name a few favorite authors. Their books marked me in ways that don’t compare with books I read as an adult, or even a teen,” Liesl told Cracking the Cover.

That’s not to say the author hasn’t read some amazing YA and adult books, but she says, “there’s something magical about a first book-love, that one that got you hooked on reading. It usually happens in that 8-12 middle-grade age range. It did for me, and it’s always been my hope to write books that could be a kid’s ‘gateway book’ to a reading life. It’s a challenge, a privilege, and a responsibility. It’s also wonderful fun!”

Readers may already know Liesl from her previous Fairly True Tales series including, Rump, Jack and Red. Her latest book, Grump, stars the grumpy dwarf who gets tangled up in Snow White’s feud with the wicked queen.

Even though Liesl had already written three books in the series, Grump took her completely by surprise. “I had always assumed Red would be the last of my fairytales, but about halfway through Red I introduced a surly dwarf who in the course of conversation calls Snow White a spoiled brat,” the author said. “That line caught me off guard, but it stuck with me and I started to wonder what the Snow White tale would look like from a dwarf’s point of view.”

Grump was not much more than an idea for a while. He’s introduced in Red, but beyond learning that he lives underground and eats rocks and that his beard is magic, not much about him is revealed.

“Figuring out what he truly wanted, and how that would drive the story forward, using all the events that happen in the Snow White tale, was kind of a mind-bender,” Liesl said. “I had to chip away at it, little by little.”

And while Liesl was chipping away at Grump’s character, she was working on another “mind-bender.” Liesl’s seven dwarves aren’t all male. That’s right, she decided to mix things up by turning to the source material.

“If you look closely at the Grimms’ version of Snow White there’s actually no solid evidence that all the dwarves are male,” Liesl said. “They don’t have names and are either referred to as ‘first, second, third’ etc. or as a collective ‘they.’ Only two dwarves are specifically referred to with male pronouns, so I find it interesting that we assume they’re all male, probably because they’re miners, and that’s typically work performed by men, and once Disney came out with their version of seven ‘little men’ it was stuck in our brains. So here’s to breaking the mold! I love to shake things up a bit.”

Before Liesl became a writer, she wanted to be a performer, studying music and dance theater at Brigham Young University in Utah. Though that didn’t work out, Liesl says what she learned during that time directly translates to her writing.

Liesl’s college acting classes focused on working on character arc and objective, and that’s something Liesl thinks a lot about as she develops her own characters.

“I’m constantly asking ‘What does my character truly want?’ I ask this of every character, both for the overall story and any given scene. If it isn’t specific, then my story is aimless. If it’s specific, but weak, then my story is meh. If I know what one character wants, but not another, then my story is lopsided. Everything circles back to character objective, and that’s something that my acting professors and coaches drilled into my head on a daily basis.

“I also think the shows I studied and performed have influenced my writing style and voice. I did mostly musical theatre, and I think there’s a kind of cheesy-fluffy musical theatre quality to my books, but with a fair amount of depth and emotion in the mix.”

Liesl is currently working on a time-travel adventure trilogy. The first book, Time Castaways: The Mona Lisa Key will release Sept. 18 from Katherine Tegen/Harper Collins. It’s middle-grade fantasy, but a break from fairytales, which Liesl says she could definitely write more of but doesn’t have any concrete plans at the moment.

*Learn more about Liesl Shurliff and Grump by reading the complete transcript of her interview with Cracking the Cover.

Liesl will be in Salt Lake City Thursday, June 21. She will present and sign books beginning at the Anderson-Foothill Branch Library at 7 p.m. The event is sponsored by The King’s English Bookshop. 

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“As a former teacher, Malala’s story reminded me of the strength and resilience many young people show every day in the face of unspeakable difficulties,” Aisha told Cracking the Cover.

“In Amal Unbound, Amal is a strong girl who faces challenging and unjust circumstances but who, despite everything, never loses hope. I never knew this fierce desire to hold on to hope would ultimately be so timely in our current times I hope it gives hope to young children who are worried and struggling.”

Life is quiet and ordinary in Amal’s Pakistani village, but she had no complaints, and besides, she’s busy pursuing her dream of becoming a teacher one day. Her dreams are temporarily dashed when — as the eldest daughter — she must stay home from school to take care of her siblings. Amal is upset, but she doesn’t lose hope and finds ways to continue learning. Then the unimaginable happens — after an accidental run-in with the son of her village’s corrupt landlord, Amal must work as his family’s servant to pay off her own family’s debt.

Life at the opulent Khan estate is full of heartbreak and struggle for Amal — especially when she inadvertently makes an enemy of a girl named Nabila. Most troubling, though, is Amal’s growing awareness of the Khans’ nefarious dealings. When it becomes clear just how far they will go to protect their interests, Amal realizes she will have to find a way to work with others if they are ever to exact change in a cruel status quo, and if Amal is ever to achieve her dreams.

In Amal Unbound, Amal talks back to the wrong person and ends up an indentured servant. The book deals with big issues, and Aisha didn’t shy away from them. Instead, she worked hard to find the right balance for her audience.

“Writing a story about this topic for the middle-grade audience meant that it was important to portray the situation and the harsh realities honestly but also to make sure that it was age appropriate,” Aisha said. “While the situation Amal is in is a very difficult one, in my authors’ note, I talk about how many in Amal’s situation would face much harsher conditions and would likely never have a happy ending. I hope that the story paired with the author’s note helps strike a balance by giving readers a story about a horrendous practice but written in a manner that keeps it accessible for the target audience.”

Amal’s story is set in Pakisan, but Aisha says her story won’t be as foreign to readers as some might think. “If we are capable of connecting with cartoon rabbits and mice, hobbits, and Star Wars androids and space creatures, I believe American readers will be able to relate to fellow human beings who live beyond our geographic borders,” Aisha said.

“I believe all people can connect with many other people across faith, race, and geographic locations. The world is a beautiful place with people who have many different cultures and faiths but at the end of the day we are all human. Despite all the things that may make us feel we are different from others, there is a core thread of humanity that binds us all together. All of us regardless of where we live have hopes, and fears, and dreams. All of us want a better life for ourselves and our families. I hope when readers have a chance to read Amal Unbound they can see that we have more in common than they had previously thought.”

Aisha is also the author of Written in the Stars, a tale of forbidden love written for young adults. While both her books are written for young people, Aisha says she has never set out to write for a specific age group.

“When it comes to storytelling the most important thing for me to get right and figure out first is the voice,” Aisha said. “I have never specifically limited myself to only writing for and about young people but thus far most of the voices that compel me and draw me into their stories are stories for young people. I am grateful for this because writing for young people is an honor, privilege and joy. As a child, I never saw books featuring children who looked like me as the heroes of their own stories, and it is a moving experience now to have the opportunity to give children the opportunity to see themselves in print.”

Learn more about Amal Unbound and Aisha Saeed, including how Aisha’s past careers influenced her writing, by read the complete transcript of her interview with Cracking the Cover.

WEEK ONE
April 30 – Crossroad Reviews
May 1 – Novels and Necklaces
May 2 – Picture Books to YA
May 3 – Avid Reader
May 4 – Bri’s Book Nook

WEEK TWO
May 7 – Wandering Bark Books
May 8 – Kid Lit Exchange
May 9 – Awkwordly Emma
May 10 – The Book Chamber
May 11 – Fyrekatz Blog

WEEK THREE
May 14 – Cracking the Cover
May 15 – YA Books Central
May 16 – The Grey Duchess
May 17 – Just Add a Word
May 18 – Happy Book Lovers

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