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If someone wants to ask if I planned the significance of these objects, you can tell them yes: with plane flights and research and a lifetime of reading about boats and sand and magical balloons that make large distances small, I planned it all.
This story begins with two middle school librarians, miles and miles apart, who both feel passionately that what publishers call middle grade literature is not what their students need or want.
Slowly but surely a story formed in my mind. It featured a mystery, ghosts, clever tweens, a notorious graveyard . . . and a countdown. A terrifying countdown.
Most people can’t imagine a world without the worst of human nature because that would be the purview of a different species: a post-miserable humankind.
I’m convinced that pumping books instead of iron is a better way of dealing with the insecurity and isolation affecting so many kids these days, especially boys.