Middle Grade Memories: Author Adam-Troy Castro (+ Giveaway!)

28 May

This summer, every Monday and Wednesday, I am hosting a series of guest posts here on my blog, a series called Middle Grade Memories. In this series, authors, agents, librarians, and editors talk about their favorite childhood middle grade books. I’m beyond thrilled to share their middle grade memories with you.

Below is the fourth post in the series, by Adam-Troy Castro, author of the upcoming MG book Gustav Gloom and the People Taker, which is the first in a series! Adam also writes fantasy, sci-fi, and horror for adults. Read on as he talks about one of his favorite childhood middle grade books, Dr. Dolittle. Then check out the giveaway!

~*~

It’s impossible to name all the books responsible for addicting me to fiction, and difficult to name many children’s and young-adult books that contributed: I proceeded to grown-up books fairly early, and was devouring the works of Mark Twain, as well as science-fiction authors Robert Sheckley, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, by the time I was ten. (Harlan Ellison joined that list very soon, but I’m not entirely sure that soon.)

So-called kid-lit was lighter on the ground, for me; I remember reading The Wizard Of Oz and The Land Of Oz, but wasn’t sufficiently addicted to move on from there; and though I delighted in books that detailed the adventures of a young boy named Henry Price, cannot now summon enough of the details except to say that, I believe, one of the stories involved donuts.

But that’s not to say I was utterly without such enthusiasms. There was one series that caught my imagination and turned me into a stone fan, intent on finding every volume I could pry out of my local bookstores and libraries.

And what saddens me most about this particular series is that, while today’s youth would likely recognize the name, they would not recognize the character as he always meant to be, but instead a dumbed-down, coarsened pretender, awash in bathroom humor.

The most recent movies, several of them, bearing his name in the title have nothing whatsoever to do with the Doctor Dolittle I love.

I am deeply serious about this.

The true Doctor Dolittle, chronicled in a series of novels by Hugh Lofting, was a marvel: a genial country veterinarian living in what amounted to poverty, circa 1820 or so, and widely considered a crank for his insistence that he could speak the various languages of the animals. Dolittle could bark, meow, moo, cluck, and oink with perfect eloquence, not just making his own thoughts known to the various creatures with whom he shared his home, but plumbing their deepest thoughts and feelings as well, earning their deep loyalty and companionship as he embarked upon a series of adventures and enterprises.

All of this is witnessed and chronicled by young Tommy Stubbins, a street urchin who joins the good Doctor’s household and becomes his chronicler, a la Sherlock Holmes’s friend Doctor John Watson: a fellow not quite as swift as the protagonist, whose amazement at the hero’s accomplishments makes him the audience surrogate.

Now, a premise like this comes equipped with certain built-in oddities, some of which are intentional and some of which may have gone primally unexamined even by the author. The intentional list included the presence of Dab-Dab, an otherwise physically-accurate duck who works as the good Doctor’s chief of household staff; she does his dishes and supervises the cooking of his food, responsibilities that I could not quite jibe with physical realities even as a child. The perhaps-unintentional list includes the Doctor’s diet, which very much does include meat; I clearly remember a particular preference for mutton, though I believe he also had sausages and bacon a few times, a culinary activity that was somehow, never in my memory, ever protested by another of his intelligent, articulate companions, Gub-Gub the pig.

Now, I’m sorry; I’ve never been a vegetarian myself, and persist in blithely eating pork products even after a childhood incident where (I kid you not) I was actually saved from freezing to death by a pig, but I might behave quite differently today if I regularly conversed with pigs and obtained their solemn thoughts on the matter. Now, my memory may be playing me false on this, but somehow, in the Doctor Dolittle books, I don’t believe this ever comes up. Dolittle eats his mutton and chomps his bacon and is still praised by all his furred and feathered friends as a great champion of their kind. This doesn’t exactly deserve closer examination.

