Many people are familiar with the 1957 Central High Crisis—when nine African-American students integrated the Little Rock public high school in the face of segregationist threats and protests—but less famous is the “lost year,” which happened the year after the Crisis. In 1958, the Arkansas governor closed the Little Rock public high schools in order to prevent integration, leaving students and teachers in limbo and the city divided. Kristin Levine’s novel The Lions of Little Rock is about an unlikely friendship that develops during this tumultuous period of history.

In the story, the painfully shy 12-year-old Marlee becomes friends with Liz, an outgoing new girl at her middle school. Liz helps Marlee gain the confidence to give a speech in class, but on the day of the presentation, Marlee learns that Liz has withdrawn from school. Turns out Liz is actually African American, and she was passing as white. After this discovery, Marlee must first decide whether she wishes to remain in contact with Liz—then the two courageous girls face violence and the disapproval of their families as they fight for their friendship.

BookPage spoke with author Levine about her sensitive and compelling historical novel.

During your research about the “lost year,” what surprised you the most?
I actually didn’t start out to write about the “lost year.” I was planning to write a book set during 1957-58 when the Little Rock Nine were integrating Central High School. But when I went to Little Rock to do some interviews, everyone I talked to had much more to say about 1958-59, the year when the schools were closed.

I had never heard about schools being closed to prevent integration. It seemed like such a drastic thing to do—cutting off your nose to spite your face. But as I did more research, I realized this had happened in other places as well, including in my home state of Virginia.

And in some ways, more people were affected by the events of 1958-59. Nearly everyone had a sibling, friend or neighbor who was affected by the four public high schools being closed. Also, the events of the Little Rock Nine have already been written about by those who were there. I eventually decided I could add more to the discussion by writing about the “lost year.”

Did you come across evidence of black children passing as white in Little Rock public schools of this era?
My uncle attended Little Rock public schools, including Central High School, a few years before the Little Rock Nine. While I was interviewing him for The Lions of Little Rock, he mentioned that when he was a student at West Side Junior High, there was a boy who was “there one day and gone the next.” The rumor was that the boy had been black.

While I have no way of knowing if that boy had indeed been “passing,” my uncle and his friends at school believed that he was. I needed a way for my main characters to get to know each other. With a bit of poetic license, passing became a way for my main characters to meet and become friends.

Is the friendship between Marlee and Liz based on a real relationship? Do you believe close interracial friendships like theirs existed in Little Rock of the 1950s?
Yes and no.

On the one hand, I was inspired by the friendship Melba Pattillo Beals (one of the Little Rock Nine) describes in her book, Warriors Don’t Cry. She talks about becoming close to a white boy who pretended to torment her with the others at school, but actually tried to protect her. She often talked to him on the phone at night, and he would warn her about harassment that was being planned for the next day at school. I was especially struck by the episode she describes of driving with him to visit his beloved black nanny. The woman had been dismissed from her position with his family once she became too old and sick to work for them, and the boy and Ms. Beals tried to get her medical care.

On the other hand, I think a friendship of the kind I describe in my book would have been quite unlikely at this time. As I did research, I realized there was very little contact between blacks and whites in Little Rock in the 1950s. My first book, The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had, was set in a small town in Alabama in 1917, and it was surprising to me that there was actually much more contact between blacks and whites in that place and time.

In the end, I guess I’m an optimist. Based on Melba Pattillo Beals’ recollections, I like to imagine that a friendship like Marlee and Liz’s could have happened, even if it wasn’t very likely.

How do you think you would have reacted to the integration had you been a student at Central in 1957?
I believe I would have been supportive of it. Even as a child, I was very interested in issues of moral fairness and doing what was right. My parents have always been interested in social justice as well, and I guess that rubbed off on me.

But it is so hard to say what you would have done until you’ve lived through something like that. I know I would have started out being friendly, but once the threats or name-calling started, would I have continued to be friendly? Or would I have become silent like so many others? I’m not sure, but I hope I would have continued to speak up.

For this book, you had to research historical events as well as identify day-to-day details from ‘50s-era Little Rock. How did you know when you had done sufficient research and could go on to writing your narrative?
I don’t think I was ever quite sure I’d “done enough” research. After a while, I decided I had to just start writing to see if the story would work. If I came to a section where I needed more details, Google made it simple to look up popular “candy flavors” or “fast-food restaurants.” But I continued to do research as I was writing, up until the very end, using books and films, and emailing contacts in Little Rock when necessary. (My favorite comment was from a friend in Little Rock telling me that the elephant’s name was really Ruth, not Bessie as I had imagined. I made that change with the final edits.)

In the end, I guess I’m an optimist. I like to imagine that a friendship like Marlee and Liz’s could have happened, even if it wasn’t very likely.

Between your book and David Margolick’s Elizabeth and Hazel, it seems the Central High Crisis and its aftermath are receiving quite a lot of attention in the public eye. Why do you think Little Rock’s chapter in Civil Rights history remains interesting to writers?
Because school integration is an ongoing issue. In some way, I feel like we’ve recently taken some steps backwards. The schools I attended as I child that were paired to increase their diversity have been “un-paired.” More attention is being given to test scores than promoting equality.

In fact, a few weeks ago I was talking to a group of fifth and sixth graders about The Lions of Little Rock, and explaining how I believe we are still dealing with many of these issues. They immediately understood what I was talking about. “Oh yeah,” one boy said, “Everyone calls [school name] the white school!” An interesting discussion followed about the fact that, although we live in a diverse area, our local schools do not always reflect that diversity.

Why that happens— and what we can do about it—is something I hope my book, and others like it, will inspire people to think about.

Both of your novels frankly address racism and unlikely friendships. Even in 2012, these are not easy topics to write about or discuss. What motivates you to tell your stories?
As a child, I had a wonderful friendship with a boy who was unlike me in many ways. After third grade, he was held back for a year, while I went on to another school, and though we continued to live in the same town, we grew apart. I’ve always remembered that friendship fondly, even though I was teased a lot because of it.

As a white woman, for a long time I felt like I wasn’t qualified to write about race. But then I realized that wasn’t true. Racism isn’t a black issue, or a Hispanic or Asian issue, it’s an issue for anyone who cares about fairness and equality. These are values I hold very dear, which is why I write about them.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy, however. At times, I worry I will say something stupid or unintentionally offensive. In the end, however, I decided that that was a risk I needed to take because being silent just wasn’t enough.

What is your next project?
​I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I’m going to do next. I’ve always wanted to write sci-fi or fantasy, which at first seems like a big leap, but I guess it’s really not. In historical fiction, you’re trying to create a time and place, just like you’re creating a different world in sci-fi or fantasy.

But of course I also really enjoy historical fiction. And now that I’ve based one book on my grandfather (The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had) and one book very loosely on my mother [a Little Rock native], my father is clamoring that it’s HIS turn for a book. So there may be a book about a paperboy in Chicago in my future.

One of our favorite new children's books is Three Times Lucky, a middle grade mystery from first-time author Sheila Turnage. With a lead character who reminds us more than a little of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird, a rollicking cast of Southern eccentrics and plenty of strange goings-on in the tiny town of Tupelo Landing, this beautifully told story is guaranteed to make kids smile, think—and keep turning the pages to see what happens next.

