Book Review: Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord

Touch Blue 
by Cynthia Lord
9780545035316, Scholastic, $16.99, Pub Date: August 2010 

This book is a departure from my usual reading fare. It was a conscious choice - I've been reading so much fantasy lately, I wanted something with a little touch of reality.

Touch Blue is a quick, quiet, and utterly delightful middle grade novel perfect for a New England summer read. Tess Brooks and her family live year-round on an island off the coast of Maine. Her father is a fisherman, her mother, a school teacher. Their way of life is threatened when the state of Maine decrees there are too few children to continue operating the island school. The island families decide to become foster parents, simultaneously giving good homes to children in need and adding enough children to the island to (hopefully) keep the school open.

The storyline follows Tess and her family as they welcome 13-year-old, trumpet-playing Aaron. Tess and her younger sister are so excited to have a friend (possibly an older brother?), and can't understand it when Aaron doesn't return their enthusiasm. Aaron's been bounced around from home-to-home, and still has some secret, contact with his mother. Can this city born-and-bred skittish boy accept the warmth, humor, and lifestyle of the island folks?

What I loved most about this book is that while it can certainly be used as an "issue" novel - as in, hand it to a child as a gentle introduction to what being a foster child can be like - Cynthia Lord has crafted a touching slice-of-life tale of love, family, and lobstering in Maine.

Book Review: Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters by Lesley M.M. Blume

Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters

by Lesley M.M. Blume

Paperback: 9780440421108, Yearling (Random House), $6.50
Hardcover: 9780375835230, Knopf (Random House), $15.95

This post was originally published here in May 2008. It has been edited from its original version.

A quick little review for you of a fantastic book I just plucked off the shelf. Another one of those "read a book for its cover" moments that paid off handsomely.

This was a fabulous read! I was pleasantly surprised to find the content reflected both the title and the cover art. This book reminds me of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, except, you know, shorter, updated, and the storyline is a different. 

Cornelia is the only child of two famous pianists. She's never met her father, and her mother is always off traveling to some foreign part of the world giving piano concerts (hence the orphan-like existence of Sara Crewe). People, especially adults, often relate to Cornelia only as this famous woman's daughter, not as Cornelia herself. As a result, Cornelia spends a lot of her time alone reading books, especially dictionaries, coming up with longer and longer words to use to get people (especially her well-intentioned but nosy housekeeper, Madame Desjardins) to stop talking to her. When a new neighbor moves in across the hall, this famous Somerset sister opens up new worlds of adventure and imagination for Cornelia, with the unexpected improvement of Cornelia's happiness along the way. 

A must-read for anyone who loved A Little Princess or The Penderwicks series. Simple, beautiful descriptive language, and the bonus of funny stories within the story make this a delightful summer read. This could be read aloud to anyone age 6 and up, probably a read-alone for anyone age 8/9 and up.

Book Review: The Penderwicks/The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy

by Jeanne Birdsall

Hardcover: 9780375831430, Knopf (Random House), $15.95

Paperback: 9780440420477, Yearling (Random House), $6.99

 
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

by Jeanne Birdsall

Hardcover: 9780375840906, Knopf (Random House), $15.99

Paperback: 9780440422037, Yearling (Random House), $7.99

This post was originally published here in May 2008. This post has been edited from its original version.

Are you all ready for two fantastic reads? The Penderwicks series by Jeanne Birdsall is the most fun new series to hit the shelves! Get ready for some gushing praise because I love these books! The two tales center around the Penderwicks family made up of a father, 4 daughters, and a loveable, laughable dog. There's nothing better for a summer read than a series set right in New England!

Winner of the National Book Award, the first book, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, takes place in Arundel, Maine, where the Penderwicks go on their summer vacation. Their normal vacation spot is booked, so they end up renting a small cottage on the property of a large house. Before you know it, the four sisters are up to their noses in adventures, involving, at times, yes, two rabbits, the boy next door (friend or foe?), a bull, the gardner, the cook, and much much more. It's an unforgettable summer for the entire family, and it's sure to be an unforgettable read for you!