More to the point, the books are a marvelous exercise in taking the simple premise as far as they will go. Doctor Dolittle starts entire businesses, with his animals as partners, and even when the titles suggest little room for invention or adventure, the results are always an absolute delight. The volumes include the second through fifth in the series, Doctor Dolittle’s Post Office (1923), certainly the most entertaining book anybody ever attempted to write about the running of a Post Office (at least, before Charles Bukowski); Doctor Dolittle’s Circus  (1924), in which the animals join him in show biz; and Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo (1925), an incredibly ahead-of-its-time volume in which the animals run the titular establishment according to their own needs, while also respecting the genuine interest of human visitors.

After that, there are at least seven more in the series, most of which remained outside my youthful reach, and one of which, Doctor Dolittle on the Moon (1928), still intrigues my adult self through its title alone.

Mostly I remember a firm admonition Dab-Dab gives to young Tommy, during an expedition that seems to have struck disaster: that anybody who travels with Doctor Dolittle is going to be okay. The ships may sink and the houses may burn, but nobody will die. Everybody will survive. (Except, I suppose, for the contributors of that mutton.)

The 1967 film Doctor Dolittle,  which starred Rex Harrison, Samantha Eggar, Anthony Newley and Richard Attenborough, was mostly based on The Voyages Of Doctor Dolittle (1922). It includes perfectly acceptable realizations of such Lofting creations as the two-headed llama known as the Pushmi-Pullyu, the Giant Pink Sea-Snail, and the Giant Lunar Moth. It was unfortunately a financial disaster, not because it was bad (it wasn’t), but because the budget soared thanks in large part to the difficulties of filming with a small menagerie of loud, contrary, incontinent furred-and-feathered divas incapable of concern over meeting their marks or respecting the primacy of human dialogue. It nevertheless contributed a song that has become a children’s standard, “Talk To The Animals.”

I am most assuredly not a fan of the later, coarsely updated film series that began as a vehicle for Eddie Murphy. To my mind, it betrayed everything that was so special about the character in the first place: his absent-mindedness, his essential decency, his insistence on kindness, his inventiveness, and his matter-of-fact courage in the face of outrageous adventure. That’s the Doctor Dolittle I grew up on, and that’s the Doctor Dolittle I deeply miss.

~*~

ABOUT ADAM

Adam-Troy Castro’s twenty-five books include the Philip K. Dick Award winning EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD, first of three featuring the brilliant and tormented trouble-shooter, Andrea Cort. His short fiction has been nominated for two Hugos, three Stokers, and eight Nebulas. Adam’s next major project is a series of middle-grade novels featuring a very strange young boy named Gustav Gloom. The first of these is GUSTAV GLOOM AND THE PEOPLE TAKER, set for release from Grossett and Dunlap in August 2012. Adam lives in Miami with his wife Judi and a trio of insane cats who include Uma Furman, Meow Farrow and Harley Quinn.

website| goodreads

~*~

GIVEAWAY

To celebrate Adam’s fantastic post, I’m giving away an ARC of Gustav Gloom and the People Taker, as well as a copy of the original Dr. Dolittle story!

Check out the cover of Gustav Gloom:

So pretty!

To win a copy of Gustav Gloom and the People Taker, as well as a copy of Dr. Dolittle, simply comment below and tell us about your experience with Dr. Dolittle! Have you read and loved it? How did it influence you? What do you think of the movie adaptations? What are your middle grade memories?

For an extra entry, tweet about this post and include the link to your tweet in your comment.

This giveaway begins now and ends next Monday, June 4 at 12:00 p.m. EST. The winner will be announced shortly thereafter. This giveaway is international.

~*~

Love Middle Grade Memories? Check back on Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the summer for more in this series!

You can view previous Middle Grade Memories posts below:

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

SHADOWS CAST BY STARS – Giveaway!

25 May

I know it seems like I’m doing a TON of giveaways on my blog these days, and I totally am,not gonna lie, but that’s because there are SO MANY GOOD BOOKS OUT THERE, Y’ALL.

And one of them is by my agent sister Catherine Knutsson — a YA dystopian called Shadows Cast By Stars that hits shelves June 5.

