Shari: Here at MG Book Village, we love to encourage and support debut authors. Today we introduce Cliff Lewis and reveal the cover for his book We The Future, which will release April 18, 2023 from Jolly Fish Press. 

Check out the book’s synopsis below:

I’m from the future. We need you.

Ever since he learned about climate change, twelve-year-old Jonah has dreaded a weather-beaten future where not even his asthma medication can save him. Luckily, a girl from that future arrives just in time to throw Jonah a lifeline.

Sunny traveled back to the 2020s with a mission: help Jonah launch a climate strike big enough to rewrite history. To do it, he’ll have to recruit his entire school before Halloween. Why so soon? Sunny won’t say. But how can Jonah win over 600 classmates when the only thing he dreads more than the end of the world is talking to other kids?

Shari: Hello, Cliff. Thanks for sharing your cover reveal with us! What was it about this topic that prompted you to write a book about it?

Cliff: If you’d like to know about the inspiration for WE THE FUTURE, I’ll kindly ask you to buckle up. It’s kind of a wild story. 

Not long ago, my small Pennsylvania city was rocked by a congressional campaign with so much enthusiasm and community that it started attracting national media. Climate activists from as far Australia rolled into town and set up operations to help get out the vote. My family got swept into this campaign, and we wound up offering our house as a staging location for canvassers. 

Next thing we knew, we had a whole crew of young climate activists sharing in our traditional election-season chili while they helped the campaign reach thousands of voters in our community. And I’m telling you: These folks worked like they were running out of time. They hurried everywhere they went, but not like a workaholic. More like an ambulance. 

I’d cared about the climate crisis before. Heck, more than half of my roof was covered in solar panels. But I’d never really seen how the climate fight could reach beyond my house, my car, my individual lifestyle choices. Those activists showed me what it looks like to team up and fight for big solutions to a big problem—fast.

A few months later, my memory of that campaign sparked the idea for a story about an anxious, asthmatic boy who teams up with a girl from the future to launch a climate strike big enough to rewrite history. I drafted this story at a climate activist’s pace, filling every spare moment with writing, even dictating large portions of the book into my phone during my daily jog. In three months, WE THE FUTURE was finished, which may not sound that fast to some authors, but for me it felt like I’d stretched the very fabric of space-time to get it done. 

Shari: What can you tell us about your main character(s)?

Cliff: When we meet Jonah at the start of WE THE FUTURE, he’s wracked with anxiety about the future of life on earth. After learning about the true dangers of the climate crisis, Jonah has tried to make a difference the only way he knows how—by obsessively cutting himself off from every modern convenience that could possibly contribute to carbon emissions. But Jonah’s climate-hermit-life gets pretty lonely, and eventually it gets pretty deadly when Jonah tries to raise the world’s awareness by attempting a dangerous YouTube stunt.

But, just in the nick of time, a pink astronaut from the year 2100 shows up to save Jonah’s life and show him a better way to make a difference. Sunny has lived through the very worst of the 21st century, so she takes the climate crisis even more seriously than Jonah does. But somehow Sunny’s version of fighting back is more joyful and hopeful than anything Jonah could’ve possibly imagined. 

To set her plan in motion, Sunny gets Jonah to assemble a Crew of climate organizers, all from his own seventh grade class. They recruit a future poet laureate (Paco), a future White House chief of staff (Rashi) and a former best friend of Jonah’s (Gideon)—whose future has yet to be written. 

So, after struggling for so long in this lonely one-man climate fight of his, Jonah is about to learn that saving the world is never a solo mission.

Shari: The cover was designed by Cynthia Della-Rovere, and illustrated by Carl Pearce. Let’s take a look!

Shari: What are your favorite elements of the cover?

Cliff: I can’t stop staring at this cover for two reasons: Reason 1 is the color, and Reason 2 is the Crew. WE THE FUTURE is about a new generation rising up to take on the climate fight, which called for a cover that looked absolutely nothing like yesterday’s environmentalism. Earth-tones and leafy greens were out; we wanted this cover to feel like fire—the fire inside our five heroes and the fire they’re staring down. So that’s the color. Then there’s the Crew. I get chills whenever I look at this final artwork because, even though Jonah and the Crew are threatened by billowing pollution before them and rising floodwaters behind them, these kids show up looking like the fiercest force on planet Earth. 

Shari: What types of readers will be drawn to this story?

