On Thin Ice is a Junior Library Guild selection!

Woohoo! My upcoming middle grade novel On Thin Ice is officially a Junior Library Guild selection! The JLG has been around since 1929 and has a reputation for picking good books—award winners, enduring favorites, that sort of thing. Even better, it has a reputation for picking them early. I’m still eagerly (OK, anxiously) awaiting the first reviews of my book, so this early boost means a ton to me.

On Thin Ice was not an easy book to write. It’s a modern response to Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and a contemporary middle grade about daring to create something new from broken pieces. In other words: It’s complicated. It took me six years and umpteen (technical term) drafts to finish. That’s not the kind of process you go through and think: Now it’s perfect! It’s more like building a plane out of spare parts and thinking, Man, I hope this thing flies, as you rumble down the runway. What this selection means to me is: It flies. It comes out July 30 and is available now for preorder. Let’s see where it lands!