This book is haunting and beautifully written, and so different from the typical dystopians out there. From the very first chapter, it captivated me. Plus, check out that gorgeous cover!

To win my ARC of Shadows Cast By Stars – plus a swag pack of a notebook/journal, bookmarks, magnets, a tote bag, and signed bookplate! — check out these instructions:

  1. simply comment on this post for one entry
  2. tweet about this post (and include the link below) for TWO entries
  3. add Shadows Cast by Stars on Goodreads (and include the link to your Goodreads profile below) for THREE entries

Aaand ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, that’s it!

This giveaway is international and ends Wednesday, May 30 at 9:00 p.m. EST.

Good luck!

Tags: , , , , , ,

Middle Grade Memories: Author Jay Kristoff (+ Giveaway!)

23 May

This summer, every Monday and Wednesday, I am hosting a series of guest posts here on my blog, a series called Middle Grade Memories. In this series, authors, agents, librarians, and editors talk about their favorite childhood middle grade books. I’m beyond thrilled to share their middle grade memories with you.

Below is the third post in the series, by Jay Kristoff, author of the upcoming YA Japanese steampunk fantasy Stormdancer, the first in The Lotus War trilogy. Read on as Jay talks about one of his favorite childhood middle grade books, The Hobbit. Then check out our giveaway!

~*~

I was about nine years old when I figured out I was weird.

Not weird like the kids in Village of the Damned are weird, all perfect blonde hair and spooky telepathy and whatnot. I don’t think I ever popped anyone’s head open with miiiind bullets or spoke with a crisp British accent. I just didn’t fit where I was supposed to. It seems almost pseudo-cool to be a geek nowadays, but back in those days, bullies were all over geeks like white on rice and I used to walk five miles every day to school in the snow with no shoes and there was no such things as electricity and I used to get up at the crack of dawn to milk the sheep and butter the pigs and OH GOD I’M TALKING LIKE AN OLD PERSON.

Point is, I didn’t really know where I fit, or what I liked. What it was that was supposed to drive me. So let me tell a story about the day I found out and the book that helped me do it.

One day in English class, little Jay (yes, I’m speaking of myself in the third person, but relax, it’ll pass) got given a book. It was a compilation of great works of fiction. Kinda like a ‘best of’ album, but instead of it being a batch of radio-friendly hits from some balding former rock stars who need to put their kids through college, it was a book with chapters from all these other great books inside. An uberbook, if you will. And flipping through all these wonderful words, little Jay found a chapter called ‘Riddles in the Dark’.

Little Jay read it all the way through. And when he hit the end, he went back and read it again. As anyone with any geek-cred knows, Riddles in the Dark is chapter 5 of J.R.R Tolkein’s The Hobbit. It told the story of a fellow named Bilbo Baggins, who lost his friends in the Misty Mountains and came across a wretched lonely little creature called Gollum. Gollum wanted to eat Bilbo – not just kill him, but literally EAT HIM RAW, which is a pretty awesome/scary concept for a nine year old to wrap his tiny brainmeats around.

Bilbo, understandably, rather enjoyed his current status of ‘not-eaten’, raw or otherwise. And so the pair got into a riddle contest, which Bilbo essentially cheated at, but hey, he escaped without any teeth marks in his butt, so fair’s fair. And at lunchtime, little Jay literally ran to the library and asked “OMG HAVE YOU HEARD OF THIS HOBBIT BOOK THING?” and his lovely school librarian lady smiled sweetly and said “Yes. Yes I have.”

And that moment pretty much changed his life.

Alright, enough of this third person stuff. Point is, finally I had something I felt a kinship with. Finally I found a place I belonged – not just Middle Earth – but a place inside my head where anything and everything was possible. Everything made more sense after that – I realized I wasn’t alone in my weirdness, that there were other people out there like me – enough of them that whole BOOKS were written for them. The Hobbit lit a fire that has never gone out. From Middle Earth I moved onto lands like Narnia, Terabithia, Pern, or Krynn, and now, decades later, I’m building my own. But it all started in that little cave in the Misty Mountains.

