NOTHING TO CRY ABOUT

When it comes to calming crying infants, there's apparently no one to match Tracy Hogg, a British-trained nurse, midwife and nanny. In fact, so powerful are Tracy's soothing vibes that she is nanny of choice to the stars' kids and has won endorsements from the likes of Michael J. Fox and Jodie Foster. Only natural, then, that someone should think of turning her methods into a book. That has now been done in the form of Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: Unlocking the Language of Infancy and Understanding Your Baby, to be written with Melinda Blau; Ballantine president and publisher Gina Centrello has just paid in the upper six figures to acquire world rights for it, as part of a two-book package. Agents Ellen Geiger of Curtis Brown (for Hogg) and Eileen Cope of Lowenstein Associates (for Blau) took the pair around to 14 publishers before settling on the team at Ballantine, who declared they had to have the book(s). Senior editor Joanne Wyckoff will nanny the book.

HOSTAGE CRISIS, 1901

Did you know that Teddy Roosevelt's administration faced its own hostage crisis, believed to be the first of its kind to confront an American government, at the dawn of the century? Award-winning journalist Teresa Carpenter (who wrote the bestselling Without a Doubt with O.J. prosecutor Marcia Clark) d s, and has sold her proposal for a book on that remarkable occurrence to Alice Mayhew at Simon & Schuster. It will be called The Miss Stone Affair, and tells the tale of Ellen Stone, a Congregationalist missionary in the Balkans taken captive by a group of Macedonian revolutionaries who hoped to get $110,000 (about a million now) from the American government in ransom to help finance a revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The kidnappers were extremely proper, and kidnapped an Albanian woman as well, to act as a sort of chaperone to Miss Stone, but they still threatened to shoot them both if the money was not forthcoming. Washington did a fair bit of floundering before deciding to pay up. The women came back to a heroines' welcome and became fixtures on the lecture circuit (the 1901 equivalent of a TV talk show tour). The book, which was bought from Esther Newberg at ICM, will be published in fall 2001, the centenary of the incident.

MICROSOFT IN COURT

The recent statement by the judge endorsing the government's position in the federal antitrust case against Microsoft hasn't caused any frowns at McGraw-Hill, which is poised to have an authoritative book on the trial ready the moment it's over. In cooperation with the New York Times book development unit under Mike Levitas, the publisher has signed the paper's two chief correspondents on the case, Steve Lohr and J l Brinkley, to do The U.S. vs. Microsoft. The pair have been working on the book throughout the trial and the publisher plans to crash it into production as soon as the judge's final decision is rendered. The project was signed by M-H publisher Philip Rupell, and is being shepherded into pages by its executive editor, Nancy Mikhail.

9 SENATORS A-WRITING

There are nine female senators, and though there is much they may not agree on, they will collaborate on a book scheduled for publication just in time for the party conventions next summer. The so-far-untitled book has been sold by Robert Barnett of the Washington firm Williams & Connolly to Claire Wachtell at Morrow, with proceeds to go to the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. It was the idea of senior Democratic senator Barbara Mikulski and senior Republican senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. The entire group of women senators gets together once a month to exchange thoughts, and they agreed they would tell how each overcame obstacles to get elected, how they work within the Senate and how they motivate each other. The others are Barbara Boxer, Susan Collins, Dianne Feinstein, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Patty Murray and Olympia Snowe. A male writer, so far unidentified, will work with them.

NELSON GETS RAMSEYS

The Boulder, Colo., couple whose six-year-old beauty queen daughter was mysteriously murdered three years ago have signed with Nashville's Thomas Nelson to do a book that will appear as soon as next March. The surprise announcement, from Nelson publisher Rolf Zettersten, said John and Patsy Ramsey would "address many of the myths and falsehoods surrounding this case." A grand jury recently declined to indict anyone in connection with the killing, though a police investigation is continuing. According to Zettersten, the deal for the book was made without an agent after a mutual friend had introduced him to the Ramseys. He bought world rights, and said the royalties would go partly toward defraying the Ramseys' legal expenses. The couple are writing it themselves, with editorial input from Nelson, and Zettersten said he was personally convinced, after talking to them, their pastor and their lawyers, that they had no involvement in the child's death.

SHORT TAKES

A book all about a relationship with a parrot, The Parrot Who Owns MeŠ by a Rutgers professor of biology, Dr. Joanna Burger, went to Bruce Tracy at Villard for six figures. Packaged by Kenneth Wapner at Peekamoose Productions, and agented by Gail Ross and Howard Yoon at her agency, the book describes the author's relationship with Tiko, 30 years old, who can be flirtatious, jealous and very human... Bestselling Irish author Roddy Doyle has signed with Arthur Levine's imprint at Scholastic for his first children's book, The Giggler Treatment, in a deal concluded with Doyle's British agent, John Sutton. Publication is set for next fall.