We caught up with Turnage between stops on her book tour to find out more about the spunky young heroine of Three Times Lucky and how the book came to be.

Mo LoBeau is such a wonderful character. How did she first spring up in your imagination?
I know it might sound odd, but one day this 11-year-old girl in plaid sneakers just started kicking at the door of my imagination and saying things like, “Hey, I’m Mo LoBeau. You got a minute? I got a story to tell.”

And there she was, Miss Moses LoBeau. Rising sixth-grader, part-time detective, yellow-belt karate student. I liked her immediately. I listened to her. I started writing and didn’t stop until she’d told her story and solved her mysteries.

What do you like best about Mo? What do you think young readers will admire or identify with when they read about her?
I love Mo’s smarts. Also her humor and toughness—and the vulnerability those qualities hide. I think kids will identify with those traits. And I think they’ll identify with her search for her missing “Upstream Mother” and her place in the world. Oh yeah, and there’s a murder to solve. . . . Everybody loves a mystery!

Author Sheila Turnage near her home in eastern North Carolina.

Why do kids make such good detectives? Would you have been a good detective as a child?
Kids make great detectives because they ARE great detectives. Kids have to figure out everything! How things work, what things mean, how our lives all fit together. I think kids are naturally curious, creative thinkers—two qualities detectives need to ferret out clues and put them together in a way that makes sense. If I’d gone into the detective business as a kid, I like to think I would have been a great one. Maybe not as great as Mo and Dale, but darned good.

The novel includes a very full cast of eccentric characters! Did your friends, family and neighbors in North Carolina inspire many of these characters or are they purely fictional creations?
Good question! All the characters in Three Times Lucky are fiction. As I wrote this book, bits and pieces of my own life morphed into Tupelo Landing, where Three Times Lucky takes place. But no particular person inspired any specific character.

What kind of books did you enjoy as a child and how did that influence your work in Three Times Lucky?
I loved books with vivid characters, and with a sense of place strong enough to make me think I could live there if I wanted to, no matter how unlikely the scenario. That’s what makes a book exciting to me. I loved Tom Sawyer, Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh for those reasons. I also loved mysteries, like the Hardy Boys—exciting books with a puzzle to solve. I guess I like to write what I like to read: exciting books with vivid, heart-felt characters and a strong sense of place.

When you wrote Three Times Lucky, did you set out to create a children's book?
No! I didn’t know it was a novel for kids until it was almost finished, and my agent told me. I wasn’t thinking about who would read it, I was just doing my best to write Mo’s story. I am delighted that it turned out to be for kids!

Can you give us a brief description of the place where you do most of your writing?
At this moment I’m writing in a high-ceilinged room at 9 a.m., with lots of sunlight flowing through the east-facing windows. A ceiling fan swipes overhead. The room’s a little messy: stacks of spiral notebooks, a box of paper for the printer, manuscripts lolling about. I see a half-consumed cup of coffee in my Harry Potter cup, a winter scarf tossed over a chair back, though it’s now May. My computers sit on a large oak teacher’s desk I got at a second hand store years ago. (I consider getting a new desk from time to time, but this one is too heavy to carry downstairs so I will probably use it forever.)

The farmhouse near Greenville, North Carolina, where Sheila Turnage lives and works once belonged to her great-grandparents.

You’ve attended the same writing class for 30 years. What kind of help and support did the class provide while you were writing this novel?
I wrote the first draft of this book at home, and the first time I wrote Three Times Lucky it was three times too long! So I rewrote it to shorten it, and took it to Pat O’Leary’s writing seminar at Pitt Community College in Winterville, North Carolina, for other writers to critique.

There are great writers in that ongoing class—which is for new writers and more experienced writers. We offer each other encouragement, feedback and friendship. The class gives me the chance to develop new skills. Reading about writing is one thing, but for me it’s important to practice the same way a musician practices.

I love that class because it gives me a chance to get good at what I love doing, and it gives me a chance to be part of a creative community.

If you could name yourself something outrageous and a little famous, what would it be?
Wow, I don’t know. How about Tupelo Turnage? It doesn’t have the snap of Sheila Warrior Princess, but I think it works. Don’t you?

RELATED IN BOOKPAGE
Read a review of Three Times Lucky.

Rebecca Stead, the Newbery-winning author of When You Reach Me, has written another heartfelt and funny novel set in New York City. In Liar & Spy, an awkward seventh grader, Georges, moves to a new apartment building and is recruited to join the Spy Club, run by a mysterious boy named Safer. Along with his little sister, Candy, Safer shows Georges that everything in life is not as it seems.

In a Q&A with BookPage, Stead shares the top qualities in a spy—and tells us if lying is ever okay.

Were you nervous about living up to high expectations for your work after you won the Newbery? How did you prepare yourself for writing again?
The bitter truth is that writing always makes me nervous, because to write well I have to expose my innermost self while simultaneously trying to entertain people. It’s a little like dancing in public, without music. Newbery attention makes it harder only because more people are watching.

And I don’t ever prepare myself to write. I have no writing routine. What I do is walk around feeling frustrated that I am not writing, and that frustration builds until finally I start writing. Reading something wonderful is usually what allows me to begin. Something that opens me up and makes me think “oh, what the heck. I may as well go for it.”

Which character do you most identify with in Liar & Spy?
Probably Candy. She is a watcher. And she feels responsible for the people she loves. But if you ask me again tomorrow, I might have a different answer.

What are the most useful qualities in a spy?
An observant personality, the ability to work alone and a good sense of direction.  The sense of direction would be my downfall.

Is it ever okay to tell a lie?
Yes. To be kind, for instance, or to save your life. But I believe that most people probably lie for lesser reasons, almost every day.

Have you ever been tempted to spy on someone or ever caught a glimpse of someone surreptitiously?
Not deliberately. But I live in New York City, where there are a lot of lit windows at night.

A spy needs to have an observant personality, the ability to work alone and a good sense of direction.

When you start writing a book, do you know how it will end? There are twists and turns in your novel, but they feel so natural once the reader figures out what’s going on.
I know very little at the beginning. I have a sense of what I want to get at, but few clear ideas about how I’m going to get there. I write slowly. I don’t think about plot because when I think about plot my mind goes blank and I feel desperate. Instead I think about which characters attract my interest, because where there is interest, there is potential for emotion, and where there is emotion, there is plot. Sometimes I just stop writing for a while, and wait for ideas to bubble up. That’s nerve-wracking. And most people would say it’s the wrong way to go about it.

You have a lot of fun with words and messages in this book, from Georges’ notes with Scrabble tiles to wacky fortune cookie fortunes. Does this interest extend to your real life?
Well, I don’t have the patience for Scrabble, most days. I like Bananagrams. My notes are boring and practical. But I love thinking about why things are the way they are, and how they might be different. I guess you could say that I love to question the premise, especially when I’m writing.

