Bestselling and award-winning novelist Louise Erdrich has signed an extensive deal with HarperCollins Children's Books to write no fewer than eight titles for the division, with the first of them to appear in spring 2005. Editorial director Alix Reid signed for world rights with agent Lisa Halliday at the Wylie Agency, and will edit the titles herself. The books, all untitled at this point, will continue the story Erdrich began in The Birchbark House, her first book for children, which was published by Hyperion and was a National Book Award finalist. Erdrich's adult titles are already at HarperCollins.