Cliff: With all due love and respect to science, WE THE FUTURE is not a science book. So no reluctant reader is going to feel like they’re eating their vegetables while they read it. WE THE FUTURE is pizza kind of book. It’s a hilarious, heart-warming, time-bending adventure. So young readers who couldn’t care less about the climate crisis will still have a blast reading about the time-traveling mischief, the screaming goat that sounds exactly like Chewbacca, and the creepy ice cream truck driven by a pair of vengeful 22nd century inventors. If these readers finish the book with a newfound grasp of climate science, I offer my sincerest apologies.

Of course, plenty of young readers already care quite deeply about the climate crisis. Perhaps right now, some of them are feeling like Jonah, overwhelmed by the enormity of what’s at stake. WE THE FUTURE was written for them, too. Because this book isn’t just about the climate. It’s about activism—and specifically a form of activism called “political organizing.” With Sunny as our guide, the novel takes readers on a thrilling crash course through the community-building, soul-expanding work of collective action. This book will tell the climate-conscious young reader what Sunny tells Jonah early on: “Only you can save the world, but you’ll never do it alone.”

Shari: Thank you so much for joining us today! I love the premise of your book! Where can readers find out more about you and your writing?

Cliff: I’m @heyclifflewis on Insta, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. My TikTok is mostly videos of a little dog named Pippin, but Pippin is a very good boy and I’ll be posting more about WE THE FUTURE in the months ahead, so you should still follow me there if you want. I also have a website at heyclifflewis.com.

Cliff Lewis is a time-traveler from the 1990s, presently parked in the 2020s. He’s a professional writer, a hometown story-slam winner, and a keynote speaker living in Pennsylvania with his wife, their two kids, and a little dog named Pippin. In his spare time, Cliff volunteers for local progressive organizations, which once led to a crew of young climate activists devouring all of his family’s traditional election-day chili.

Shari: Hi Ben! I’m so thrilled you asked MG Book Village to be part of your cover reveal for your new MG book, One Giant Leap, which is due out in 2023. I’m a huge fan of your Eye of Ra series. Tell us what this new book is about!

Ben: And I am also thrilled to have yet another of my cover reveals on MG Book Village! You are all so appreciated and respected in the MG community. Thank you.

I’m flattered that you are a fan of The Eye of Ra series. I loved writing those books. But this latest novel is something new. It’s still full of action, adventure, and characters who need to grow, but this time instead of going the historical fiction route, we venture into the near-future and feature some real hard science about NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon. I’ll let the blurb tease a bit more:

——

I’m pretty sure I’m about to die in space. And I just turned twelve and a half.

Blast off with the four winners of the StellarKid Project on a trip to the International Space Station and then to the Gateway outpost orbiting the Moon! It’s a dream come true until space junk collides with the ISS, turning their epic trip into a nightmare of survival. Alone aboard the Aether starship, the kids have to work as a team to save the adults before the ISS is destroyed. Suit up, cadet, and launch into adventure with One Giant Leap!

——

Publication day is tentatively set for 2/21/23.

Shari: What can you tell us about your main character(s) and the characteristics they bring to the team?

Ben: Finley Scott is the main character and the story is told from his point of view. He has experienced some trauma at home and thinks that by getting far away from his problems that that will somehow shield him from the hurt. By winning the StellarKid Project, he’ll indeed get about as far away as humanly possible with a trip into outer space! Of course, with the challenges of the adventure, and alongside the other three kid winners, he’ll learn that he needs to confront his feelings and share with a trusted friend in order to move forward.

Fin is from Washington state, an inventor, and a tinkerer. David Kalkutten is from Norway, an athlete, and loves video games. Kalpana Agarwal is from India and a computer hacker. Mae Jorgenson is from South Africa, wears a dark leather jacket, and is learning to fly airplanes back home. And they all have secrets…

Shari: With a book set in outer space, I’d love to hear about your research process!  When in the process of writing did you have to do the most research, and what was the most fascinating piece of information you learned?

Ben: Researching this topic was, and continues to be, an endless source of awe and wonder. I love learning, in general, and discovering more about the Artemis missions and how we plan to settle on the Moon with our eyes on Mars has been fascinating and mind-boggling. My 12-year-old son is especially enamored with all subjects space-related and has been teaching me new things just about every day. He has a big Celestron telescope, watches his NASA app for updates, and constantly reads and writes about space. I believe it is entirely in the realm of possibility that he will set foot on the Moon in his lifetime. Or be involved in getting others there. It will be a lot of fun to witness how that evolves for him. Just, hopefully, no space junk. 😉

Shari: What inspired you to write a science-fiction story, and this one in particular?