When you were in middle school, where did you sit in the cafeteria? Like Georges, did you ever have to remind yourself to look at the big picture and realize that social awkwardness will (hopefully) pass?
I can’t even remember what my middle-school cafeteria looked like. We mostly went out for lunch. But middle school was the only time in my life when I was regularly called names—names that had to do with how I looked, or what I wore, or who my friends were. I remember the feeling of walking down the hall and not knowing when some verbal or physical jab might be thrown at me. But I was lucky—I had one good friend. So I was always basically okay.

Safer and Candy are allowed to name themselves. If your parents had let you name yourself, what would you have chosen?
Probably something awful. I don’t have a middle name, and when I was little I used to try to think of good ones. For a while I decided my middle name was Mario, pronounced ma-REE-oh. And when I was about six, my middle name was Amanda, because I was trying desperately to please a girl named Amanda. I remember eating Chap-Stik when she asked me to. Apparently I would do anything for her.

What’s the last book you read that you really want to recommend to someone else?
The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson. It’s a beautifully written, amazing (and fictional) story about one man’s life in North Korea. World-building at its best.

RELATED CONTENT
Read a review of Liar & Spy.

Author Shannon Hale set the bar high for herself with the publication of Princess Academy in 2005. The fairy tale won a Newbery Honor, and countless fans were taken with the book’s heroine, Miri, and her home in Mount Eskel. Hale intended the novel to stand alone, but Miri, Britta and friends bubbled to the surface of her thoughts over time, and a new story took root.

In Princess Academy: Palace of Stone, Miri journeys to Asland and is caught up in a fledgling political movement. Her loyalties are tested as she tries to unite intellect and instinct and do right by her new friends, along with her home and family.

We contacted Hale at her home in Utah to ask a few questions about how the magic happens.

You originally thought Princess Academy would be a stand-alone story. How did you know you weren't done telling it? What prompted you to write a sequel?
It was one word: revolution. I thought I knew what Miri and her friends were up to after Princess Academy, but about three years ago that word popped into my mind and changed everything. I was so intrigued by the idea of it that I had to tell the story.?

Politics run deep throughout Palace of Stone. Issues of class, fairness and appearance vs. reality infuse the story. What (if anything) do you hope young readers will take away from this that might be useful when studying present-day events?
I hope they get whatever they need from the book. Stories have that wonderful elasticity to them, don't they? We can read about long ago, compare to our day and see things anew. I didn't write the story toward any particular moral or lesson. I tried to be as true to the characters and their story as I could with the hope that readers today could relate and allow the story to help them think through whatever questions they have.

Miri's letters home to Marda are short but bring us so much closer to Miri. Her heart, intelligence and humor come through in an intimate way, apart from all the action. Why did you decide to incorporate letters into the story?
Thank you! It was really one of those moments of grace that I can't plan for. Somewhere in those muggy fourth or fifth drafts, I depend on an idea to occur to me that will help make the story better. I wanted to hear Miri's voice more, I wanted her to be able to connect with home and family so far away and keep Mount Eskel real and present in the action. And then I wrote the words, "Dear Marda," and thought, "Ah-ha!" I had about four letters in one draft, my editor said, "I wouldn't mind more," and they ended up adding this extra layer and voice I was grateful for.

Adolescence is that wonderful time when we start to decide who, exactly, we are. So much of who we are is who we choose to be with. As part of growing up, Miri had to make that choice.

Why do most chapters open with a bit of verse or song?
Ay yi yi, the sticky situations writers get themselves into! In Princess Academy, singing was an important cultural exercise, so I started writing out bits of their songs to help create the setting. I naively thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a song at the beginning of each chapter that reflects the upcoming action in an interesting way?" It ended up being one of the most challenging parts of writing that book. I'd set a precedent so I had to do the same for Palace of Stone! I love them now and am glad I put in the sweat. In Palace of Stone, I was able to use not only songs but poems, plays, chants and mnemonic devices. Miri encounters such a bigger, more complicated world in the second book, and I wanted those verses to reflect that.

Miri loves Peder, but his seeming indifference leads her to infatuation with Timon, who may or may not be good for her. This theme occurs in so many ways in YA fiction; why do you think that is? Why did you want Miri to have two suitors?
I think the love triangle is a very effective tool for exploring romance and protracting romantic tension in any book. However, I never thought "love triangle" when I was writing Palace of Stone. A core question of this story is Miri's choice; Mount Eskel or Asland? Peder was her first love from her home, her childhood friend. I wanted her to meet someone who represented the excitement, passion, and complications of the capital city. I wanted the tension of her choice to be reflected in those closest to her. Adolescence is that wonderful time when we start to decide who, exactly, we are. So much of who we are is who we choose to be with. As part of growing up, Miri had to make that choice.

The magic in this book seems to say that where you come from holds great power. Linder can be a communication tool, but too much exposure can crowd the mind and be distracting. Where did the idea of linder first come from, and how did it grow over these two books?
Ooh, I love all your thoughts on the story. That's really beautiful. In Princess Academy, I knew I wanted the setting to be rustic or remote, in contrast with the royal errand placed on it. Once I decided mountaintop quarriers, the story really started to take shape. In researching quarrying, I learned how dangerous the profession was and how the deafening sounds made it impossible to hear warnings or commands. I wanted the villagers to have some talent that was all their own, and so this silent communication made sense. I enjoyed using quarry-speech to explore all those ideas of communication, balance, memory and kinship. For a second book, I knew I'd have to raise the stakes. As Miri grows, so does her power and influence. ?

Female friendships are important to the story, but often fraught with complications due to class or etiquette expectations. What can readers learn from Miri's use of diplomacy to improve relationships?
I think there's a real art to friendship. I think as a young girl, I would have liked to know that friendship is both vital and a struggle for everyone, but that one can learn how to be a better friend. There were tools that could help the earnest, lost little girl I was navigate those tricky relationships. I hope if anything from Miri's experiences resonates with readers, they might feel less alone and better equipped to be the kind of friend they'd like to have.

If Miri lived in the U.S. in the present day, her age notwithstanding, do you think she'd have a shot in politics?
Oh sure! Why not? She's got passion, a strong sense of justice and equality, and intelligence . . . wait, are those prerequisites for politics in the U.S.??

Fill in the blank: If I ruled the world, my first act would be ______.
To guarantee every child access to a good education.?

The skills Miri acquired in the first book are put to use in this one, and she ends up finding a way to fulfill several of her desires. Her future holds great potential, which begs the question: Might there be a volume three?
I was very secretive when writing Palace of Stone. For about a year, no one knew I was working on it besides my husband. But I feel less shy about it now. Yes, there will be a third. I want each book to stand alone. I'm not great at writing a traditional series, I think. But a question came up while writing Palace of Stone, and I soon realized that the answer was another book. And hopefully this one won't take me seven years to complete.?

It all started in a doctor’s office more than 20 years ago. Alice Randall (The Wind Done Gone, Ada’s Rules) and her daughter, Caroline Randall Williams (now 25), filled their hour-long wait not with old editions of Highlights magazine, but instead with their own story of a little black princess on a magical island.

Since that day, like the staples of early African-American folklore—Br’er Rabbit, John Henry, Stagger Lee—the fairy tale of B.B. Bright has grown, layer upon layer, enveloped in oral history by a mother and her daughter. Precocious B.B. comes to life in their first book together, The Diary of B.B. Bright, Possible Princess.

