Recapping the week in children's and YA rights deals.
Julie Strauss-Gabel at Dutton Children’s Books has acquired two novels by Matched trilogy author Ally Condie. The first book, set for fall 2014, will follow a girl named Rio living in an underwater city and waiting her chance to find out what lies beyond the sea; the second book is not yet scheduled. Jodi Reamer at Writers House brokered the deal for North American rights.
Also on behalf of Dutton, Strauss-Gabel has acquired world rights for This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl, a collection of journals, fiction, letters, and sketches by Esther Grace Earl, who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 12 and died in 2010 at age 16. Photographs and essays by family and friends will help to tell Esther's story; John Green, who dedicated The Fault in Our Stars to her, is writing an introduction. Publication is set in January 2014; Jodi Reamer at Writers House was the agent.
Anne Hoppe at Clarion Books has acquired a North American rights to a nonfiction picture book by Katherine Applegate about Ivan the gorilla, the subject of her 2013 Newbery Medal-winning The One and Only Ivan. Elena Mechlin at Pippin Properties represented Applegate. In a separate deal, Jean Feiwel and Liz Szabla at Feiwel and Friends bought two middle-grade novels by Katherine Applegate, whose Home of the Brave and Eve and Adam were also published by the Macmillan imprint. Pippin’s Elena Mechlin negotiated the deal for North American rights.
Gillian Levinson at Razorbill has acquired world rights to Wanderville, the first in a new series by Albert Whitman editor and Riverhead adult author Wendy McClure. Based on real-life events, the novel follows the adventures of three turn-of-the-20th-century children who escape from an orphan train bound for Kansas, forming their own community in the wilderness. Publication is scheduled for winter 2014, book two coming in fall 2014. Sarah Burnes at The Gernert Company did the deal.