The second book, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, takes place back home on Gardam Street. It's fall - school time - and also time for a visit from the girls' favorite aunt. Soon the whole house is in an uproar when their favorite aunt suggests the unthinkable: the girls' widowed father should start dating again! Everyone, Dad included, is horrified at this suggestion, and the girls soon hatch the Save-Daddy Plan. Hilarious incidents insue as the girls try to set their father up on one bad date after another. Handled with tact and sensitivity for such a touchy subject, everyone's heart ends up in the right hands by the end of this book.

Jeanne Birdsall calls Northampton, MA her home. She has visited the Odyssey Bookshop on many occasions. Look for signed copies and keep an eye out for book #3 coming in 2011!

Book Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

The Mysterious Benedict Society

by Trenton Lee Stewart, illustrated by Carson Ellis 

Hardcover: 9780316057776, Little, Brown (Hachette), $17.99

Paperback: 9780316003957, Little, Brown, $6.99

This post was originally published here in March 2008. This version on Afterthoughts... has been edited from the original post.

I just finished a book called The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.

First of all, great title and great author name. Let's face it, we all judge books by their covers, and I've noticed an astonishing correlation between good book titles, good author names, and good reads. Admittedly this doesn't always ring true, but try it with your favorite books and see if my theory holds up.

So this book...it's been called a science fiction book but I'm a little bit against placing books in a particular categoy. There are so many stereotypes and connotations (both positive and negative) that go into those words and I'd much rather judge a book on its cover than in its classification. Regardless, I thought it might be a good place to start and then I can break down that science fiction box for you and explain why it's just a good read.

What is "science-fiction-y" about this book is the central plot. Someone has been sending subliminal messages through television and radio broadcasts. They are undetectible by most humans, so though people are receiving and reacting to these messages, they're not conscious or aware of that fact. 

Mr. Benedict (the one of the "Mysterious Benedict Society") IS aware. He's a scientific genius (and one of the good guys in the book) who has figured out a way to translate and record these messages. Even though he used to be a well-respected government official, no one will listen to him now because they've all been slowly brainwashed by those subliminal messages.

This is the best part because this is where the kids come in. Certain children have the ability to resist these subliminal messages. They are young enough and value truth enough that their brains automatically do their best to resist the evil messages. Som Mr. Benedict puts together a team of children as secret spies to go into enemy territory and gather as much information as possible about who and what are sending these messages.

The real story is how this team of four unlikely child heroes have to work together to solve this mission before they themselves can't resist those messages anymore. All four children have unique talents, but they don't know how to work as a team or even how to be friends.  

This book is packed with adventure (though it's not scary), good laughs (though the children in the book don't always think it's funny), friendship, teamwork, and yes, a few fights. It will keep you engrossed right to the very end with some surprising twists and turns. For instance - why did Kate's dad disappear? Does Sticky's family really not care about him? Why is Constance such a sleepy grouchy baby? Will Reynie ever see Miss Perumal again? How can Mr. Benedict appear to be in two places at once? And how on earth are these 4 kids going to stop THE WHISPERER?

Read The Mysterious Benedict Society to find out!

Once you've read the first book, don't forget to check out these two sequels:

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey (book 2)

by Trenton Lee Stewart, illustrated by Diana Sudyka

Hardcover: 9780316057806, Little, Brown, $16.99

Paperback: 9780316036733, Little, Brown, $6.99

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma (book 3)

by Trenton Lee Stewart, illustrated by Diana Sudyka

Hardcover: 9780316045520, Little, Brown, $16.99

Book Review: Alchemy and Meggy Swann by Karen Cushman

Alchemy and Meggy Swann by Karen Cushman
9780547231846, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $16

Meggy Swann is crippled at a time when non-able-bodied people were thought to be cursed by the Devil. She must walk with two crutch-sticks to support her weak and twister legs. Her sour disposition doesn't help her make friends, but which came first – the sour disposition or the near constant taunts and torments from those around her?

