Joining us for Creative Spaces is Christine Hayes, author of the middle-grade mystery, Mothman’s Curse. If you have young readers in your life who love a good spooky story, hand them a copy of this book! Kirkus gave it a starred review and said, “An ectoplasmic extravaganza…tailor-made for reading beneath the bedcovers.”
Here’s a summary of the plot from Christine’s website:
Josie may live in the most haunted town in America, but the only strange thing she ever sees is the parade of oddball customers that comes through her family’s auction house each week. But when she and her brothers discover a Polaroid camera that prints pictures of the ghost of local recluse John Goodrich, they are drawn into a mystery dating back over a hundred years.… Read the rest
Claudia Mills is the beloved children’s book author of more than fifty books, including the Franklin School Friends series, The Nora Notebooks series, and one of my personal favorites, Zero Tolerance. Her latest book (and THIRD published this year!!) is Write This Down. Here is the publisher’s summary:
Twelve-year-old Autumn loves to write, and she can’t wait to grow up and be a published author. She finds inspiration all around her, but especially in Cameron, the dreamy boy in her journalism class who she has a major crush on. When her older brother Hunter makes fun of one of her most personal poems―about Cameron―Autumn decides to prove that she is talented enough to become a published author.… Read the rest
Joining us today for Creative Spaces is author Mike Grosso. Mike Grosso is a musician and a fourth-grade teacher who always keeps a guitar in his classroom. I Am Drums is his first novel. From the promotional copy:
Sam knows she wants to be a drummer. But she doesn’t know how to afford a drum kit, or why budget cuts end her school’s music program, or why her parents argue so much, or even how to explain her dream to other people.
But drums sound all the time in Sam’s head, and she’d do just about anything to play them out loud—even lie to her family if she has to.… Read the rest
Joining us for Creative Spaces is YA novelist Melody Maysonet. Her debut novel, A Work of Art, was named a best book of 2015 by YA Books Central. Kirkus gave it a starred review saying, “An important book about endings, beginnings and the choice to move on.” Here’s a brief summary about the book:
Tera is seventeen, shy, and artistically gifted. Her hero and mentor is her father, a famous graphic artist who also protects her from her depressed, overly critical mother. Tera is looking forward to going to a prestigious art school in France, but her world is turned upside down the day the police arrest her father for an unspeakable crime.… Read the rest
Joining us today for Creative Spaces is author Melanie Conklin, author of Counting Thyme (Penguin, April 2016). Melanie lives in New Jersey with her family and previously worked as a product designer. Counting Thyme is her debut novel and has been described as Rules meets Counting by 7s. It tells the story of a girl named Thyme whose younger brother is accepted in to a new cancer drug trial, which means her family will have to relocate thousands of miles away from everything she knows. To learn more about Melanie and Counting Thyme, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter or Tumblr.… Read the rest