It almost seems the done thing amongst ‘hardcore’ fantasy readers these days to disparage Tolkein – to call his works patriarchal or dry, to say he romanticised rural culture and demonized industry out of some misguided desire to cling to an age that never really existed. But when you’re a nine year old kid, you don’t care about any of that. You care about the clever burglar who, despite being small and afraid, became a hero and changed the course of the world. Because that’s what every nine-year-old in the world wants to be. At least every nine-year-old like me.

I used to re-read The Hobbit every now and then, but I don’t do it anymore. Our perceptions of the books we read are shaped by the people we are when we read them. And now that I’m a ‘grown-up’, and a ‘writer’, everything I read gets analysed and dissected like some rat on a slab. I want to leave the Hobbit where it is – on some dusty shelf in my mind, with all its imagined perfection. Because I can honestly say you wouldn’t be reading these words if I hadn’t read Professor Tolkien’s words when I was nine years old, if Bilbo’s story hadn’t awakened me to the magic that lives inside books. And for that alone, it deserves a little romanticized perfection in my head.

But thanks J.R.R. And thanks lovely school librarian lady, too. :)

~*~

ABOUT JAY

Jay Kristoff grew up in the most isolated capital city on earth and fled at his earliest convenience, although he’s been known to trek back for weddings of the particularly nice and funerals of the particularly wealthy. He spent most of his formative years locked in his bedroom with piles of books, or gathered around dimly-lit tables rolling polyhedral dice. Being the holder of an Arts degree, he has no education to speak of.

Jay’s debut novel, Stormdancer, a Japanese-inspired steampunk fantasy, will be published by St Martin’s Press/Tor UK in September 2012 as the first installment of The Lotus War trilogy.

Jay is 6’7 and has approximately 13870 days to live. He abides in Melbourne with his secret agent kung-fu assassin wife, and the world’s laziest Jack Russell.

He does not believe in happy endings

blog | twitter | goodreads

~*~

GIVEAWAY

Jay is awesomely and generously giving away a copy of a Stormdancer-related picture book — made by Jay himself! How awesome is that?! And check out the adorable cover:

To win a copy of The Little Stormdancer, as well as a copy of The Hobbit, simply comment below and tell us about your experience with The Hobbit! Have you read and loved it? How did it influence you? Are you excited about the movie? What are your middle grade memories?

For an extra entry, tweet about this post and include the link to your tweet in your comment.

This giveaway begins now and ends next Tuesday, May 29 at 5:00 p.m. EST. The winner will be announced shortly thereafter. This giveaway is international.

~*~

Love Middle Grade Memories? Check back on Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the summer for more in this series!

You can view previous Middle Grade Memories posts below:

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

GUSTAV GLOOM AND THE PEOPLE TAKER

21 May

Today, I’m over at Shannon Messenger’s blog with a guest post in her Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays series! Come check out my review of Adam-Troy Castro’s upcoming middle grade novel Gustav Gloom and the People Taker, as well as an interview with the author and an ARC giveaway!

clicky clicky

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Middle Grade Memories: Author Sarvenaz Tash (+ Giveaway!)

16 May

This summer, every Monday and Wednesday, I am hosting a series of guest posts here on my blog, a series called Middle Grade Memories. In this series, authors, agents, librarians, and editors talk about their favorite childhood middle grade books. I’m beyond thrilled to share their middle grade memories with you.

Below is the second post in the series, by Sarvenaz Tash, middle grade author of The Mapmaker and the Ghost. Read on as Sarvenaz talks about one of her favorite childhood middle grade books, The Witches. Then check out our giveaway!

~*~

Reading was one of my favorite pastimes as a kid. This is probably not surprising given what I do now! But it was a little surprising, I think, for my family back then. With the exception of my dad (who’s big into history and non-fiction books,) no one in my family was particularly into reading fiction.