“B.B. was the princess of infinite possibilities,” Caroline says. “One of the big things my mom always said to me is ‘Smart people are never bored.’ She’s said that since I was very little, so B.B. was a way of creating my own entertainment.”

The three of us are talking at Longpage, Alice’s home in Nashville, on a sweltering Thursday afternoon. Alice and I are seated at the far end of her colossal handmade dining table, and Caroline joins us via Skype from the University of Mississippi, where she has just started her first semester as a poetry grad student. For both mother and daughter, it’s clear that B.B. represents far more than entertainment: She’s a princess to outshine other princesses, and a black heroine to transform the landscape of black children’s literature.

Black Bee Bright, or B.B., is a 13-year-old orphan under the care of three godmommies on Bright World, an island seemingly suspended among the stars, keeping B.B. separate from the reader’s world (“The Other World”) and her own homeland, Raven World. B.B. is secretly the royal heir to the Raven World throne, but she cannot leave the island until she passes her Official Princess Test and meets the eight princesses on the dangerous side of the island. That’s a tall order for any girl, but B.B.’s not just any girl. She might have dreams of boyfriends, best friends and the cool clothes she sees in magazines, but she also knows the Harlem Renaissance writers, loves Shakespeare and faces the unknown with little fear. B.B. shares her dreams and goals to change the world through smart, zippy entries in her diary.

Any little girl, regardless of race, will find B.B. to be funny, adventurous and inspiring—as well as a quintessential middle school girl—but her rich black cultural heritage is personally important for both Alice and Caroline, who spent their respective childhoods searching in vain for a strong black character.

“As I was writing these stories with Caroline initially, it spoke to me,” Alice says. “It was almost like having the black doll I had wanted in my own childhood.”

“I think that’s a great celebration for all kids in humanity—that your race shouldn’t be a tragedy for you. That, I think, is the most revolutionary thing about our book.”

Caroline did have a black doll, the American Girl doll Addy, but she found Addy’s experiences to be harsh and traumatizing in comparison to the other American Girls’ stories. “The other American Girls, they have their trials,” Caroline says, “but Addy gets whipped by an overseer in the first book.”

Alice chimes in, “And forced to eat a tobacco louse or something!”

“I remember one of my best friends’ moms telling me not to tell her daughter about that,” Caroline says. “We’d all gotten the American Girl books together, and we were talking about them at a sleepover. . . . I was telling what happened in Addy’s first book, and [my friend’s] mom was like, ‘No, we don’t talk about that.’ And I was like, ‘Well, it’s my American Girl book!’ But it is crazy; I shouldn’t have been reading it either!”

Through B.B., Alice and Caroline were able to create a character who is proudly black, well informed about her cultural history, and whose trials have nothing to do with the color of her skin. “One of the things that I really love about this book,” Alice says, “is . . . there’s no trauma over the race. Which is one of the things I think is strange about reading books with black central characters, in particular children’s books, is race is always a trauma. . . . [For B.B.,] it’s not a tragedy. No part of her sadness is around her race, and I think that’s a great celebration for all kids in humanity—that your race shouldn’t be a tragedy for you. But in black children’s literature, it almost always is. That, I think, is the most revolutionary thing about our book. That’s something that Caroline insisted on.”

B.B.’s difficulties come more from the process of growing up and becoming a smart, confident young woman, but her main hurdle, the Official Princess Test, reflects a growing reality in children’s lives: test anxiety. Caroline, who taught elementary school in Mississippi for Teach for America, witnessed first-hand her students’ stress about the upcoming National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test.

“Our students already at six years old were starting to worry about the state test,” Caroline says. It’s no wonder: For children in Mississippi, failure is a real possibility. One out of every 14 kindergarteners and one out of every 15 first graders in the state repeated the school year in 2008. And once behind, Mississippi kids tend to stay behind, as results showed only 61 percent of Mississippi’s students graduated from high school on time, 10 percentage points below the national average. (source)

“[Kids] are constantly being tested,” Alice says, “and their parents are being reproached and praised based on these tests, and the kids were moving on or not moving on based on these hard-and-fast test numbers. . . . We’re coming to an age when people want to see results. And we obviously critique that in certain ways, that these kids are not just test results.”

Plucky B.B., despite the fact that her entire future will be decided by her Official Princess Test, sticks to her guns and answers questions in her own way, even going so far as to interrupt the exam, speak her mind in a very un-princess-y manner and walk out entirely. Afterwards, B.B. must wait to hear her results, but the pressure of possible failure doesn’t keep her down. She works on her candle business (her friendship with bees comes in handy), furthers her involvement in the Heifer Project (though she cannot leave Bright World, she can send mail to the Other World and is very involved in charities there), and then heads off on her own to the other side of the island, where she learns more about herself than any test can prove. B.B.’s no Snow White; she tackles her own problems head on.

“B.B’s sort of actualizing her own things,” Caroline says, “and taking possession of her future as a princess and feeling confident about her own testing choices and having her own sense of self, despite whatever the result may be. She’s gathering her courage from her experiences.”

After encountering such an unforgettable character as B.B., it’s great news to hear that Alice and Caroline hope to continue the series with a second book for B.B., a B.B. picture book and, most excitingly, three more princesses with two books each.

“This is a journey that we are inviting every girl to make,” Alice says. “You’re finding your own leadership skills and your own creativity and your own nurturing, your own intellectualness, your own physical prowess. If you want to say it in a highfalutin way, the Jungian girl-power power.”

At this, Caroline laughs. “Mom,” she groans.

Alice laughs, too. “I said if you want to say it in a highfalutin way! One of Caroline’s great qualities is, she may be smarter than me, but she always keeps it simple. She’s the younger one, but she’s the one who’s wise enough to say, ‘Let’s bring it down to earth.’”

Jacqueline Kelly has had a mole, a badger, a rat and a toad in her head for 50 years. But not to worry—it wasn’t due to anything frightening or medically improbable. Rather, the four are the charming protagonists of The Wind in the Willows, one of Kelly’s lifelong favorite books.

Kelly, a 2010 Newbery Honoree for her first book, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, told BookPage in an interview from her Austin, Texas, home that she was eight years old when she first turned the pages of Kenneth Grahame’s classic tale (which was first published in England in 1908). “I was in bed with the flu, and [the book] immediately transported me to the riverbank,” she says. “I loved everything about it, and reread it over the years. The characters never went away.”

And now, she’s set them free in Return to the Willows, a charming sequel that’s faithful to the original book while adding creative touches of her own.

Some might suggest that Kelly’s got a lot of moxie for writing a sequel to a beloved classic—and adding new characters, to boot—but, she says, “It didn’t occur to me that people would think that. I’m just being a worshipful fan of the original, my favorite book when I was a child.” She is aware there are other sequels out there, and says, “When I started writing, I didn’t know about them, and was rather dismayed when I learned they existed. I made the decision I wasn’t going to read them. . . . I still haven’t.”

