Tag Archives: middle grade fiction

A Raven of the Rainforest Tour, October 2026

A Horse Named Sky and friends

A Horse Named Sky is out in paperback this week. I’m thrilled to see a little sneak preview of A Wolf Called Fire in the back of this edition. Big thanks to Kirbi Fagan for her gorgeous art. I’ve been doing radio interviews all day chatting about this book, so here on the blog I’d like to take a moment to highlight some other new horse books that I think young readers will love.

First up is Sierra Blue by Suzanne Morgan Williams. It’s a story about a girl with a unique ability to connect with injured horses and a race horse that desperately needs her.

Fans of history will love the well-researched and thrilling story of how the famous Lipizzaner horses of the Spanish Riding School were rescued from the bombing of Vienna during WWII. It’s called They Saved the Stallions by Deborah Hopkinson.

I’ve long been a fan of the Phantom Stallion series by Terri Farley. It’s set in the same ecosystem as A Horse Named Sky. Terri is a life long advocate for wild horses and her writing in this series is brilliant. I’m so happy so see it reissued.

Finally, if you are looking for a good riding academy story you’ll love Jessica Burkhart’s new series, Saddle Hill Academy. The first four titles are out and I hope there will be many more.

And because I’m such a fan of picture book non fiction, I can’t pass up the opportunity to sing the praises of Horse Power: how horses changed the world, written and illustrated by the brilliant Jennifer Thermes.

A Wolf Called Wander cover reveal

I’ve been working for months on the most amazing project of my writing career. It’s my first fully illustrated novel and my first book that will be translated and sold abroad. Here is the cover for the UK edition of A Wolf Called Wander illustrated by the wonderfully talented Mónica Armiño. Many thanks to the team at Andersen Press, Chloe Sackur, Kate Grove, and Klaus Flugge. And many thanks to the publishers who saw the package Andersen press put together and chose to bring the book to their country: Greenwillow in the US 🇺🇸, Coppenrath in Germany🇩🇪, L’Ecole des Loisirs in France🇫🇷, Mann Ivanov Feber in Russia🇷🇺, Beijing Arcadia Culture in China🇨🇳, and Albatros in Czechia🇨🇿.

New Book News

I’m so thrilled to announce that my next book, A Wolf Called Wander, will be published by Anderson Press of the UK. It will be a fully illustrated middle grade novel inspired by the life of Oregon Wolf 7. The official announcement will be made when the publisher has selected and illustrator, and the book will be out sometime in 2019, but I couldn’t wait to share the news and thank the many people who helped me get here. My wonderful agent Fiona Kenshole of the Transatlantic Agency arranged the deal. My brilliant friends, Cheryl Coupe, Michael Gettle-Gilmartin, Barb Liles, and Cliff Lehman, have been with me every step of the way.

I’m particularly grateful for an opportunity at the Fishtrap Summer workshops to take a totally unique outdoor writer’s workshop on the absolutely gorgeous and extremely challenging Zumwalt Prairie. I learned and listened and walked and smelled and tasted and imagined my way into a wolf’s point of view in some of Oregon’s most spectacular wolf habitat. Nature writer Gary Ferguson (Land on Fire) was my mentor in that transformative week. Many thanks to him and to the Fishtrap organization who have been nurturing strong western writing for many years. The pictures are Oregon Wolf 7 and his newest group of pups in their new home ground in the Rogue River watershed.

Middle Grade Monday book review: The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson

I’m going to try to read all the books that are on the 2015-16 OBOB list with me and I’m so happy to start with a wonderful book by my friend and fellow Portlander, Deborah Hopkinson. This is a story after my heart because epidemiology was my 9780375848186 mother’s field. It’s an account of how the enterprising Dr. Snow and a couple of street urchins proved that a cholera epidemic that a broke out in Victorian London was caused not by the heavily polluted air but by the contaminated water in the Broad Street pump.

Three things for a kid reader to love:

1. Any kid who lives Bones or CSI or other tv crime scene procedurals will love this. It’s full of real nitty gritty details of how to prove that disease is water-borne when the water tastes fine and the air stinks. Great fun, and not “teach-y”

2. Cool historical maps of the epidemic are in the back matter. Love Maps!

3. The narrator, a kid who goes by the name Eel, is appealing and keeps the events on a very human scale. In finding and answer to the riddle of the Broad Street pump, Eel finds a home and protection and education for his beloved little brother.

Something for the writer to think about:

Any story about an epidemic is going to be tragic and this one doesn’t shrink from death. However, and this is the important distinction to me, it doesn’t revel in death or glamorize suffering. It’s a fine line to walk and I think it’s handled beautifully. Well worth a read just to see how Deborah gets the balance just right.

Also I’m going to tag this as a diverse book in terms of class. It addresses very directly the injustices Eel faces because of his economic status. It’s easy to over-look or romanticize the poor. Here’s a book that in my opinion does them justice. The low-income characters are a mix of good and bad actors and the upper-income characters are an equally mixed bag in terms of personal virtue. Bravo!