Ben: I’ve always been a space nut, but with my son’s exuberance for the subject I just had to write something that took us both out past the exosphere. I’m better with writing realistic-ish books, so instead of writing a science fiction with aliens and lasers I wrote a hard science book that is based on events that very well might occur. It’s also a call-to-action about the real problem of space junk in our low-Earth orbit. I’ve described it as the movie Gravity meets Space Camp. I might be dating myself a little with those references, but this is a fun genre for kids who are into space!

Shari: I love that description! Please tell us about the cover of your book and its designers/illustrators.  Did you get to be part of the process?

Ben: Anne Glenn Designs did the cover. She also did the cover for all three of The Eye of Ra series books. She is terrific, very talented, and a pleasure to collaborate with. Working on the cover is about half the fun in writing a book! So fun to see it coming to life.

Shari: It’s time to show everyone this stunning cover!

Shari: This is such a powerful image, full of motion and suspense! What were your thoughts when you first saw it? Is there an element that stands out for you or that you particularly like?

Ben: Anne was great and sent about ten different comps to review. They were all stellar (pun intended). It gave us a lot to chew on and was a ton of fun. Interestingly, there was a version that showed a close-up view of a kid’s face inside of the helmet and didn’t show the floating in outer space or the ship and station. That version was generally more popular with adults. But the version that you see above was generally more popular with kids. It was a pretty overwhelming difference, actually. Gotta give the audience what they want! I do love this cover and since the kids did too, that made the decision easy.

Shari: Where can our readers go to find out more about you and your writing?

Ben: BenGartner.com is the best spot. I’m also active on Twitter (twitter.com/BGartnerWriting) and Insta (instagram.com/BGartnerWriting).

Shari: Can you recommend books that are out now that our audience might enjoy while waiting for One Giant Leap?

Ben: This is a fun question. Some recent reads I’d definitely recommend: Frances and the Monster by Refe Tuma. Daybreak on Raven Island by Fleur Bradley (reading this now and am loving it!). Time Villains: Monster Problems by Victor Piñeiro. Ghosts Come Rising by Adam Perry. The Prince of Steel Pier by Stacy Nockowitz.

On the adult book side, if you’re interested in some very hard science fiction with lots (!) of in-the-weeds accurate details, check out The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield.

Shari: I’m very excited to read this book, especially since I loved the characters you created in The Eye of Ra books. Thank you so much for letting me be part of the cover reveal and chatting with me today.

Ben: It brings me so much joy to share it with you and with the world. Thank you so much, Shari and the rest of the awesome MG Book Village crew!

Ben Gartner is the award-winning author of adventure books for middle graders. His stories take readers for a thrilling ride, maybe even teaching them something on the journey. Ben can be found living and writing near the mountains with his wife and two boys.

Kathie: Hi Jasmine, and welcome to MG Book Village. It’s a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk with you about your new middle-grade novel, A ROVER’S STORY (released on October 4th from HarperCollins). Can you give us a brief synopsis of it, please?

Jasmine: Thank you! It’s a pleasure to be here to chat about it. So my new book, A ROVER’S STORY, is about a Mars rover named Resilience, nicknamed Res—the novel follows Res from his creation in the NASA lab to his dangerous mission to Mars. We watch as Res develops relationships with the NASA scientists as well as the other robots in the lab. All the machines are able to talk to one another in a way that the humans in the book aren’t aware of—sort of like Charlotte’s Web, but with robots! The book is about a lot of things—space adventure, bravery, friendship, and feelings. Especially feelings. Res worries a lot about his feelings—that he has them, that they are the wrong ones, and I really hope it is a book that will provide a framework for young readers to talk about their emotions while also having fun reading about a space adventure.

Kathie: In the reader letter at the start of the book, you mention that the story was inspired by a question from your daughter about the feelings of a Mars rover. I’m curious to know if your daughter read your book or what discussions may have happened with her as you wrote the story.

Jasmine: This is such a great question! So I’m actually answering these questions right now from the Atlanta airport—I was lucky enough to attend Decatur Book Festival this weekend—but when I get home, I’m going to read aloud a few more chapters of A ROVER’S STORY to my daughters. We just started last week when I got the finished copies. I wanted to wait until I had the finished copy because the interior sketches Matt Rockefeller did for the book are so fun. Which is all to say, we aren’t that far into it yet, but Juniper (my youngest daughter who asked the question that inspired the book) seems to love it so far, and that makes my heart very happy. It’s my first book I’ve ever gotten to share with them so that’s very special! I’m hoping when we finish we can have some big conversations about what it means to be scared, what it means to miss home, and what it means to be a friend.