When she began to write her sequel, Kelly says it was because she “felt compelled to do it. The characters were being insistent!” Judging from the hilarious and heartwarming result, Kelly (and those characters) made the right decision. Return to the Willows is an engaging, imagination-stimulating read for longtime fans and first-time visitors to the River, Wild Wood and Toad Hall.

"I'm just being a worshipful fan of the original, my favorite book when I was a child."

The author’s adoration shines through in the book’s tone and rhythm; reading Grahame’s book, then Kelly’s, does feel like a continuation, rather than a re-interpretation. She attributes that to the sounds and words of her youth: “My childhood was in Canada, and kids there read more British-based literature than kids in the States do, so I heard that sort of language and tone at an early age. Plus, my family is from New Zealand. . . . It’s easy for me to hear an English accent in my head while I’m writing.”

For American readers who might be puzzled by phrases like “bib and tucker” or words like “tittle” (that’s “best clothing” and “little bit,” respectively), Kelly included footnotes. “I wrestled with it,” she recalls. “Do I keep the British terms? If I convert to American terms, wouldn’t the text look very strange? So I thought I could deal with it by using footnotes, and try to make them entertaining.”

And of course, as a devotee of the book (and author—she’s a member of the Kenneth Grahame Society), she carefully considered things like new technology and those new characters. “I did contemplate—for about two seconds!—giving them computers and cell phones. But I just couldn’t see it. I’m too old-fashioned to see these characters texting each other,” she says.

Kelly decided that new additions would serve the story well, so readers will meet Matilda, a lovely and clever rat, and young Humphrey, the intelligent (and adorable) nephew of Toad. “I thought Matilda needed to be added for contemporary girl readers,” Kelly says, “and Humphrey would be a good foil for Toad, who’s not so smart.”

Speaking of the irresponsible yet irresistible Toad, readers needn’t fret: He’s just as wacky and daring here as he was in Grahame’s original. In Kelly’s story, his new mode of delightful destruction is a hot-air balloon (which is, of course, not unrelated to his own propensity for gassing on). He also sustains a head injury that transforms him into a genius with a seat at Trinity College in Cambridge, where his smarts (and Kelly’s sly humor) know seemingly no bounds. He does the Sunday Times crossword in pen; publishes a scientific paper called “Jam Side Down: A Discourse on the Physics of Falling Toast”; and casually memorizes the score to Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore . . . which comes in handy when he serves as a virtuoso last-minute replacement for the female lead.

There are river excursions, giant explosions, swimming lessons and an all-out animal-on-animal war, too; adventures, friendships, dramatic plots and all sorts of excitement abound (not to mention references ranging from Austen to Shakespeare to a certain Disneyland ride). The striking realism of certain events was aided by consultations with Kelly’s husband, who attended Cambridge and has connections there—and with the explosives experts who work in the federal building in Austin where Kelly practices medicine part-time.

That’s right: Kelly went to medical school, then law school (she no longer practices), and then began to write when she was in her mid-40s. “I always wanted to be a writer, from the very beginning, and I took these long divagations along the way,” she says. “I’m very grateful now . . . this is how I want to spend my time.”

Thanks to Kelly, readers certainly will enjoy spending their time catching up on old friends and meeting new ones along the riverbank. Clint Young’s illustrations add much to the experience; his artwork is masterfully done, with detail, depth and plenty of emotion. Return to the Willows will inspire us to respect nature, be kind to our friends, be open to change, embrace hilarity . . . and perhaps take another, closer look at any furry or amphibious creatures we encounter.

In his first published book, acclaimed director and screenwriter Gary Ross takes young readers on a high-flying journey that stretches all the way from a boy’s bedroom to a pirate-infested island and a hidden canyon. Bartholomew Biddle and the Very Big Wind is a rousing adventure story with a nostalgic feel, told entirely in rhyme and featuring lively illustrations in oil by noted artist Matthew Myers.

Ross is best known as the director of The Hunger Games but his Hollywood breakthrough came in 1988 as screenwriter of the Tom Hanks’ hit Big. He went on to write the screenplays for such films as Dave, Pleasantville and Seabiscuit, and made his directorial debut with Pleasantville. It was during his work as a co-writer on the animated film version of Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux that Ross first made contact with Candlewick Books, which is publishing his new children’s book.

We asked Ross to tell us about the inspiration for Bartholomew Biddle, who swoops and soars across rooftops and questions the status quo wherever he goes.

The character of Bartholomew Biddle was created in 1996 when your friend needed an unpublished children’s story to be read in a film. Why did you decide to turn the story into a book?
I didn't really think about it for a long, long time. I wrote a few stanzas for my friend’s movie then forgot about it for years. After a while inquiries started popping up on the Internet—people asking where they could buy the book. I wrote a little bit more for fun and then put it away again. A few years ago I showed it to Karen Lotz from Candlewick when we were making [the film of] The Tale of Despereaux. She loved it and they bought it and I sat down to write the bulk of the book that year. It was a lot of rhyming that year.

Bartholomew flies through the sky with a bedsheet after he discovers the “granddaddy of winds” outside his room. What inspired this image?
I've always loved to fly. I took flying lessons when I was young. I still take occasional lessons in a helicopter. I'm fascinated and drawn to it. I've always flown in my dreams (the good ones). I think flying is about freedom—literally breaking free from the constraints that hold you down. There is honestly nothing more exhilarating than being up in the air.

Bart encounters several situations in his journey that make him challenge the status quo. Is this part of the message of your book? What lesson do you hope young readers will take from Bartholomew Biddle?
He is constantly questioning. But he challenges rules for rules’ sake. I don't think it's a process of rebellion—it's more about coming to know himself. To have his own ethical code. His own set of rules for himself. Hopefully we all acquire that in life.

How was the process of writing a children’s book different from writing a screenplay?
Honestly, it's completely different. For one thing, you're writing the finished product every day. When I write a film, it's a document that is a plan for a movie that will be filmed one day. When I write a page of verse, that's it. Its a direct communication from me to the reader, so it feels very different and it's very satisfying. Some people have said that there is a cinematic quality to the book, so in that sense, I guess it was influenced by my day job. I suppose I can't help it.

What inspired you to write the book completely in verse? How do you think the rhymes add to experience of reading the book?
Well it's a little like having the music and the lyrics all at once. Rhyme imparts a feel, rhythm, sound: Something that operates beneath the conscious level of the text. When it’s working well, it underscores and supports the content of the text. I have always liked to rhyme and it seemed like a wonderful challenge to tell a long narrative in verse. I wondered if I could sustain that. As I went, the rhyming (thank God) started to feel like second nature. It was a great experience.

Were you involved in choosing Matthew Myers as the book’s illustrator? What do you think his drawings add to the story?
Candlewick showed me several illustrators and I fell in love with Matthew's work. I thought it was loose and free and gestural and at the same time very emotional. I couldn't be happier with the illustrations.

Your twins were one-year-olds when you began the tale of Bartholomew Biddle. Is this story for them? Now that they’re teenagers, what do they think of the book?
They really like it. They've heard it along the way. They both love to read and they love poetry so it was great sharing it with them.

