Ransom Riggs, the creator of the popular Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series, is writing a new fantasy trilogy for young readers, kicking off with Sunderworld, Vol. I: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry. The book is due on August 27 with a first printing of 500,000 copies from Dutton Books for Young Readers.
“He’s really playing with the idea of what it means to be a chosen one in ways that I was excited by,” Andrew Karre, Ransom’s editor, told PW. “Sunderland at its core is a really wonderful friendship story.”
This marks Riggs’s first series venture following his Miss Peregrine books. It follows 17-year-old Leopold Berry, whose hallucinations feel similar to scenes from his childhood fixation, the television show Sunderworld. Leopold realizes that Sunderworld isn’t just a fictional wonderland lost to childhood memories, but a real place in need of a hero.
“I’ve always been drawn to portal fantasies in fiction,” Riggs said in a statement. “They feel like invitations to optimistic worlds where, ultimately, joy is possible, if only you can find the key.”
Riggs has seen great success with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. The six-book series, originally published by Quirk in 2011, has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and was adapted into graphic novels and a 2016 film directed by Tim Burton.
Now Riggs is looking toward the future with this new series. “I think [Ransom] was trying out a lot of new ideas,” Karre said. “And that always makes it exciting as an editor to see somebody with an ambition to stretch himself as an artist.”
