It’s not running around East Berlin unraveling a Cold War mystery of time, history and magic but it’s been quite a week here for The Girl with the Red Balloon!
First, I’ve sold my first foreign rights!
The Girl with the Red Balloon has sold to DarkSide in Brazil. What does this mean? It means that in the near future, The Girl with the Red Balloon will be translated into Portuguese and released in Brazil for Brazilian readers! Some Brazilian readers have read it in English (buying via Amazon or Book Depository), but I’m thrilled that it’ll reach more readers, in their native language. DarkSide has released some of my favorite US books in Brazil and it’s an honor to be with them.
And second bit of exciting news, The Girl with the Red Balloon is a 2018 Sydney Taylor Honor Book! It’s like getting a silver medal in the annual Jewish children’s literature awards, and boy am I happy with a silver medal (especially as I’m currently reading the gold medal book, THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ by Antonio Iturbe, translated by Lilit Thwaites and *wow*).
The Sydney Taylor Book Award, given by the Association of Jewish Libraries annually, has introduced me to so many wonderful Jewish books over the years and while we aren’t supposed to make external goals outside of our control, I badly wanted TGWTRB to be a Sydney Taylor book in some capacity. I am so grateful, beyond words really.
You can find the whole press release here, and the Tablet Magazine article here.
If you are a librarian or a teacher and you’d like a Sydney Taylor Honor Book sticker for your collection or classroom copy of The Girl with the Red Balloon, please send me an email.
I’m starting my events for 2018…this weekend I’m at Burlington County Library System’s first annual Authorfest! I’m really excited to go and you can find more information here (external link.)
I have an interview with a really cool podcast tomorrow and I’ll share that link when it’s up, and I’m doing my first all day school visit next week. I’m really excited to talk to kids about historical fiction. As a kid, I thought history was really boring. And now I can’t get enough of it and I want more kids to get to where I am now, faster than I did 😉
Once a month I give writing and reading related updates, talk about something helpful for the world (this month it was setting achievable goals as an author and being a good CP), and give away a new release on my newsletter. You can sign up here. The next issue will go out in early February!
Katherine Locke 