I discovered books when my 2nd grade teacher read Beverly Cleary books to us in the classroom. At first, I wanted to buy the books, too, so that when I played teacher with my stuffed animals, I would be doing so more faithfully. (I was a stickler for accuracy.)

But then I discovered the joy of reading them on my own. There were all sorts of stories, all sorts of people to meet and places to go, and they were just waiting for me on thousands and thousands of pages. Even though my family wasn’t big into reading themselves, they sure encouraged my voracious love of it. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

If I had to pick one author who influenced me and my childhood reading (and my writing later on), it would have to be Roald Dahl. The Witches, in particular, was my favorite book of his. But, really, I loved them all. I loved his dark and dry sense of humor. I loved how the adults in his book were at the very least a little twisted and, more often than not, rather sinister. I loved how it never felt like he condescended to kids, like his books always were telling you that–in some ways (like recognizing witches)–kids knew more than adults did.

I think that’s an extremely powerful message when you’re a kid, when it feels like most things are out of your control and like your choices are mostly those of your parents or teachers or other adult figures. There’s something wonderful about being let into a secret club or being told there are some things that are meant just for you.

Roald Dahl passed away when I was nine. And I remember when I heard about it being so sad, because I knew there were only a finite amount of his books I could ever read. I doled them out to myself over the next two years, only taking one out of the library for every other five or six books I checked out. The last one I read of his (for the first time) was The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me. I remember that distinctly.

And I’ve never forgotten what his books meant to me. I know that a lot of the humor and adventure in The Mapmaker and the Ghost, my debut middle grade book, is inspired by him and his work. And maybe, even, a sinister adult or two.

~*~

ABOUT SARVENAZ

Sarvenaz Tash was born in Tehran, Iran and grew up on Long Island, NY. She received her BFA in Film and Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. This means she got to spend most of college running around and making movies (it was a lot of fun). She has dabbled in all sorts of writing including screenwriting, copywriting, and professional tweeting. Sarvenaz currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. The Mapmaker and the Ghost is her debut novel.

Photo by: Corinne Ray

website | blog | twitter | facebook | goodreads

~*~

GIVEAWAY

To win copies of The Witches and The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, as well as a The Mapmaker and the Ghost bookmark, signed bookplate, and sticker set, simply comment below and tell us about your favorite Roald Dahl book! Have you read and loved The Witches? What are your middle grade memories?

For an extra entry, tweet about this post and include the link to your tweet in your comment.

This giveaway begins now and ends next Tuesday, May 22 at 5:00 p.m. EST. The winner will be announced shortly thereafter. This giveaway is U.S./Canada only.

EDITED 5/23: This giveaway is now closed. Congrats to the winner . . .

Tobi Summers!

~*~

Love Middle Grade Memories? Check back on Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the summer for more in this series!

You can view previous Middle Grade Memories posts below:

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Middle Grade Memories: Author Marissa Burt (+ Giveaway!)

14 May

This summer, every Monday and Wednesday, I am hosting a series of guest posts here on my blog, a series called Middle Grade Memories. In this series, authors, agents, librarians, and editors talk about their favorite childhood middle grade books. I’m beyond thrilled to share their middle grade memories with you.

Below is the first post in the series, by Marissa Burt, middle grade fantasy author of Storybound (and its upcoming sequel, Story’s End). Read on as Marissa talks about one of her favorite childhood middle grade books, Where the Red Fern Grows. Then check out her generous giveaway!

~*~

First, for those who aren’t familiar with the story or need a refresher, Marissa has provided a summary from Amazon:

In Where the Red Fern Grows, Billy and his precious coonhound pups romp relentlessly through the Ozarks, trying to “tree” the elusive raccoon. In time, the inseparable trio  wins the coveted gold cup in the annual coon-hunt contest, captures the wily ghost coon, and bravely fights with a mountain lion. When the victory over the mountain lion turns to tragedy, Billy grieves, but learns the beautiful old Native American legend of the sacred red fern that grows over the graves of his dogs. This unforgettable classic belongs on every child’s bookshelf. 