When you were a kid, what did you dream of doing?
My first aspiration was to operate a caterpillar tractor. I thought they looked amazingly cool. Maybe it was the bright yellow. Along the way I wanted to be a surveyor, a chef and president of the United States. But all the time I was writing and acting and putting on shows, so I guess this was always happening even when I didn't realize it. I've also rhymed from a pretty early age so maybe this was inevitable.

What were some of your favorite books as a child?
Wow, so many. Much of Dr. Seuss: If I Ran the Circus, And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, McElligot’s Pool. . . . There was a great book that won the Newbery called The Twenty-One Balloons that I read over and over. As I started to get older it was stuff that many kids love: Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye. It's honestly hard to make a list. I remember loving A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court even when I was very young.  

Are there more children’s books in your future?
I hope so. Several years ago I spent time studying the Civil War era with a professor at Harvard named John Stauffer. He and I have talked about writing a children's history of the era. I love Gombrich's A Little History of the World, a world history written for kids. I think it would be great to tell the story of the era in terms that kids can understand.

Image from Bartholomew Biddle and The Very Big Wind, reprinted with permission of Candlewick Books.

In both of Clare Vanderpool’s artfully written novels, the young protagonists’ fathers yank them out of the lives they’ve known and deposit them in unfamiliar surroundings, where they must make sense of the past and find their way in a strange new present.

But while Abilene (the main character in the 2011 Newbery Medal winner Moon Over Manifest) and 13-year-old Jack Baker of Navigating Early both narrate richly layered tales that explore memory, loss, discovery and redemption, their stories are in fact quite different.

Vanderpool says in an interview from her home in Wichita, Kansas, “Abilene has never lived in one place or been grounded in a community, and that’s what she’s sent to.” By contrast, “Jack was comfortable and grounded, and now he’s at the edge of the country without any bearings.”

Indeed, when Kansas-boy Jack sees the ocean for the first time, he throws up. A bumpy cargo-plane ride to the Maine coast contributed to his stomach upset, but his disorientation also stems from emotional upheaval: World War II has just ended, Jack’s mother has recently died, and his father has brought him east to attend a boys’ boarding school near his military post in Portsmouth. Although Jack can appreciate the salty air, the ocean waves are forbidding and the multi-hued sand reminds him of his beloved mother, who was like “sand that clings to your body, leaving its impression on your skin to remind you of where you’ve been and where you come from.”

Even as he grieves the loss of his mother and his home, Jack begins to explore his new surroundings, goes out for the crew team and becomes friends with a boy named Early Auden. Early is an intelligent, eccentric sort: He’s obsessed with the Appalachian brown bear and timber rattlesnake, plays Billie Holliday only when it rains, and he has excellent water-sports skills, too.

That bundle of attributes make Early irresistibly intriguing to Jack, and as the boys grow closer, Early reveals something even more fascinating: The numbers of pi have colors, and he can read in the numbers a dramatic and exciting story that’s going to help him find that brown bear—and his brother, a soldier who was lost in the war.

Jack listens to each installment of the adventures of Pi (the hero of Early’s tale), but is skeptical about the story, let alone the possibility of finding bear or brother. Even so, he joins Early on his quest: The two explore on land and sea along the Appalachian Trail, and encounter a range of unusual people with their own stories—some scary, some poignant, all of them mysteriously similar to the people and places in the tale of Pi’s journey.

Navigating Early is a complex story, to be sure, and it’s all the more satisfying for its poetic language and intimation that not everything has a logical explanation. Vanderpool herself is quite comfortable with the latter notion. “Jack’s mom introduces that idea to him . . . the way our paths cross, our lives intersect and collide,” she says. “They’re all things I’ve experienced in my own life. I know this story pushes magical realism just a tad, but I’m okay with that because, in my own life, there are amazing things that happen, coincidences and connections you would never expect.”

The novel’s exploration of the ways in which physical places can shape our emotions is also a theme that’s been central to Vanderpool’s experience. “That absolutely comes from me,” she says. “I’ve traveled a lot, and have lived in the same neighborhood my whole life, which I love. It’s very much part of my makeup.” She adds with a laugh, “When I was dating my husband, I joked with him and said, ‘Where you go, I go! Pick any house on these four streets.’” And so he did: They and their four children live in a house two blocks from Vanderpool’s childhood home.

Having her mother nearby is something Vanderpool enjoys, not least because the idea for Navigating Early was touched off by her mother’s description of a vivid dream about a young man who was an exceptionally talented pianist. “That got me thinking,” she says. “I thought it would be interesting to write about a younger character with some type of savant ability.”

She began to do research about savants, and about pi, which, she says, “is the be-all, end-all for people that are into [math]. . . . It has a magical, mystical quality.” A trip to Maine helped solidify the landscape in her mind. And then, Vanderpool says, Early made himself known: “At a certain point,” she explains, “you let go of the inspiration and research and the characters take over. . . . It might sound strange because they’re characters you’re making up, but it’s the only way I can describe it. You give them a chance to tell you who they are.”

Fortunately, Vanderpool was listening. In doing so, she has created a memorable story that is by turns poignant, funny and exciting—and reminds us not to rule out the possibility that there might be a bit of magic in our everyday lives.

Previously best known as the co-author of the mega-selling Animorphs series, Katherine Applegate vaults into the ranks of literary luminaries in the children’s book world as the 2013 winner of the Newbery Medal. Her moving novel, The One and Only Ivan, was inspired by the real-life story of a gorilla caged at a shopping mall in Washington state for 27 years. We caught up with Applegate during the whirlwind that followed Monday’s awards announcement to find out how she was dealing with all the excitement.

What was the first thing that went through your head when you found out you had won the Newbery Medal?
There must have been a clerical error.

Who was the one person you couldn’t wait to tell about your award?
My husband, Michael Grant; my editor, Anne Hoppe; my agent, Elena Mechlin at Pippin Properties—those go without saying. But I also couldn’t wait to tell John Schumacher, librarian extraordinaire, and Colby Sharp, teacher extraordinaire, because they both were such supporters of the book.

Do you have a favorite past Newbery winner?
Sarah, Plain and Tall. Patricia MacLachlan is such a gift to children’s literature.

What's the best part of writing books for a younger audience?
When a kid loves your book, you’re a total rock star.

What kind of reaction have you gotten from your readers about this book?
An outpouring of love for the characters. It’s so touching and humbling.

Have you read or listened to past Newbery acceptance speeches? Are you excited (or worried!) about your own speech?
Yes and yes. I’m thinking of hiring a surrogate.

What’s next for you?
Another blank page. And lots of smiling.

Though his first book for children was 2005's Pond Scum, Alan Silberberg first attracted our attention with the publication of Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze in 2010. This unexpectedly tender book combines humor and insight with Silberberg's own cartoon-style drawings to tell the story of a boy dealing with an aching sense of loss after the death of his mother.

Silberberg turns to a much lighter topic in his latest book, The Awesome, Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt & Craz. The two unlikely friends of the title can't seem to catch a break, either at school, where their comics are rejected by the newspaper editor, or at home, where family issues make life tough. All that changes when Matt and Craz order a cool new drawing pen and discover that it has the magical ability to make anything they draw really happen.