At the opening of the novel, she has just been shipped off from the only home she's ever known in a country village tavern to live with her father in Elizabethan London. Having never met or heard of her father before, she has no idea what to expect. Neither does he. Neither one are happy with their situation. Meggy is stuck living in a dark, dingy, dirty house with no food or money while her alchemist father spends all his time upstairs in his laboritorium trying to find the secret to turning things into gold and finding the elixir of life.

As Meggy taps into sources of inner strength, she begins to explore London, and in doing that, unexpectedly makes some of her first human friends. She had brought with her to London her best friend, Louise, a large white goose, which unfortunately gets banished soon after they arrive. Roger Oldham, her father's former apprentice-turned-player (as in play-acting), and his troupe led by Mr. Grimm and Mr. Merrymaker agree to keep Louise out of the slaughter house. Besides the merry band of players, Meggy also gets to know a cooper and his son, and a printer and his family.

When her father sells some men arsenic to kill off a baron, Meggy is shocked to discover her father is desperate enough to consort with murderers in order to earn money for his experiments. She comes up with a plan to warn the baron, but without confessing her father's role. Though she succeeds in warning the baron, her father lives up to his bad character and leaves her stranded and homeless in London. Meggy is dismayed, but the biggest shock comes from finding out she has friends who will help take care of her. She goes to live with the printer and his family to take care of the babies and be an apprentice print-maker. The short novel ends with her dancing for the first time in her life, happy among friends, flirting with Roger, and not quite as sharp-tongued as she first was in the beginning.

Though I did not enjoy as much as The Midwife's Apprentice or Catherine, Called Birdy, there is a similar brilliance in how much Karen Cushman can pack into a 150+ page novel. The historical elements are by far the most interesting, and of course, impeccably researched. There's so much factual information packed into this slim book, and enough of a story to interest the young historical fiction enthusiast. The publisher is marketing this book toward ages 10-14, but I think a strong 8 or 9-year-old reader wouldn't have a problem. Not for every child, but I don't believe Karen Cushman fans will be disappointed.

Book Recommendations for 3rd & 4th Grade Boys

A teacher friend of mine prompted this blog post. Actually, she asked me for this list over a year ago, and she knows how very, truly sorry I am that it's taken me this long to get it for her. Once I had done so, though, I thought I might share it with the world.

The following list is a brief overview of some books that are currently in-print that I think would suit the tastes of boys who are in 3rd or 4th grade, or who are reading at a 3rd or 4th grade level. Having never been a 3rd or 4th grade boy, my opinion comes from having a father, an older brother, and many boy customers, all of whom I observe and talk with about books. The general trend runs toward sports, "funny" books, and action/adventure. I'm also throwing some part-graphic novel titles on here, just for fun.

The original series I recommended at the teacher's request was the Dan Gutman series, Baseball Card Adventures (HarperCollins). These stories featured a boy who upon touching a baseball card, would be transported back in time to meet, say, Mickey Mantle or Shoeless Joe.

Continuing on the sports theme, I would also recommend a series by Loren Long and Phil Bildner, originally known as Barnstormers when it was a hardcover-only series, now known as Sluggers in hardcover/paperback (Simon & Schuster). This has a similar feel to the Dan Gutman series, in that it combines baseball and magic, but aren't high-fantasy (no goblins, trolls, etc.). There are six in the series so far. My favorite aspect of this series is that a lot of baseball terminology and slang are used right in the prose, and then defined in the margins of the page. You get to read a great baseball adventure story and learn baseball vocab - what could be better than that?

One last sports series, that's not baseball specific is the Comeback Kids series by Mike Lupica (Penguin). Each book features a boy playing a different sport; so, for instance, one plays basketball, one football, one baseball, etc.

On to non-sports recommendations:

Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder by Jo Nesbo, illustrated by Mike Lowery (9781416979722, $14.99, Simon & Schuster). The word "fart" is in the title. Need I say more?