Kathie: A ROVER’S STORY is told mostly from the perspective of Res, the rover being sent to Mars to do scientific research for NASA. How did your writing change to capture the voice of robot as opposed to a person?

Jasmine: I definitely dug deep to try to authentically craft a voice for Res. It was an exercise in imagination, right? I finally settled on a sparse voice, which to me seemed right for a robot, but it has its own texture and cadence, which hopefully help convey the fullness and complexity of Res’s heart and insights. Creating the voice wasn’t actually all that different from creating the voice for human characters. I followed the same process of trying to really get to know Res, and from there, I figured out what he would sound like.

Kathie: Can you tell us a bit about the research you did and an interesting fact that you didn’t include in the book?

Jasmine: A lot of the research I did ended up in the book, just perhaps not in so much detail. For example, at one point in the book, the reader does get a summary of Res’s physical makeup, but there are just so many cool facts about each part of the rover from how intricately engineered the wheels are to how powerful the cameras are, and some of those facts aren’t in the book in full detail because they would sort of slow down the narrative. I also think it’s so cool that Fly, the drone helicopter character in the book, is based off of Ingenuity, the drone helicopter currently on Mars, which is the first object humans have made fly on a planet other than Earth. So all the stuff about the helicopter flying on Mars is actually based on real science!

Kathie: If Res could ask Sophie one question before he leaves for Mars, what do you think it would be?

Jasmine: I’m going to cheat and have two questions. First, have you ever felt scared and what did you do? And two, Do you think I’ll get to come back home to Earth?

Kathie: What’s one thing you learned about yourself as a writer from creating this story?

Jasmine: That I’m the happiest when I’m really stretching my imagination. I hope to continue to get to push myself and my imagination in future projects.

Kathie: Is there something you wish an interviewer would ask you about this book?

Jasmine: You’ve asked such lovely questions so I’m not sure you missed anything about the book, but I would love the chance to shout out some middle grade books I’ve loved this year like THOSE KIDS FROM FAWN CREEK by Erin Entrada Kelly, THE TRYOUT by Christina Soontornvat, and JENNIFER CHAN IS NOT ALONE by Tae Keller. It’s been such a great year for middle grade books!

Kathie: Do you have another writing project on the go, and can you share anything about it with us?

Jasmine: Here’s the truth, I was working on a book for the past year, and just recently, I’ve had the very sad realization that I’m not sure it’s working. I love the characters, but I think they might be in the wrong story. So I’m back to the drawing board, but I’m very excited about a new idea I have. It’s too early to really say anything about it, but it’s another MG book.

Kathie: Thanks so much for answering my questions today, Jasmine, and I wish you all the best with the book’s release.

Jasmine: Thank you so much, Kathie! I’m very excited for readers to meet Res.

Jasmine Warga is the author of the New York Times bestseller Other Words for Home, a Newbery Honor Book and Walter Honor Book for Younger Readers, and The Shape of Thunder. Her teen books, Here We Are Now and My Heart and Other Black Holes, have been translated into over twenty-five languages. She lives in the Chicago area with her family. You can visit Jasmine online at www.jasminewarga.com.

Sixteen years. That’s how long I wrote fiction for young people—seriously, steadily, lovingly—before my debut novel publishes this October.

I’ve learned some things about persistence. I’m excited to share in the hope that it’s helpful to those slogging toward their dreams, too. First, though, I want to acknowledge the privilege it is to write. I mean financial privilege, specifically, among others.

As an unpublished writer, you don’t contact agents or editors until you have a polished manuscript. That means you’ve already spent countless hours—often years—writing and revising, never knowing if someone will read your words or if you’ll earn a cent from your work.

When I took out student loans to return to school to study fiction-writing for kids, my son was 8, and I was a full-time, self-employed magazine freelancer with bills to pay. It was challenging. It would have been much more difficult if, for example, I’d been a single parent. Time is a precious resource for most folks these days, but especially for caretakers and those navigating multiple oppressions.

In 2012 I became terribly ill with two neurological viruses. I was hospitalized for five days, had to quit my library job, and spent a year in bed, unable to do anything, including write. My husband and I were forced to adjust our budget and live on his income. We were lucky we could.

