Author: Jamie Canaves

4-Year-Old To Publish Poetry Book

Nadim Shamma-Sourgen is four years old and has just landed a publishing deal with Walker Books for a collection of his poetry. “’I like writing poems especially about nature. I feel happy that my poems will be in a book,’ he said. ‘When my poems are in a book, can I please have a copy?‘” The Guinness World Records held for youngest commercially published authors are currently held by a boy and girl who were each four-years-old at the time of writing/publishing, so maybe they’ll have to count down to the days/hours now?

Have Tissues, Get Inspired

Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis, who recently passed away, spoke on C-SPAN hundreds of times. You can now watch all of those appearances via C-SPAN Video Library, starting with his first at a Civil Rights Forum on March 29th, 1985. You can also watch him speak on many issues, including discussing his three books Walking the Wind, Across the Bridge, and March Book 1.

Star Cast Adaptation

Talk about buzz: Netflix won the bidding war for the upcoming Rumaan Alam novel Leave The World Behind. The adaptation package comes with Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington as leads and will be directed by Sam Esmail (Mr Robot). We can read the novel–about two families who don’t know each other stuck together over a weekend where things go “terribly wrong”– in October.

For Your TBR

Diverse children and YA books to expand your knowledge of the Jewish community.

PRH Will Let You Read-Aloud Their Books For Rest Of Year

When the pandemic started many companies offered free, temporary use of things thinking we’d quickly go back to usual. Now, many months later, those companies need to decide to continue offering the services or not, while we continue in the pandemic that at the moment doesn’t have an end in sight. Penguin Random House has decided to extend its Open License program–allowing people to read their books for read-aloud and story time–through the rest of 2020.

She Persisted Persists

Chelsea Clinton’s chapter book series She Persisted is getting a new addition this September: She Persisted in Sports: American Olympians Who Changed the Game. Athletes celebrated will include Wilma Rudolph, Venus and Serena Williams, and Mia Hamm. But wait, there’s more! There will also be a new chapter book series of 80-page stories starting with She Persisted: Harriet Tubman. The series will also include a book about Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor written by Meg Medina and Oprah Winfrey written by Renee Watson.

New Bookstore Alert

After more than a decade of living in New York, Justin Galicz and Kirt Reynolds decided to pack up and move to Austin–where they also wed. Now they’ve taken their love of NY bodegas and pop-ups and opened a bookstore in a shipping container where they sell art and books for the LGBTQ+ community: Little Gay Shop. Their story is wonderful and yes, they are staying safe in the pandemic and taking shopping appointments while limiting no more than 2 visitors at a time.

Attend These Book Events From Sofa City

You may not be able to get to the convention center or outdoor festival, but we’ve got some recommendations for virtual book events this summer.

Top Selling Books Of 2020 So Far

NPD BookScan data is in for what the top selling books in the first half of 2020 are and there was no surprise, at least to those in the publishing know, that Where the Crawdads Sing took the top adult print sales slot. Also in the top twenty are Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere (Have you watched the Hulu adaptation?); Michelle Obama’s Becoming; Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race; Tara Westover’s Educated. In YA Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes took the top spot, with Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give and Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds’ Stamped making the top ten. Check out all the books along with how many units each title sold.

School Project Turns Into Real Book For Charity

Four 15-year-old students that completed a freshman economics class project at Long Beach Polytechnic High School decided to take the project and make it a reality. What was a business plan for a COVID-19 coloring book became a real coloring book, after creating Be The Change Coloring Co. and selling the 28-page coloring books with 40% of the sale going to a buyer selected charity. They’ve sold almost 2,000 books so far.

29 Free Short Stories

Inspired by a 14th-century collection of tales, The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, The New York Times’ “Decameron Project is the first time in the magazine’s modern history that an entire issue is devoted to new fiction.” And that new fiction is 29 short stories written by some of our best writers today including Tommy Orange, Rivers Solomon, Téa Obreht, Margaret Atwood, Edwidge Danticat…

Munroe Bergdorf’s Six-Figure Book Deal

Munroe Bergdorf’s manifesto went to Bloomsbury, to be published in 2021, after an 11-publishers bidding war! Transitional will explore adolescence, sexuality, gender, relationships, identity and race. As explained by the English activist and model, “The trans experience, she said, is ‘thought of by a lot of people as this far-off idea that isn’t that relatable. I wanted to drive home the fact that we all transition in one way or another. None of us stays the same. We’re all on a journey, and a transition with regards to gender is just one of many we all experience as human beings.’”