The Indian in the Cupboard (series) by Lynne Reid Banks (Random House). An oldie but a goodie, though being sensitive to the portrayal of Native Americans in literature, I have to say this series is typically lacking in its cultural sensitivity and accurate tribal-specific information. That said, I read this series as a kid and it's what, in part, influenced me in becoming a Native American studies major in college. So, you never know.

Never underestimate the power of the Choose Your Own Adventure novel, mostly written by R.A. Montgomery, though other writers fill in the series (Chooseco). These don't need to be read in order. They have started publishing some CYOAs at the beginning chapter book level for 1st and 2nd graders, too.

The Jon Scieszka recommendation section of this post:

Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka (9780670011384, $12.99, Penguin). The subtitle is Tall Tales and Mostly True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka. These tales feature the outlandish (mostly true) events that occur when you grow up as one of six brothers. Pictures of Jon Scieszka and his family are sprinkled throughout the book. Some parents have been sensitive to the cover - it was designed specifically that way to reflect the covers of comic books that Scieszka read as a child that age, not as a political statement of today.

Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things...
(...that aren't as scary, maybe, depending on how you feel about lost lands, stray cellphones, creatures form the sky, parents who disappear in Peru, a man named Lars Farf, and one other story we couldn't quite finish, so maybe you could help us out)
by Nick Hornby, Neil Gaiman, Jon Scieszka, Jonathan Safran Foer, etc. (9780385737470, $12.99, Random House). Besides winning best title of the decade, this book is a great introduction to some fantastic authors. Basically these are all short stories, a few pages long, mostly sci-fi or fantasy-related. A good introduction to this genre and these writers for kids at the Middle Grade reading level.

A similar book for those reading at the higher end of Middle Grade, say 10-14 years old, try Guys Write for Guys Read, edited by Jon Scieszka (9780670011445, $11.99, Penguin). This is the same type of book where all the stories are a few pages long, only not only sci-fi/fantasy-based tales. In this compilation, all the contributing writers are guys, writing for a guy audience.

Part graphic novel, part regular novel recommendations:

Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom & Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000 (series starring Frankie Pickle) by Eric Wight (Simon & Schuster). This series is a little easier reading level for those reluctant readers, more of a 2nd to 3rd grade level. The "every day" scenes are in prose; it's when Frankie's imagination takes over that the graphic novel element comes to life.

Dragonbreath (series) by Ursula Vernon (Penguin). A relatively new series starring a little dragon as the main character, but in the role of a boy; also featuring a foreign exchange student (a salamander) and ninja frogs.

The Fog Mound (trilogy) by Susan Schade and Jon Buller (Simon & Schuster). Recommended by my Simon & Schuster book rep, this series is about a chipmunk named Thelonious who is given the chance to find out if the old stories are true - if people rather than animals once ruled the Earth, and if they did, what happened to the humans?

Now that you've heard my two cents, does the peanut gallery have any favorites they'd like to add?

Book Review: Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist, Book Two: The Basilisk's Lair by R.L. LaFevers

Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist, Book Two: The Basilisk's Lair
by R.L. LaFevers, illustrated by Kelly Murphy
9780547238678, $15, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Pub. Date: June 2010

I'm so excited about this series! It's the perfect blend of text and pictures, adventure and fun, risk but happy endings.

In this second book, Nathaniel and Aunt Phil (who's really a cousin), and of course, Greasle the Gremlin, have received an urgent telegram telling them about the escape of a Basilisk, a creature known as the King of the Serpents. The Dhughani people have been protecting the Basilisk's lair, but someone has found a way to get it out. Nathaniel, as a beastologist-in-training, is only supposed to watch and assist Aunt Phil in recapturing the Basilisk. As in the first novel, things go awry, and it is up to Nathaniel and Greasle to save the day. How exactly does one go about capturing a creature who can kill you with its breath, its smell, its touch, and its gaze? You'll have to read to find out, but I think we all know the answer is very, very carefully.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second book in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, Harry came up against a Basilisk, too. While that fight scene was frightening (to me!) and ended in the Basilisk's death, that is not the same situation in the Nathaniel Fludd book. No one is seriously harmed, and the Basilisk looks more like a type of dragon. It is captured and returned to its cave for the Dhughani people to watch over.