Fortunately, I recovered, but lasting nerve damage and a neurological disorder make it impossible for me to work regularly outside the home now, even part-time. I have plenty of time, which is frustrating because what I don’t have, because of these conditions, is excess energy. That, along with creative bandwidth, also are necessary to write. As I’ve slowly started sharing this part of my life, I’ve met several writers with similar health challenges. Everyone is facing something, I think, and some folks are facing a lot.

With that said and the caveat that your mileage may vary, here’s what I did when I wanted to quit:

• I gave myself permission to quit. It’s okay to take a break—for a week, a month or however long you need or want. (Sometimes life circumstances give you no choice.) It’s also okay to just…stop. Our creativity and stories are important—for ourselves and the world. But there are many ways to share them.

I love to write. Sometimes it’s hard—I’ve been stuck for months on plot issues in my current novel—but it’s a challenge I relish. The part I didn’t like was trying to get published. That’s very different from writing.

• I clarified my goals—the why and how. I was one of those pasty bookworm kids who had to be forced outside to play. Books were a lifeline. I’ve always wanted to write something that touches a young reader’s heart—that entertains and inspires and gives them hope—the way my favorite books did and do for me. That yearning to connect is a powerful motivator.

The next question: How best to reach middle-grade readers? Self-publishing has come a long way, but because parents, teachers, and librarians tend to buy books for this audience, traditional publishing seemed best for me. To do that, I needed to reach out to literary agents, the bridge between writers and editors who buy manuscripts.

• I put on “my big-girl pants” and queried. (Disclaimer: All my pants are “big-girl.”) I didn’t want to be the writer who sent work too soon. (I saw this when I worked for a kidlit agent for six months.) I told myself I’d query when my manuscripts were ready. (They never were.) I became the writer who never sent work.

I sent my first query in 2011 on a dare. I was five years out of grad school, revising my second YA novel, and my friends feared I’d never query. I sent around 25 and received a wonderful response, but all the agents ultimately passed.

I finished the rough draft of what would become Dad’s Girlfriend and Other Anxieties by the end of 2016. By 2018 or so, I’d revised it a few times and started querying. This was the fifth or sixth novel I’d written and only the second I queried. I was shocked at how the query landscape had changed.

Agents I’d known for years sent form rejections. Agents who’d been enthusiastic about my YA didn’t reply. I thought this middle grade novel was the best I’d written, but only a few asked for the full manuscript. I don’t blame the agents. Their obligation is to their clients, and they are inundated with queries. Publishing is a business. Agents and editors have to consider the marketplace.

• I focused on what I could control.

• My novel. One of the things I love most about writing is that I can always improve. After a while I stopped querying Dad’s Girlfriend, gave it to my critique group, and revised yet again. I cut it from about 70,000 words to 55,000 and resumed querying.

• Agent research. After reading about a bestselling author who didn’t find her perfect match until she’d queried around 60 agents, I was determined to query at least 63, as long as I felt I could find that many who could do a good job for me. (Why not 61? I don’t know.) There also were agents I didn’t query. No agent is better than a bad one.

• My attitude. I often thought about a blog post I’d read years ago by Jennifer Laughran—aka Literaticat—a senior agent at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. She said something like (paraphrasing roughly): Let’s say you’re at a store browsing through a rack of winter coats. A sales person doesn’t rush over and demand to know why you bypassed that blue one. Maybe you love blue and already own three, maybe you hate blue, it’s not a good fit, or not your style. Rejection is a big part of publishing, and it’s not personal. It still hurts, though.

• I reached out to friends. I can’t imagine anyone doing this alone, and I’m so grateful for my writing friends. After one particularly heartbreaking pass, I texted a YA author friend: How do you keep going? Her answer pinged immediately. You do it for your book.

She’d queried 80-ish agents and signed with one of her top five. It took that agent six months to request her full manuscript and another six months to offer representation. Publishing moves slowly—but you only need one yes. I moved my goal from 63 to 83 and kept querying. In total, I queried more than 100 agents for Dad’s Girlfriend. The agent I signed with was new, and she had solid experience working with an agent—and great mentors. (New agents are eager for clients!) She is smart, creative, and encouraging. I can’t imagine a better agent for me.

• I re-defined success. I was hiking with my husband when we stopped on a bridge to catch our breath. When we continued on, I asked if he’d noticed a crushed beer can in the creek far below. He hadn’t. When I saw that can, I told him, the whole beginning of a story opened up for me.