Rawr

The Tiger’s Apprentice by Laurence Yep is being adapted into an animated film and Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) will voice Mr. Hu, the magical talking, shape-shifting tiger. While we wait you can check out the trilogy of books about a young boy in San Francisco who becomes Mr. Hu’s apprentice because he’ll be the next guardian of a magical phoenix.

Get Your Tickets

FIYAHCON, a virtual convention centering the perspectives and celebrating the contributions of BIPOC in speculative fiction, will take place October 17th-18th and already has an amazing lineup with guests including Rebecca Roanhorse, Daniel José Older, L.L. McKinney–to name a few. And tickets are on sale–including gift certificates.

When Dimple Met Rishi Adaptation Coming This Fall

Sandhya Menon’s YA romance When Dimple Met Rishi has been adapted into a Netflix India series titled Mismatched. Starring Prajakta Koli and Rohit Saraf, it will be available on Netflix India and globally this fall. Sandhya Menon posted on Instagram: “I’m so excited about this Indian adaptation that was inspired by When Dimple Met Rishi! One of the wonderfully weird things about having your work adapted is that you get to see the kernel of your idea grow into something new and different. I can’t wait to see how audiences resonate with Mismatched, which is Netflix India’s imagining of this world I love so dearly!” This is going to be my new To All The Boys, I can feel it.

The Little Tell-All That Could

The Trump administration tried unsuccessfully to stop Mary Trump’s book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man from publishing. It seems all that added attention had the opposite effect and the book broke a Simon & Schuster sales record: including pre-sales, e-books, and audiobook figures, the end of the first day sales hit 950,000 copies sold.

Yes, Please, Read To Me

HBO Max has partnered with sleep app Calm to create a new series: A World of Calm. And by calm they mean Mahershala Ali, Idris Elba,  Oscar Isaac, Nicole Kidman, Zoë Kravitz, Lucy Liu, Cillian Murphy, and Keanu Reeves will be reading us bedtime stories. “With soothing imagery and tranquil narration, this is one HBO Max original that we hope becomes part of your daily routine.”

More Earhole Goodness

Audiobooks narrated by actors from the original Hamilton cast.

Magic School Bus Author Has Passed Away

Recently, fans who grew up with The Magic School Bus series books and adaptation were delighted to learn that there would be a new adaptation, when Elizabeth Banks was cast as Ms. Frizzle. Now, sadly, it’s been announced that Joanna Cole, the creator of the series that brought joy to so many children with stories filled with fantasy and science, passed away at age seventy-five on July 12th. The former school librarian and children’s book editor published her first book in 1971 titled Cockroaches. “…I had ample time to study that creature in my low-budget New York apartment!”

Disney Publishing + Melissa de la Cruz

Disney Publishing has partnered with author Melissa de la Cruz to create a new studio, which will make content with established and new authors that will be developed across Disney’s multiple platforms. And for Blue Bloods series fans, starting next year Disney will publish new installments.

New Bookish Podcast

Marc Lamont Hill–author, BET news host, and owner of Philadelphia’s Uncle Bobbies Coffee and Books–has started a podcast: Coffee and Books! The first episode is up and he talks about James Baldwin with Eddie S. Glaude Jr., author of Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.

Contemporary Native Literature

This is a starting point for recognizing the diversity of contemporary Native literature and its different genres, styles, and movements.

Brat Pack Memoir Forthcoming

In the ’80s a group of young actors that frequently acted together in coming-of-age/teen/John Hughes films were given the label Brat Pack. Now Andrew McCarthy, one of said actors, has signed a deal with Grand Central Publishing who will publish his memoir, Brat: An ‘80s Story, in 2021. This is, however, not McCarthy’s first book. While waiting for his memoir, you can read The Longest Way Home, his travel memoir, and Just Fly Away, his YA novel.

Lucifer Is Back

Lucifer, first appearing as a DC comic character, was adapted into a network series before being cancelled and then saved by Netflix. Now the show’s 5th season is almost back (August 21), and we have a trailer. The devil is back–or is it his twin?!

Jennifer Weiner’s Novel To Be Adapted To TV Series

Jennifer Weiner, who already had a hit film adaptation back in 2005 with In Her Shoes, is set for another adaptation. This time her 13th novel–a multigenerational story of two sisters from the ’50s to now, Mrs. Everything–has been acquired by Sister to be adapted into a television series.

A New Role for Little Free Libraries

Taking a look at some of the helpers who are turning their Little Free Libraries into Little Free Pantries to help neighbors in need during the pandemic.