This series, though very different from Harry Potter, might be a good way to judge if your child is ready for reading that older series. If someone gets scared reading Nathaniel Fludd, it's too soon for Harry Potter.

The most exciting part of The Basilisk's Lair came at the end, when Aunt Phil decided it was time to start on home. I can't wait to read book three, where I hope we'll find out more about what might have happened to Nathaniel's parents, and whether they're still alive.

If you haven't read the first one, don't miss it!
Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist, Book One: Flight of the Phoenix
9780547238654, $16, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Book Review: The Birthday Ball by Lois Lowry

The Birthday Ball
by Lois Lowry, illustrated by Jules Feiffer
9780547238692, $16, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Pub. Date: April 2010

Though Princess Patricia Priscilla has everything she could ever want she is utterly bored. To escape her boredom, Princess Patricia Priscilla switches places with her chambermaid Tess, and becomes simple Pat, just another village child going to school. Throughout the week, she gets to know the children in her school, the villagers, and the stern-but-handsome schoolteacher.

Unfortunately, on her 16^th birthday at the end of the week, she is having a big Birthday Ball where she will be forced to choose a suitor – either disgusting Duke Desmond of Dyspepsia, pompous Prince Percival of Pustula, or cranky conjoint Counts Colin and Cuthbert.

Luckily, Pat is smart as well as pretty. She invites all the villagers to the party and gives THEM presents instead! Then she has her mother knight the schoolteacher and chooses him as her suitor.

Additional storylines include Tess, the chambermaid, who is actually the schoolteacher’s long-lost sister, and her crush on the pulley boy; the triplet kitchen maids who sing in three-part harmonies; the little orphan girl in Pat’s school class who ends up charming and civilizing the Duke of Desmond; and of course, what happens to the other suitors.

The story is charming and funny. It reminds me of “A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears” actually written by Jules Feiffer. Similar quirkiness saves a regular “princess goes into disguise and marries former pauper” story from being too, sorry for the pun, pat.

Jules Feiffer’s spot illustrations add an extra humorous touch.

For fans of princess stories with a twist, read-aloud to as young as 6 years-old, read-alone up to age 12-ish.

Jerry Pinkney & Rebecca Stead Interviews in Shelf Awareness

I know, I know, I'm probably the last person to post about the 2010 Newbery & Caldecott Medal winners, but I figured you would have heard about them already. What I don't know if you've read are these two interviews in last week's Shelf Awareness. Shelf Awareness is a publication primarily for booksellers. It comes almost every day, and as I am a busy bookseller, I usually look at 3 or 4 of them at a time, meaning I don't always get to them in the week they've been sent. So, here, late, are two great, albeit brief, interviews with Jerry Pinkney and Rebecca Stead. Congratulations to both of them!

(Also to Libba Bray for winning the Printz for Going Bovine!)

Read the original Jerry Pinkney interview here.
Read the original Rebecca Stead interview here.

Jerry Pinkney: A Story that Resonates

On Monday, after five Caldecott Honor book citations, five Coretta Scott King Awards and four Coretta Scott King Honor Awards, Jerry Pinkney was awarded the 2010 Caldecott Medal for The Lion and the Mouse (Little, Brown). From cover to endpapers to the 40 pages within, the book wordlessly depicts the story of a lion who frees a mouse that may seem small, but who, in turn, frees the mighty lion. Pinkney's first book, The Adventures of Spider (1964), "which by the way was published by Little, Brown," he points out, is still in print. He attended the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) on full scholarship. He has received five New York Times Best Illustrated Awards, was a U.S. nominee for the 1997 Hans Christian Andersen Illustration Medal, and his artwork is in galleries and museums around the world. Next month, the Schomburg Center in Harlem will exhibit 40 pieces that he created in the 1970s (he'll give a talk and sign books on February 6). In November, the Norman Rockwell Museum will exhibit Pinkney's work on the theme of "place."