Why would stories come to me if I wasn’t called to do this work? And if, say, the universe wanted me to do this work, why then, wasn’t I published? My mood hit a new low.

After some serious journaling, I realized it’s about community. I’ve been a member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) since 2000. For years I’ve advocated for young readers, their books, and their right to read. I love supporting authors, teachers and librarians. As an occasional visiting teacher for a literary nonprofit, I encourage young writers to be fiercely themselves—on and off the page. I’ve given careful feedback on countless novels-in-progress, and this year served as an SCBWI mentor. I’ve received far more than I’ve given.

The way I see it, my job is to show up and do the work I feel called to do, as best I can. That doesn’t guarantee publication or any result, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t made a difference, either. None of us knows the impact we have on others.

“That’s fine,” you might say. “But! I! Want! To! PUBLISH!”

I get it. I do. That’s why I had to redefine success in a way I could control. I couldn’t keep creating if I felt like a failure every day.

• Focus on the joy. I did all these things imperfectly, forgave myself when I messed up, and moved on. I try to make writing as fun as possible. When it’s not, I try to accept where I am in the process and proceed with as much optimism as I can. (Calling a friend, browsing a craft book, reading a terrific novel, and going to Twitter with the goal of encouraging another writer all help.)

I also asked myself: What would you be doing if you already had the perfect agent, if you’d already published a bookshelf of bestsellers? The answer, of course, is that I’d write the next one. That’s the job.

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about writing with “stubborn gladness,” choosing to work with “as much good cheer and as little drama as I can…” She wrote with stubborn gladness, she says, before she was published, when her books sold well and when they didn’t, when critics praised her and made fun of her, and when the work went badly and well.

I try to do the same, gladly. Stubbornly. That’s why I’m not quitting.

BIO: Kellye Crocker’s contemporary middle-grade novel, Dad’s Girlfriend and Other Anxieties, was inspired by her surprise move to Colorado and her own anxiety disorder. Her debut novel will be published in October by Albert Whitman & Co. Kellye is a long-time journalist who’s also worked in library youth services and has taught writing at two Iowa universities. She teaches creative writing to young people through a large literary nonprofit. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She’s an empty-nester who lives in Denver, where you’ll find her reading, making art, and hiking with her husband and their rambunctious Black Lab, Daisy. Connect with her at kellyecrocker.com or on twitter @kelcrocker.

Headshot photo credit: Laura Carson Photography

Shari: It’s spooky season, and I am so excited to share this interview with Fleur Bradley, author of Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, and the recently released thriller Daybreak on Raven Island!

Hi Fleur! Welcome to MG Book Village! I’m such a fan of your books, so I am really excited to chat with you today about your new spooky novel, Daybreak on Raven Island! The book is out now, making it a perfect read for Halloween season.  What would you like to tell us about Daybreak?

Fleur: For my previous book, Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, I was inspired by the Stanley Hotel here in Colorado. When it came time to write the next book, I wanted the setting to be super scary, so I instantly thought of Alcatraz. 

Daybreak on Raven Island is set on Raven Island, a fictional version of Alcatraz. Marvin, Noah and Tori miss the ferry off the island after a field trip, and have to spend the night. There’s an abandoned prison, a lighthouse, a morgue, and a whole lot of ghosts. The three kids have to work together to solve a decades old mystery surrounding a prison break, plus a murder mystery… 

It’s Alfred Hitchcock for kids.

Shari: Daybreak has three main characters, who are all going through their own struggles, and aren’t even close to being friends at the beginning. Can you tell us how Tori, Marvin, and Noah came to be your main characters, and how you created three character arcs within an overarching suspense-horror-mystery?

Fleur: The characters took a while to flesh out. I wanted three kids who basically would not sit together in the cafeteria, and show how they actually make great friends. Noah has a lot of anxiety and is the new kid at school, Tori is dealing with a lot of anger because her brother is in prison, and Marvin really wants to make a scary movie but misses his best friend who just moved away. 

As a writer, I know I’m getting somewhere with the characters when I start to enjoy spending time with them. Tori, Marvin and Noah each have distinct arcs, so they feel very real to me.

Shari: Daybreak is a horror story, but also a mystery with historical aspects. What was the inspiration for this story, and what did you enjoy most about weaving these aspects together? 

Fleur: I took the (real-life) 1962 Alcatraz escape of three prisoners as my inspiration. Those three men made it off the island and were never seen again, and I wondered: could they have made it alive? How? 