A successful writer and producer for TV and movies before he began writing children's books, Silberberg answered our questions about his entertaining new adventure from his home in Montreal.

Matt and Craz are about as different as two boys could be. Did you base their relationship on a childhood friendship of your own? Did you have any friends who were polar opposites of you?
It's funny, but I didn't base the characters on any of my own friends. The truth is Matt and Craz are both different sides of the kid I was: the cautious cartoonist who was always doodling and the wild, uncensored kid whose mind was spinning and making stuff up.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer/cartoonist?
From 2nd grade on I was that kid sitting in class doodling in the margins of his notebooks. By the time I was 10 or 11 I was making cartoon characters and using my drawings to tell little stories so I felt like I was a "cartoonist" early on and loved filling sheets of paper with my doodles and cartoons. The thing is as a young person I never knew you could "be a writer" but I liked to tell stories and make people laugh. From the time I was a teenager I recognized my ability to listen to other people talk and then toss in a funny comment and get a laugh. But it was in high school that I realized it would be amazingly cool to combine my cartoons and my sense of humor with writing . . . not that I ever imagined I would end up writing books and using my cartoons to help tell the story.

Why did you choose this form for the book—text with occasional drawings—rather than using a comic book style?
A graphic novel—pages of cartoon panels that tell the story in a comic book form—is a wonderful way to tell stories and I would love to tackle that format someday. But telling a story with a narrative format lets me immerse the reader in the story through words, which I believe create a different brain/imagination process. I really love words and there is nothing like writing a wonderful passage. But being able to add cartoon illustrations and doodle punchlines to my narrative—as well as let full page cartoons tell the story—is a very satisfying mix of mediums. If I didn't do both I think my cartooning self would feel jealous of my writer self—and vice versa!

We love your portrayal of Craz's boring English teacher, Mrs. Bentz, but we wonder how teachers will feel about her! Are you expecting any complaints from the (ahem) "educational establishment"?
Oh, I sure hope not. I have nothing but respect and love for English teachers everywhere. I just wanted to create a fun adult character who wasn't evil or mean—someone who was kind of obsessed with one work of literature and that was all she taught, which could get kind of boring after a while. Actually, Matt and Craz find a way to use the magic to give her the best gift ever (no spoilers!). The thing is she isn't at all a "bad" teacher—she's just fixated on Treasure Island to the exclusion of everything else!

With his mother working and his parents split up, Matt struggles to deal with his changing home life, wishing he could use a "big fat eraser to make it all go away." What advice would you have for a kid in Matt's shoes today?
I'm pretty sure the "perfect family" doesn't exist. Kids know this. They are always assessing their own family and seeing how it stacks up to one of their friend's situations. I think it's normal to want to fix your family and make it better no matter the situation. I would want kids to know there is no "magic" solution but there are always people to talk to; friends, teachers, parents. No matter what bad situation you feel you are in – letting someone know what's going on for you is always helpful even if it's just removing that heavy weight from your shoulders.

In the book, Matt's new pen makes his comic strips come to life. It's great seeing these two "rejects" become all-powerful. Did you have a lot of fun coming up with Matt and Craz's adventures? Which is your favorite?
Yes! Creating the specifics of what Matt and Craz will actually "draw" was a blast for me. Of course I wanted some of their desires to be realized so they could see what life might be like if they got everything they wanted. But I also knew I had the chance for some really funny and crazy action because of the pen. My favorite is when the boys craft their perfect Saturday Night – which, of course, goes wildly wrong!

If you had Matt's pen, what would you want to bring to life?
Hmmm. If I had Matt's pen I would draw a fantastic bakery right next door to my house with a big sign that reads "Free Chocolate Chip Cookies". Then I'd draw a gym where I would hopefully go to after my daily trips next door!

You've written books, movies and TV shows. Which do you enjoy the most?
No matter the genre, I love writing and making stuff up but I am basically a "grass is always greener" kind of guy. I think that's why I am always pining for the project I am not doing . . . until I start it and remember how hard that kind of writing is because writing, no matter what you write, is hard! But if I HAD to pick one—writing books gives me the most satisfaction and joy.

Who are your idols/role models in writing for children?
As a kid I loved reading the Sunday comics with my dad. I was really a huge Peanuts fan and I think Charles Schultz's sensitivity and subtle humor had a large impact on me. More recently, I was in love with the odd sensibility and style of Gary Larsen's Far Side cartoons, and also just adore the writing and artwork of Richard Thompson's comic strip Cul de Sac, which sadly has ended. The authors I admire are the ones with an obvious sense of humor who don't talk down to kids, like Roald Dahl and the one and only Daniel Pinkwater—but truthfully, that is a long and growing list.

What message do you hope young readers will take away from Matt and Craz's escapades (and their friendship)?
I would hope kids recognize a little of themselves (and their friends) in my two protagonists and see how it's normal for problems to arise even among the best of friends. I also hope readers will take a little of the magic with them. What wonderful things would they want to create for themselves to make their own lives better?—knowing that you have to be very careful what you wish for!

Illustrations from The Awesome, Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt & Craz, © Alan Silberberg, reprinted with permission of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing.

Maile Meloy’s middle grade books mix adventure with historical fiction, scientific curiosity and a hefty dose of thrilling, mysterious magic. They also feature extensive artwork that helps to tell the story, so Meloy’s fans won’t be surprised to learn that she considers herself a visual thinker.

In fact, Meloy says in a call from her Los Angeles home, it was her habit of using clip art to organize chapters that sparked the idea for publishing the books as illustrated novels. Her middle grade debut, The Apothecary, came about after two screenwriter friends told her their idea for “a movie about a magical apothecary, set during the Cold War.” They eventually decided it should be done as a novel first, with Meloy as the writer. “They provided a beginning and some general ideas. It was fantastic to have that push. . . . And part of the reason why I used art to organize it was because they’re such visual thinkers, too. Over time, it became a great way to make sure I had the right focus, so I’d make sure I had a title and image to go with each chapter.”

The illustrations in her books certainly enhance the story, such as when she wants to “build suspense, or illustrate a samovar or Samoyed dog.” Ian Schoenherr’s artwork is detailed and vibrant, achieving whimsy without being cutesy. Even better, his line work evokes depth and darkness when something scary or sad looms, and it’s just plain fun to turn a page and encounter, say, giant frogs’ eyes calmly contemplating the reader.

The magic in her books, of course, lends itself well to fantastical artwork, and it also provides her characters with the adventure of their lives. After the events of The Apothecary, Janie, Benjamin and Pip have been scattered to the far corners of the world at the beginning of The Apprentices. The year is 1954, two years since they’ve all been together. They’re all dealing with often exciting, sometimes disturbing new realities: Janie has returned to America, where she’s diving into the intellectual challenges at a New England boarding school . . . but a jealous roommate and her sinister father just might upend everything. Benjamin and his father are working together in the midst of war in the Vietnam jungle, and Pip is swanning about Europe enjoying his new TV-star status.