How did growing up in Philadelphia influence you as an artist?

I was born in 1939, so those early years in the 1940s were a time where we still had the shadow of segregation as far north as Philadelphia. I grew up on a street that was all African-Americans; many had migrated from the South. It was a dead-end street--to the left was an Italian community and to the right was a Jewish community. A lot of my early life was informed by different and separate communities; you see that in my work.

My life was shaped by going to an African-American school that wasn't integrated until I was in junior high. You see in my work the pursuit of telling the African-American experience and also the other side of it, which is how this country is such a patchwork of different cultures and nationalities. I do see the world and my community from the lens of a black person.

You included "The Lion and the Mouse" in your Aesop's Fables (2000). Why did you want to probe more deeply into this fable?

Going into that project, there were three of us looking for well known tales but also lesser known stories. We must have looked at over 200 fables. "The Lion and the Mouse" was at the top of everyone's list. It was always with me as far back as I can remember. It was a favorite of mine--the majestic lion is a favorite for most of us. It's a great fable with a powerful moral. It resonates today as much as it did hundreds of years ago. It's magical, that these two opposite characters both play a role in the same narrative. I was anxious to revisit it because that one spot illustration [in Aesop's Fables] wasn't enough to tell the story the way I wanted to tell it.

How did you plan the pacing of the narrative, given that the pictures tell the entire story?

I knew I would add to the front end, and I've been doing that with some of my other stories with the endpapers. Let's see, how we can lead the reader into the story? How can I prepare you so you go on that journey? Why would the mouse be out on the plains at that time? She'd be searching for food. For herself? Let's add family. Once I added the family on the front end, it made sense for the lion to have a family. I thought it was a treasure of a fable, but did I know the family would be important in the book? No, I didn't know any of that. You listen to what you're doing and what the story's asking.

You recently moved to a new studio, with space to lay out an entire picture book at once. Did that help you in your process with this book?

I think about this often. I don't know if there's a direct line, but I've been there for a year and a half. In that time, I've done The Lion and the Mouse, The Sweethearts of Rhythm and a project on the African burial ground [in New York] that opens next month. [The work] seems more focused and pointed. It's the ability to lay the work out, but it's also an environment that's really for work. There's no telephone, no television or computer. There's no denying there's a difference in the projects since I've been in that space. And the work is more joyful.

The Serengeti landscape is so integral to your book. Have you been there?

I've not been to the Serengeti. It's funny, I met a woman after church who'd bought the book, and she said she'd been to the Serengeti, and she said when she opened the book, she felt she was back there again. One of the reasons I've worked so well with National Geographic and the National Parks is that a lot of it is reinterpreting; what you're doing is reconstructing because a lot of it doesn't exist anymore. I use my imagination to evoke the spirit and the look of a place.

Why do you prefer watercolors?

I've always loved drawing as far back as when I was in college. There are two reasons: first of all, drawing and line has been important to me. In the early stages, for commission projects and for publishing, most of the work was printed in two to three colors, so line was important to the separation process [in which the same piece of art was run through the printer several times with each color separately]. Then I chose a transparent medium because the line is still important to what I do--it's about the importance of the mark and the possibility of that mark.
- Jennifer M. Brown

Rebecca Stead Asks the Big Questions

Rebecca Stead has spent her whole life on the Upper West Side of Manhattan , the setting for her novel When You Reach Me (Wendy Lamb/Random House). For sixth-grader Miranda, the possibilities in that neighborhood seem at first to contract--the day her best friend Sal gets punched by a stranger and stops spending time with her--and then to stretch boundlessly when she begins to make new friends, especially Marcus, and to receive mysterious notes from someone who seems to know her future. On Monday, the book won the 2010 Newbery Medal.

Congratulations! Oh my god. I'm still taking it in. It's pretty wonderful.

Does the neighborhood feel different to you now?