With Daybreak on Raven Island, I had fun imagining what could’ve happened. Creating an imaginary island based on a real one allowed me to make it what I want, while still nodding to the original prison break and Alcatraz’s history. 

Shari: Did you read a lot of mysteries and horror books as a kid, and what do you enjoy most about writing spooky mysteries for kids?

Fleur: I mostly read Roald Dahl as a kid, so not a lot of whodunit type mysteries. They just weren’t as available. When I was about twelve, I read my way through the children’s department at the library, and a very kind librarian gave me Agatha Christie books (since there was no YA at the time). I fell in love with the genre.

I love the puzzle of a mystery, both as a reader and a writer. I like trying to figure out the whodunit and spotting the clues as a reader; as a writer, it’s fun to guide the reader along to the solution of a mystery. With Daybreak on Raven Island, I really focused on blending strong character arcs with a fun, scary mystery to solve.

As for horror, I love reading it as an adult, but really didn’t read any as a kid. But I loved horror TV shows like The Outer Limits, Tales From The Crypt, and The Twilight Zone, so lots of horror influences there. And Alfred Hitchcock, of course.

Shari: Young readers will truly love Daybreak. What message do you hope will stick with them after reading?

Fleur: I hope kids take away from the story that it’s good to share it if you’re struggling with something. Often, we carry problems around and feel like others won’t understand. It’s through sharing that we’re stronger, because then we’re not alone.

Shari: My students and I loved Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. How was writing Daybreak different, and what projects are you working on next, if you can tell us? 

Fleur: I always imagined that Daybreak on Raven Island is the book that readers move on to after Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, so it reads just a little older. It was fun to make it extra scary, and really go with the horror elements in the book.

Next up, I’m writing another scary mystery, but for younger MG. I’m editing it now, and then it will go out on submission. I’m really excited about this book, but it’ll be a while before it’s out in the world!

Shari:  I can’t wait for that! What are your favorite books to read this time of year? Do you have any spooky recommendations for our readers, if they have enjoyed your books? 

Fleur: I’m really enjoying scary MG this time of year… Well, any time of year, really. 

I’m reading Lindsay Currie’s The Girl in White right now (so good!) and Erin Petti’s Thelma Bee in Toil and Treble, loving that book very much. I’m looking forward to Ira Marck’s Spirit Week next month. I’m part of a group called Spooky MG, and the writers put out some amazing books. Whenever I run out of books to read, I check to see if any of my Spooky MG authors have anything new out.

Shari: I love the Spooky Middle Grade website! (https://spookymiddlegrade.com/) I have referred to it several times when looking for spooky books for my readers!  Where can our readers go to find out more about you and your writing?

Fleur: Check out my website www.ftbradley.com or follow me on Twitter @FTBradleyAuthor.  

Shari: Thank you so much for joining us today, Fleur, and sharing about your fantastic new book!

Fleur: Anytime! I hope you enjoy spooky season…

Fleur Bradley is the author of the (scary) middle-grade mystery Daybreak on Raven Island, and award-winning mystery Midnight at the Barclay Hotel (Viking/Penguin Random House).

Her story The Perfect Alibi appeared in Mystery Writers of America’s middle-grade anthology Super Puzzletastic Mysteries, edited by Chris Grabenstein (HarperCollins).

Fleur regularly does school and Skype visits, as well as librarian and educator conference talks on reaching reluctant readers. Originally from the Netherlands, she now lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and two daughters, and entirely too many rescue animals.

Anne: Hello and welcome to MG Book Village! I’m so glad to connect with you for a chat about your debut novel, The Lost Ryū. It came out this summer, and is a wonderfully imaginative story. Would you please give readers a super-brief summary of the action?

Emi: Thanks for having me! The Lost Ryū is set in Japan in 1965, and it follows ten-year-old Kohei and his new neighbor, Isolde, as they uncover the truth behind the giant dragons that fought in World War II. Their journey takes them through the Japanese countryside to a dragon-themed amusement park, and eventually to the underwater palace of Eastern dragons of myth.

Anne: Great. Thank you. I enjoyed immersing myself in the myths about dragons—the ryū—and the underwater palace known as Ryūgū-jō. For readers (like me) previously unfamiliar with Japanese mythology, could you give an example of a detail that you had fun adding—something that made your novel come alive, but that I’d never find in Japanese mythology of old?

