Pack your bags, take a deep breath, and prepare to face down a kelpie, a cyclops, and a very stubborn Highlander cow! Incredible adventures await in these page-turning books for middle grade readers. Rachael King’s The Grimmelings is an unforgettable fantasy adventure about Ella, a thirteen year-old girl who must break the curse that threatens her community. Butter the cat and Owl the raven do not get along, but must band together on a timeless adventure to save their witch in Erin Bow’s Witchward Bound. Emilie Christie Burack’s Dominic Bean and the Mammoth Melt is filled with awe-inspiring science, exciting climate activism, and a secret woolly mammoth. The authors will share how they come up with such thrilling ideas, along with a few stories of their own childhood adventures. Grades 4–7.
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ERIN BOW is the author of The Scorpion Rules, which received three starred reviews and was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year and it’s sequel, The Swan Riders, which received two starred reviews. She also wrote the acclaimed Russian-flavored fantasy Plain Kate, which received two starred reviews and was a YALSA Best Book of the Year, and the terrifying YA ghost story Sorrow’s Knot, which received five starred reviews and was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. Visit her at ErinBow.com.
EMILIE CHRISTIE BURACK’s debut novel, The Runaway’s Gold, was a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People and a winner of the New England Book Festival. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in New Hampshire, where she is the co-founder of the New Hampshire Book Festival.
RACHAEL KING is one of New Zealand’s best-loved writers for children. Her novels often reflect her love for the Scottish folklore of her ancestors––the weirder the better. When she was young, she read fantasy books voraciously and galloped horses bareback along beaches. Secrets at Red Rocks won New Zealand’s longest-running literary award, the Esther Glen Medal, and has been adapted into an Emmy Award–winning television series for BYUtv. Her other novels for young people include Song of the Saltings and the multi award-winning The Grimmelings. She holds an MA in creative writing from Victoria University in Wellington.