No. I always walk around thinking about all the layers of history in this neighborhood because I've really never left it for any long period of time. I think, 'If I could be standing here in 100 years, and I turned in a circle, what would I see?' That's still with me, and that's the kind of stuff that inspired the book in the first place. I think it's the same, just better because I'm so happy.

Was writing your debut novel, First Light, different from writing your second, When You Reach Me? It was very different, for a whole bunch of reasons. When I was writing First Light, I had so much doubt about my ability to get to the end of a book. I spent at least three years revising it. There was a lot of small work, first with a critique group, and a lot of intense work with Wendy Lamb. There was a lot of fear and doubt because that's how it is with your first book. It felt like hubris to think I could be a "real" writer. The first book was a lot of getting past that. I owe a lot to the people I was working with in those years, especially to Wendy. So with When You Reach Me, I started out in a different place. It was such a different process because I decided to use a lot from my childhood, like the setting, and I tried to channel my sixth-grade self. That was a gift of material, and material is the hardest thing to come by. It was kind of hard and sort of daring to make that decision. I thought, 'Am I really going to go back to my place of growing up?' Once I decided to do that it was easier.

Writing about time travel can't be easy.

There are a lot of challenges in trying to create this kind of puzzle. It's full of these wild ideas and technical impossibilities, but I want it to have its own internal logic. Every time we changed the story, either Wendy or I would find a new reader. We wanted to make sure we had fresh eyes on every draft, because we weren't sure what we'd taken away. People would tell us, "Here's where I got tripped up," "Here's what I found inconsistent." I had some way too complex ideas because I didn't know everything that was happening when I started out. Happily, I was able to let them go and stick with the idea that the simplest solution would be the most elegant and satisfying solution.

Are you a re-reader?

I believe--and this is not an original idea from me--that really strong writing yields more every time you read it. That's why I return to Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies and William Maxwell's So Long See You Tomorrow--which I re-read over and over because I think it's a perfect book--and Alice Munro. That's something I strive to do, to create work that yields something else on the second reading and something else on the third. Did you read and re-read A Wrinkle in Time?

Originally when Miranda was carrying around A Wrinkle in Time, it was a reminder to me that she was a reader who was stubborn and passionate, but she wouldn't give it up, she wouldn't let other things in. She was a bit narrow-minded. A lot of the story, for me, is about her leaving one stage of life and entering another. I wasn't at all sure that we were going to leave A Wrinkle in Time in there. It's such a meaningful book, and so many people feel a connection to it. I didn't want to throw it in as a prop. We talked about taking it out. But another part of me wanted to leave it in there because it's such a brave and wonderful book, and it's not afraid to talk about the small insecurities we have and carry with us throughout our lives. But it also has these wild ideas about the universe and the struggle for good. So what we decided as a group--Wendy and the people who were reading for me--was to see if we could make the connections between my story and A Wrinkle in Time a little deeper. I tried to see Madeleine L'Engle's story from different perspectives, like Marcus's perspective. It yielded these new ideas about the ways that stories can color characters' perspectives about time and what's possible. I think kids talk about huge things that we stop talking about when we're older.

Your book does that. Kids start it over as soon as they've finished it.

I visited a fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade group on Friday. I said, "You can ask me questions while I'm signing, but nothing really hard, because I might misspell your name or something." One student came up and said, "I hope this isn't a hard question: How do you understand time? Is it a loop or what is it?" We had some discussion about it, and of course I couldn't sign books while we had it. He wandered off to his bus still thinking about it, and I thought, "We should all spend more time asking ourselves these big questions." One reason I love writing for this age group is that the kids are so smart and focused and able to wrap their minds around these ideas.

You are clearly comfortable with the idea of time travel.

I think time puzzles are fun and people love them. I never get tired of them--ever. On some level, it's just that humans struggle with the idea that there'll be a time when we're not here. Sometimes when I'm standing on a corner, I think what will be here in 100 years, because it feels impossible that the world will go on without you or that it existed before you. Even though intellectually we know that, it's hard to accept. - Jennifer M. Brown