Emi: Ryūgū-jō is a common feature of East Asian mythology, but in The Lost Ryū, Kohei and Isolde also walk through a theme park-ified version designed for tourists. It’s nothing like the mythical site they eventually visit, but as the author, I had so much fun making it up! Merry-go-rounds, chipped paint, funnel cake… “New Ryūgū-jō” symbolizes the clash between old and new, sacred and commercial, in the landscape of a nation struggling to shape its postwar identity. It was also just really amusing to imagine!

Anne: Very fun! A significant part of the story is the characters’ desire to breed an Eastern ryū with a Western one, while meanwhile Isolde (who has a Japanese-American mom and a Jewish-Polish dad) says this about herself: “…in America, race is everything. For some people, it’s all they understand… And I don’t fit. I can’t be both—I have to be either, which sort of means I’m neither.” Her words broke my heart, and my question is: how autobiographical is this novel? How much does Isolde’s lament reflect what life was like for you, growing up?

Emi: Isolde’s experiences definitely reflect my own, and some of the most meaningful comments I’ve gotten on this book have been from people who relate to her. Still, Isolde and I are polar opposites in a lot of ways. Personality-wise, I’m much more similar to Kohei, who is quiet and reserved. My specific experience is reversed, too; while Isolde moved from a predominantly non-Japanese area to Japan, I spent my early childhood in a community with many first-generation Japanese immigrants, only to later find myself in a city with few native Japanese speakers. I went from being the “least Japanese” person I knew, to a makeshift ambassador in my third grade classroom. It was so unnerving! My classmates would ask me to say things in Japanese, and I felt like such an impostor. I wanted to say, I’m sorry, I’m only HALF!

I know there are a lot of mixed-race kids out there who feel like they can only be “half-and-half,” not a unified whole. I hope The Lost Ryū resonates with them. That said, I also hope that readers from every cultural background will see a bit of themselves in Isolde. The best thing about books—MG books in particular—is that they show us how seemingly different life experiences can be similar deep down. I think we all have moments when we feel like we’re “only half,” when other people’s expectations make us feel as though we’re not enough. Isolde is enough, and I hope my readers know that they are, too.

Anne: Yes, it’s truly something, how similar we all are, deep down. I sensed that theme, woven through the story. Toward the end, Kohei remembers Papa saying, “There is a special beauty in things that are broken, then put back together.” The fractures in an object tell its story. Another lovely theme! When you started writing this book, did you plan to include these themes, or did they emerge later, during your writing process? What theme do you most want readers to take away from reading The Lost Ryū?

Emi: The theme of fractures and recovery definitely emerged later during the writing process. When I got started with this book, all I knew was that I wanted to feature both Eastern and Western dragons. The theme of “both-ness” has always been a major part of it, and that’s the one I hope will resonate with young readers. We are all intersections of multiple identities and backgrounds—even those of us who are dragons!

Anne: How long did it take you to write The Lost Ryū? Tell us a bit about your writing process.

Emi: That first draft was less than half the length of the final version (more like an oversized short story than a novel), so I got it on paper in less than a week. It was a total mess! Once I’d signed with my agent, we worked on solidifying the pacing and plot before going on sub. My writing process involves a lot of full rewrites—in the case of The Lost Ryū, there were at least three—but every time I started over, the result was a little bit better than the last. It’s a gratifying process.

Anne: Kohei’s mom says that hope is “remembering that there are stories we haven’t told yet.” I love that line! What stories have you not told yet? What are you working on now?

Emi: I’m currently in revisions for my next novel, Golemcrafters, which is slated for release in late 2023 with Levine Querido. It follows a brother-sister duo as they uncover their family history of golemcrafting: sculpting clay golems in the tradition of Jewish folklore. It’s a contemporary setting with a lot of Jewish humor, and I’m excited to share it with the world!

Anne: I look forward to reading it! Finally, please tell readers where they can go to learn more about you and your work.

Emi: Readers can find me at my website: www.emicohenwrites.com or on Instagram @cohemiwrites.

Anne: Thank you so much for stopping by MG Book Village, and for writing such a unique story for middle-grade readers!

Emi: Thank you for your insightful questions! This was so much fun.

Emi Watanabe Cohen grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where she spent most of her time reading, writing, or pretending to do her homework while secretly continuing to read or write. The stories she tells are informed by her mixed Japanese/Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, as well as by her experiences growing up in a multilingual environment. She is a graduate of Brandeis University’s Creative Writing program. The Lost Ryū is her debut novel.

Anne (A.B.) Westrick is the author of the older-MG novel Brotherhood. You can learn more about Anne at the MG Book Village “About” page.