Despite their geographical separation (and lots of hazy memories), they find new, strange ways to communicate and eventually start making their way back to each other as they become embroiled in a race against time to maintain world peace (and perhaps foil a few bad guys along the way). Readers will pick up some fascinating historical information, too, and they’ll be intrigued to encounter kids who sometimes know more than adults, scientists who believe in magic and birds that might not be just birds.

Meloy, who has also published four books for adults, all critically lauded, says she didn’t have to make a concerted effort to change her writing for younger readers. “I did say to myself at one point, I have the Invasion of Nanking in a children’s book—what am I doing?” she says with a laugh. “But I feel like kids do deal with big issues, so that was really the only thing where I decided to tone down the description a bit.” She explains that Janie, who narrates the books, “is writing as an adult, and everything is how she experienced it at 14, so that determined the register, and she can explain things she knows now but didn’t know at 14. Plus, she’s an intelligent kid.”

This isn’t the first time Meloy has worked on stories for children. After graduating from Harvard in the mid-1990s, she moved out to L.A. and worked in what she describes as a “funny little corner of Disney, where they did direct-to-DVD animation of things like sequels to big movies, and fairy-tale-based projects. It was great storytelling training . . . really smart people telling universal stories about love and loss and home.”

Considering her successful career thus far, it’s safe to say she took that training to heart. The Apothecary and The Apprentices have at their heart a group of characters that readers care deeply about, judging by the wonderful letters Meloy’s young fans send her. She says, “You don’t get that when writing books for adults. You don’t get letters with illustrations in the margins, or pleas for a sequel. So that’s really fun.”

Meloy also loves that the covers for both books are gender neutral. “When writing novels for grown-ups, I’d get a cover design and say that no guy will ever pick up this book, and they’d say men don’t read novels. It made me so sad,”she recalls. “With these books, they’re told by a girl, boys have a major part in it, they’re adventures. . . . I’ve really found a lot of the kids that connect to it are boys.” Mother-daughter book groups are particular fans, too.

Boys, girls, young, old: If readers loved The Apothecary, they’ll be thrilled to get their hands on The Apprentices—and to learn that Meloy is now writing a third book about Janie and her cohorts. We can’t share too many details, but she did reveal that Book 3 begins soon after Book 2, and there will be plenty of magic. Let the anticipation begin!

Readers learn on the very first page of Paperboy, Vince Vawter’s touching middle grade novel, that the young narrator has a problem with words, at least with spoken words. “The funny way I talk is not so much like fat pigs in cartoons as I just get stuck on a sound and try to push the word out,” writes the paperboy, who prefers typing on his father’s trusty typewriter to talking.

During one all-important summer, the paperboy will make some important discoveries about himself, about his struggles with stuttering, about human nature and the world in which he lives.

We asked Vawter, who recently retired after a 40-year career as a newspaper writer and editor, to tell us more about this moving and largely autobiographical story.

Just like the paperboy, you’ve struggled with stuttering. What’s the biggest misconception people have about stuttering? How would you set them straight?
Stuttering is caused by the improper movement of muscles in several fine-motor-skill groups. Nothing more, nothing less. It is NOT due to mental capacity or personality traits such as shyness or nervousness. If you talk to a person who stutters, don’t finish sentences or say “just slow down and take your time.”

“If you talk to a person who stutters, don’t finish sentences or say 'just slow down and take your time.' ”

Your novel tells the story of a boy filling in on a friend’s paper route during the summer of 1959 in segregated Memphis. What do you think this setting adds to the story?
While the paperboy is confused about his inability to speak properly, he is just as confused about why the person to whom he is closest, the family housekeeper, is treated differently just because of her color.

The paperboy learns techniques from a speech therapist for helping his words come out easier. How has speech therapy changed since 1959? Are the same techniques used today?
Huge strides have been made in speech therapy since the 1950s. Techniques have been refined to the point where they hardly resemble what was taught 50 years ago. A young person who stutters has much better odds now for overcoming his or her speech difficulties.

What’s the best advice you have for a child struggling with a stutter?
Know that you are going through the toughest time right now. You have work ahead of you, but it gets easier. You will find your voice and you will do well by it.

Though your book has many memorable characters, we especially love the housekeeper, Mam, who gives the paperboy so much love and support. Can you tell us about the inspiration for this character and what you were trying to capture in her?
While all the characters in the book (except for Mr. Spiro) are based on persons from my childhood, Mam is probably the closest to reality. The real “Mam” lived with us for six years and I loved her dearly. It’s hard for me to describe her now as a “housekeeper.” I think of her more as a “soul-keeper.” While Mr. Spiro was erudite and “book smart,” I tried to show that the unschooled Mam was just as wise in her own way.

Author Vince Vawter in 1957, already learning to appreciate the usefulness of a typewriter for telling stories.

Mr. Spiro becomes an influential mentor for the paperboy. How does he forge this connection? What does he do right in his dealings with the boy that most adults can’t seem to manage?
I mentioned earlier that Mr. Spiro was the only character in the novel not based on an actual person from my childhood. During the writing I began to wonder exactly who Mr. Spiro was, and then it occurred to me that Mr. Spiro is the present day Vince Vawter. Mr. Spiro connected with the boy because he saw through the superficiality of the boy’s stutter and helped him find self-worth.

What universal lessons can young readers take away from the paperboy’s very specific struggle with stuttering?
Never measure your worth by what others can or can’t do. Always be true to yourself. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you just might find you get what you need. (Thank you, Mick Jagger.)

For children growing up today, a “paperboy” probably seems as remote as a knight from King Arthur’s realm. Did you have a paper route as a child? How would you describe the job—and its best and worst aspects—to today’s kids?
Just as the paperboy in the book, I substituted on a route for a month during my youth. I am disappointed that the paperboy with a bag hanging from the shoulders is going away. A newspaper route teaches responsibility, above all. If anyone doubts the importance of a newspaper carrier, all one has to do is take a call from an angry subscriber whose newspaper is late or missing.

In the author’s note, you describe Paperboy as “more memoir than fiction.” Why did you decide to tell your story in a novel for children, rather than an autobiography?
The first incarnation of Paperboy was adult fiction about twice the length it is now. The second attempt was as a memoir. My agent convinced me that the proper venue was a novel for young people, and I thank her every day for setting me on that course. Mr. Spiro, a character in the novel, also weighs in on the subject when he tells the paperboy that “more truth can be found in fiction than nonfiction.”

How did your work as a newspaper writer and editor influence your writing style in this book? What changes did you make to adapt your writing for children?
A journalist “tells” and a novelist “shows.” That was my first big hurdle. After I settled on the paperboy’s voice, I found it liberating to write for a younger audience because I didn’t feel obligated to try to impress the reader with literary weightlifting. I could just concentrate on the story. While Paperboy is suitable for the middle grades, I like to make the case that it can be read on another level by adults. How many children’s books include Voltaire, Greek mythology, a unique discussion of the soul and the concept of existentialism? Not to mention Howdy Doody.

Do you have plans to write any more children’s books, perhaps even a sequel to Paperboy? We would love to hear more from Mr. Spiro when he returns from his travels.
My agent says readers will let me know if I should write a sequel. I did leave Mr. Spiro dangling a bit, just in case.

RELATED CONTENT: Read a review of Paperboy.