This was one of those books — the stories I couldn’t set down and instead finished in the wee hours of the morning.  I remember tucking the flashlight back into its spot under my mattress and holding the volume to my chest, sobbing into the darkness. You would think it likely that a young girl living in suburbs of Portland might have a difficult time relating to a country boy and his coon-hunting dogs, but the drama of this tale and the powerful writing captivated my imagination.

I cried buckets of tears over Rawls’ masterpiece and reread the final chapters over and over, willing the story to end differently.  I had read other books dealing with death before this, of course, but my animal-loving soul was struck by the finality of it all, especially in the face of the heroic courage of Old Dan and Little Ann.  The themes in Where the Red Fern Grows are complex: the success of having worked hard for something good, the cruelty of the boys, the intensity of the hunt, and the heart-stopping moment with the axe are all woven together with explorations of human loneliness and the joy of animal companionship.

I revisited this book when I taught fifth grade, and I read it aloud to my class after lunch. This proved to be an ill-thought out choice when I found myself struggling to get through the final pages, my voice breaking even as I read the inevitable ending. I doubt there was a dry eye in the room, and the story stayed with us throughout the day as the children talked about death and loved ones  and how that made them feel. I remember that the students’ desire to talk made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say or how to listen and, for a moment, I regretted choosing that book for our read-aloud. You see, I had passed fully into grown-up land and felt the impulse to explain away the injustice of the story or at least to offer some sort of comforting platitudes. Looking back, I rather wish middle-grade me could have been in the class that day. What I really wish I could have done was to pass around the tissue box, sit down, and sob over the unfairness and ugliness of death and revel in the preciousness of life. This is one of the books crafted to make you feel things deeper than you can articulate or even fully understand, which might be one of the reasons why it is the perfect middle-grade read. 

~*~

ABOUT MARISSA

Marissa Burt writes middle grade fantasy and is represented by Laura Langlie of the Laura Langlie Literary Agency. She grew up in Portland, Oregon, and drifted eastward, living in Colorado, Illinois, Tennessee, and South Carolina, before coming back home to the Pacific Northwest.

Along the way, she studied Sociology, Ancient Languages, and Theology and clocked hours as a social worker, barista, 5th grade teacher, bookseller, faculty assistant, and reference librarian. But not all at the same time.

Marissa now lives in the Seattle area with her husband and three sons where she enjoys time spent around family, friends, and good books.

website | blog | twitter | goodreads

~*~

GIVEAWAY

Marissa is giving away one copy of Where the Red Fern Grows and a signed hardcover of her middle grade fantasy novel, Storybound! 

To win, simply comment below and share your thoughts about Where the Red Fern Grows. Did you read this book as a child? What are your middle grade memories?

For an extra entry, tweet about this post and include the link to your tweet in your comment.

This giveaway begins now and ends next Sunday, May 20 at 5:00 p.m. EST. The winner will be announced shortly thereafter. This giveaway is international.

EDITED 5/21: And the winner is . . .

Enbrethiliel

Congratulations, Enbrethiliel! Please email me at clairelegrandbooks [at] gmail [dot] com with your mailing address.

~*~

Love Middle Grade Memories? Check back on Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the summer for more in this series!

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

THE OCTOBER YEAR Has a New Title!

10 May

This is just a quick post to announce that my second middle grade book, The October Year, has a new title!

It’s not that the brilliant people at Simon & Schuster and I didn’t like the first title; nay, we ADORED it and think it’s just as beautiful as the new title. (This is what we crooned to the first title right before we kicked it out the door with a good-bye cupcake in hand.) It’s just that titles are tricksy little hobbitses, that’s all.

So, without further ado, here is the new title of The October Year:

The Year of Shadows

Isn’t it wonderful?? I just love it. Lyrical, mysterious, hinting at sinister goings-on and a time of great change. In other words, absolutely perfect for the story of Olivia Stellatella.

Well? What do you think? :D

Tags: , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries