Usborne YA Shelfies

The home of Usborne YA and Teen

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YALC is here, so AWAKE IN THE WORLD author, Jason Gurley, it’s time to EXPRESS YOURSHELF!

Jason Gurley is the author of debut YA novel, Awake in the World, a love story about fate, privilege and the irresistible attraction of opposites. Available to buy direct from the Usborne stand at YALC, Awake in the World is a perfect summer read that fans of Jennifer Niven and Nicola Yoon will love. Meet US author Jason Gurley as he answers our Shelfie Seven questions! 

1. You’re about to embark on a mission to Mars, but can only take one book. What do you pack? There’s no way I’m ever going to have to really answer this question, so instead, here are my three contenders: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It’s a little bit of everything: coming-of-age novel, romance, drama. Adichie draws the most finely-tuned characters; they never feel anything short of real, so everything they face plucks the truest of strings. Contact by Carl Sagan. This is such a deeply personal novel to me, and one whose ideas about science and faith heavily influenced Vanessa in Awake in the World. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s just the right blend of creepy and sad, of bleak and haunted. Ishiguro is one of my all-time favorites. If I ever tired of the story, I’d read just to watch him move words around in his quiet, dazzling way.

2. You can travel back in time and give 16-year-old you a book you’ve read recently. What do you choose? Probably Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, or Colum McCann’s Letters to a Young Writer. Sixteen-year-old me was just beginning to seriously consider a future in writing stories, and was far too heavily influenced by the glamorous portrayals of writers in the movies and elsewhere. These two books do a marvellous job of stripping away the illusion to present the reality, and emphasize the satisfaction of hard work over the elusiveness of literary stardom (which young me thought about a lot). As McCann says: it’s all about putting the arse in the chair.

3. Which great literary classic is still on your to-be-read pile? The Count of Monte Cristo. Don Quixote. A Tale of Two Cities. So many. Lately I’m working my way through some mid-20th century books - everything from Rona Jaffe and Mary McCarthy to Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin. 

4. Awake in the World is going to be made into a film. Who’s your dream director? Who gets cast as Zach and Vanessa?  I think Lyrica Okano would make an excellent Vanessa, full of confidence and wonder. And Lucas Hedges would bring just the right amount of pathos and determination to Zach. As for directors, I’d love to see someone like Destin Daniel Cretton tackle this material. I’m a big fan of his film Short Term 12. He’s an artist who understands the inner lives of young people, I think.

(Lyrika Okano, Jason Gurley’s choice for Vanessa in Awake in the World movie.

5. Which song provides the perfect soundtrack to Awake in the World?

There are so many possible answers to this question. I tend to write while listening to music, so everything from film scores to ‘80s songs to more current music gets in there and worms around. But I’ll go with a little track that Nancy Wilson wrote for the film Vanilla Sky. It’s called “Elevator Beat”: it’s short, wistful, hopeful, a little tragic, and utterly gorgeous. The perfect song to listen to on repeat about a thousand times while writing about these characters. 

 LISTEN HERE: https://youtu.be/OfV-YzMfvns

6. What’s your favourite relationship - romantic, BFFs, sworn enemies, family - in a book? Oh, Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire, from Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, definitely comes to mind. The whole love-that-transcends time thing is hard to do well, and this book succeeds because the characters feel so textured and real. I also love the working relationship between cousins Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay in Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. From that first scene where they’re forced to bunk in the same bed to the eventual tangles of their career and loves, they’re utterly fascinating. 

7. You’re holding a literary dinner party. Name five guests - real or fictional - on your invite list. Ann Druyan, for all her stories of working on the Voyager project and living a life of healthy skepticism and wonder. Margaret Atwood, to learn about what makes a successful, contented, productive, exemplary writing life. Ta-Nehisi Coates, to learn how someone straddles the serious (his nonfiction work) and the comic (his Marvel work) so expertly. Christopher Hitchens, because I imagine no one is a better and more irascible conversationalist. Jesmyn Ward, who I think is the best writer of the last twenty years or more.

Awake in the World is out now and a perfect summer romance. Available this weekend from the Usborne stand at YALC. Come and say Hi!

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READ A SNEAK PEEK OF THE NEXT MAGGIE HARCOURT SWOONER AT YALC!

OMG everyone, YALC is almost here, and Usborne YA will be giving away this STELLAR sampler featuring the first chapters of ALL of our 2020 YA titles, plus chapter one of Holly Bourne’s forthcoming book, THE PLACES I’VE CRIED IN PUBLIC. Woohoo.

Seriously, check out this list of 2020 authors. Next year is going to be SPECTACULAR!

Coming in February 2020, we have the long-awaited fourth book by Maggie Harcourt, THE PIECES OF OURSELVES. Maggie’s UNCONVENTIONAL is a classic YALC corker, so Maggie wrote us this little taster of what’s to come in her new 2020 book...

History's a funny thing. There's "History", which is queens and cathedrals, wars and laws - it's big and it's heavy and most of the time it feels pretty far away.

But what about the other kind of history: the smaller, quieter histories we all write just by getting on with life? How do we feel about those? And what if we stop getting on with life and find ourselves sort of... stuck? I wanted to tell a story that was about the past and the present, and how we deal with them. I wanted to tell a story about a girl who is desperate to run away from her own history... and what happens when instead, she runs into a guy who is completely obsessed with the past. Luckily for me, that was exactly when Flora and Hal turned up - because most of all, I wanted to tell a story about being lost and being found, in every possible sense. So what is The Pieces of Ourselves actually *about*? It's about Flora and Hal; about attics and mazes and letters and fairy lights, about family and courage and signs - and what happens when the past is so close you can touch it. Oh, and there might be some kissing too. Maybe.

Come grab your free sampler at YALC and read the first chapter of THE PIECES OF YOURSELVES... 

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Shelfie Seven: Kathryn Evans, author of BEAUTY SLEEP and MORE OF ME

It’s three weeks until the launch of Kathryn Evans’ second YA novel BEAUTY SLEEP, in which 16 year old Laura is plunged into a futuristic world after 40 years asleep (think Black Mirror meets Malory Towers). We asked rainbow-haired author extraordinaire Kathryn to EXPRESS HERSHELF by answering our SHELFIE SEVEN QUESTIONS:

#1: Who’s your weirdest literary crush? It’s Edward from Thomas the Tank Engine. You did say weirdest…

#2: If Beauty Sleep was made into a film, who’d be your dream director? Who gets to be Laura? Obviously the director would have to be Charlie Brooker! I absolutely love the Black Mirror series, that sideways take on modern issues is exactly what I try and do in my books. As for actors, if I could have anybody – Amandla Stenberg has the exact mix of vulnerability and strength that I see in Laura.

#3: Where’s your favourite place to write? The place I get most done, believe it or not, is my hairdressers! It takes a long time to colour my hair so I take my laptop – with all those people watching me I daren’t faff about on facebook – plus, they bring me a constant supply of tea!

#4: You’ve been invited to the Hogwarts’ Yule Ball: what are you wearing? Oh wow! Something ice-blue with a huge skirt and silvery ivy leaves trailing from the shoulder, across the bodice and over the skirt, pumps for dancing, and my hair would be piled up and ice-blue too with glitter and a tiny silver top hat…and maybe some incy little fairy lights… I’ve thought about this way too much haven’t I? Waaaaaay too much.

#5: Which fictional character do you most closely identify with? Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Poor old Tess Durbeyfield – my life is nothing like hers but she was such a trier, I love that about her. And then there are the swishy skirts…

#6: You’re booking a holiday to a literary location, real or fantastical. Where do you go? Easy. The Weasleys’ kitchen. A home from home.

#7: You can travel back in time and give 16-year-old-you a book you’ve read recently; what do choose? What a brilliant question! I’m tempted to give her my first book More of Me because she’d be so so happy to know we finally got published but actually, I’m going to give her I am Malala, because I just think everyone should read it.

Don’t miss BEAUTY SLEEP, out 4th April.

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SHELFIE SEVEN: Vanessa Curtis, it’s time to express yourshelf!

Vanessa Curtis is the author of the powerful, moving and utterly compelling teen/YA novel, The Stolen Ones, a historical novel that looks at the legacy of the Nazis in 1950s Germany, as one girl searches for the truth about her family’s past. Vanessa took time out to bring her inimitable intellect and dry wit to our Shelfie Seven.

1. Which book first hooked you into reading? I remember getting really engrossed in the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder when I was seven or eight, but I read from the age of two.

2. Where’s your favourite place to write? I am lucky enough to be able to work from a quiet place at home. I have a small desk tucked into an alcove of the living-room.

3. You’re going away on a writer’s retreat and the cottage sleeps four – who’s coming with you? You don’t have to know them, or live in the same period of history. Well, Tim Bowler (my husband) is the most entertaining person I know, so he'd be invited. I'd quite like to ask Julian Clary for his wit and Grayson Perry, who asks interesting questions and really listens to the answers.

4. You can eat any meal described in any book; what’s on the menu? I always like this description of a meal which Virginia Woolf enjoyed at Cambridge as a visiting author: soles, sunk in a deep dish, over which the college cook had spread a counterpane of the whitest cream, save that it was branded here and there with brown spots like the spots on the flanks of a doe.

5. Your wardrobe is magical and you can enter and leave the world of any book at will - where’s your Narnia? That's a really amusing question, because I do actually live in the place that is officially 'twinned with Narnia' - Totnes.

6. You’re stuck in a lift for 24 hours with a fictional character. Who do you pick? Well, I refuse ever to get into lifts as I'm claustrophobic, but if I really had to endure a lift I'd probably pick someone small who didn't use up too much oxygen - Jane Eyre.

7. Which fictional character are you most like/ do you most closely identify with? Probably the more rebellious ones - Jo in Little Women, for example! (ed: don’t we all, readers? don’t we all?)

THE STOLEN ONES IS OUT NOW. 

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A Very Theatrical Q&A

When Maggie Harcourt’s talented set-designer pal, Clare Thornthwaite, designed and built and, well, truly brought to life, the Theatrical model box from Maggie’s most recent book, we could hardly hide our excitement. We wanted more and we wanted details! Luckily for us Clare and Maggie got together revealed all…

CLARE: We met on a theatre production course at the Theatre Royal Bath a couple of years ago. Was that inspiration for Theatrical, or were you already working on it and the course was part of your research?  MAGGIE: That course really was where Theatrical started, because over that week we had to learn everything about what it takes to produce a show for a professional theatre. I'd always been interested in how theatres work (which was why I was on the course!) but having the chance to see so much of what happens in the background - even before you actually get backstage - really made me want to write about theatres. There was something about the fact we were all getting to hang out backstage and go in and out of the stage door to the studio theatre every day while a show was running through its dress rehearsals in the main theatre that was so special: I wanted to try and put some of that feeling into a book. And when we had the day learning about stage management... that was it. I started hearing Hope in my head right after that. 

CLARE: I love how the model box is like a character within the book. Why did you decide to make that a part of the story? MAGGIE: It was one of those things that I didn't plan at first, but which grew with the story. To begin with, the fact Hope has a scale model of an auditorium in her room was really just a way of showing how seriously she takes her dream to work as a professional stage manager – but then, the model of the Earl's stage that sits in the production office of the theatre (and which the creative team and designers would have used to help them visualise how the show would look on-stage) became a way for Luke to send messages to her, letting her know how he felt without having to actually say it. To everyone else in the theatre, the model is just part of the furniture, or one of the tools they use every day, but to Hope it's really special because it's a symbol of everything she wants. Including Luke...

CLARE: You really capture the magic of the theatre and the fun and drama that goes on behind the scenes. It felt so authentic: how did you go about making sure the backstage world of your theatre seemed real? MAGGIE: A lot of research! Quite a lot of my notes from the Theatre Royal Bath course went into it, and I read a couple of the stage management texts we'd been told about on the course too. Something that makes me very happy is that after I was finished with them, they got to fulfil their theatre destiny when I gave them to a student just starting out on the stage management course at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. As well as that, I got in touch with the lovely backstage team at the Bristol Old Vic itself and they let me visit and poke around for a morning, including all the way up on the fly floor above the stage. The Bristol Old Vic is a big part of the Earl's, really - there's bits of it built into the DNA of the Earl's, the theatre I invented for the book, along with the Theatre Royal Bath, the Old Vic in London and probably every theatre I've ever been in. But the feel and atmosphere of the backstage areas definitely came from the Bristol Old Vic and the Theatre Royal Bath. Apart from that, it was a lot of reading and daydreaming: I subscribed to The Stage and read it every week - especially the columns, and Jess Gow's articles about stage management; I read reviews of just about every big show that opened, just as background. The 'behind the scenes' programme from Harry Potter & the Cursed Child was super-helpful because it talked so much about the process of building a show from the very beginning, and there's an amazing photo book called Unseen London which has an entire backstage section. I felt like if I could picture the theatre in my head, from the corridors under the stage all the way up to the very top of the auditorium and beyond to the studio at the very top of the building, hopefully I could make it real enough for everyone else to see it too: something your amazing model box makes even easier!  

Clare Thornthwaite building a model box for "Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour". 

MAGGIE: First of all, I have to tell you how much I LOVE the Theatrical model box you built. How do you even start making something like that, and how do you capture the spirit of a whole theatre in something so small?  CLARE: I’m so pleased you like the model box, I really enjoyed making it too! The best place to start is with the plans. I contacted the Bristol Old Vic theatre who very kindly sent me technical drawings of their stage. In theatre design, we generally work to the scale 1:25 which means for every 1cm on the model equals 25cm on the real stage. The model I made for you is at a smaller scale of 1:50 so the figures are only 35mm high. It can be quite fiddly working on something so small, but the results are always rewarding and super cute! The black box is made from foam board so it is lightweight and easy to transport and the details on the stage are made from thinner pieces of card. I took inspiration from the beautiful book cover design, printing out the letters and hanging them with fine pieces of wire. The trees and hearts are cut out by hand with a sharp scalpel knife and coloured using acrylic paints and chalk pastels. It’s all held together with plenty of super glue! Traditionally the model box is a tool for everyone on the production. For the designer, the great thing is that you can see what is working and change the elements that don’t look right. The director can make decisions on where the action will take place. The actors use it to see where their entrances and exits will be and what obstacles they may need to negotiate, like steps or big pieces of furniture for example. A production manager will use the model box to work out a budget for how much things will cost to make and the set builders can work out how to actually construct the set. Most of all it helps everyone visualise how the show will hopefully look in the end. 

MAGGIE: What drew you to the world of theatre, and what do you love most about it?  CLARE: I imagine like a lot of people, one of my earliest memories of the theatre is going to see a pantomime at Christmas as a child with my family. I’ve always loved dressing up and won several fancy dress competitions when I was younger so have always had an interest in costume design. I went on to university to study Interior Design which is very similar to set design, which is also where I learned how to make scale models. For me the theatre is pure escapism, I enjoy getting totally lost in a different world and being sucked into someone else's story for a couple of hours. There is something magical about the action being performed live right there in front of you and with the energy from the audience, it all adds to the unique atmosphere of the theatre. Working behind the scenes and being part of the team that makes the magic happen is pretty special. It is a very collaborative process and challenges my creativity in new and exciting ways. 

MAGGIE: What would your dream job be? If you could work on designing a new production of ANY show - whether it's a musical, a play, an opera, a ballet - what would you choose and why? CLARE: My dream job would be to design something for the Olivier Stage at the National Theatre. Under the stage is a five storey high drum revolve which gives the designer unlimited possibilities. In 2014, I saw the NT’s production of Treasure Island designed by Lizzie Clachan; when the full-size pirate ship emerged from the stage it absolutely blew my mind! I’d love to create something so amazing that it wows the audience and leaves them speechless! If I could design any show it would have to be an Agatha Christie mystery, And Then There Were None maybe? Having the power to keep the audience guessing works so well that Christie’s play The Mousetrap is the longest running play in the world. I love how audiences continue to keep the ending a secret night after night. I also really like the fashion and interior styles of the 1920s and ‘30s so this would fit with the period and would be a lovely era to design for. 

If you’d love to hear Maggie talk more about the theatre world, she’s in conversation with Amber Massie-Blomfield at the Theatre Royal Bath on Jan 17th, about her brilliant book “Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die”. Maggie also promised to bring along the Theatrical model box!

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Designing ORPHAN MONSTER SPY

To celebrate the exciting news that Matt Killeen's debut thriller Orphan Monster Spy has been shortlisted for the 2018 COSTA Book Awards, we thought we'd share the cover design process with you, courtesy of designer extraordinaire Will Steele!

Receiving any new brief can send the mind whirring into how best to depict such a potentially wide-ranging story in one single visual. But with Orphan Monster Spy, which had a slightly different title on the original brief, there was the challenge of dealing with a potentially tricky subject coupled with a historical setting.

Dealing with a period of historical significance can be difficult, especially one which resonates with a lot of people and has some distinct visual cues that one would not necessarily deem appropriate for a YA novel or want to outwardly display on a book that is most commonly shelved in the children’s section of a bookshop.

Initially however, like the US cover (published by Viking Books, PRH) -

- we thought that the main visual hook would be to show that the story has a strong female protagonist, and with it being set during a key period of history we were conscious of not wanting to make the Nazi element too prominent or give away too much on first glance.

I trawled through various image libraries, including the fantastic Mary Evans image library (https://www.maryevans.com/), and found some original photos from the Bund Deutscher Mädel.

As they are all black-and-white photographs and quite clearly historical, I’d thought about colour-toning to bring them to life, or simply keeping the black and red theme and counter-balancing it with a modern typeface to make it feel more contemporary. I found a strong image and tried to obscure Sarah’s identity by covering her eyes and mouth, so that it might give a clue to her character’s motive. However, some of these first concepts came across as too dark and sinister.

I then considered doing something totally different and tried a more graphic approach, playing on the SS lettering and picking it out within the title. I also tried to include the eagle or use search lights to depict a chase, or the feeling of lurking in the shadows.

When it came to designing the advance mailing proof cover, we initially wanted it to identify with, but look different from the final book cover. I did quite a lot of research into the era to get a sense of the style of typography and design used around the time. I gleaned references from 1930s patterns, posters, film and architecture. I also paid a visit to the amazing house of the Courtaulds at Eltham Palace, which is an incredible time capsule of 1930s interior design (https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/eltham-palace-and-gardens/things-to-do/).

In order to try and make the proof cover look different from what was underway for the final cover, I thought about simplifying it and just using black, red and white to represent the Nazi theme and decided upon an art deco inspired typeface.

However it was feeling a little blank and not quite slick enough - simply put, it didn’t feel like the thriller that it was.

I looked at other visual references, such as the opening title sequences to The Man in the High Castle (Netflix) http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-man-in-the-high-castle/ and The Night Manager (BBC) http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-night-manager/, both produced by studio Elastic https://elastic.tv/

Taking inspiration from these and some other references I had collected along the way, I thought that perhaps showing the opulence and style of some sections of pre-war Germany could be an interesting route to take. Whilst keeping the theme dark but adding lavish gold foil and a bold deco inspired sans serif typeface.

The approach seemed to chime with everyone in striking the right balance between being sophisticated for a YA or even adult audience, attractive enough to pick up in the shop, and being intriguing without giving too much away.

I initially tried to draw a pattern that drew the reader in, almost as though looking down a lift shaft, or to create a tunnel effect to induce a claustrophobic feel. But it didn’t look historical enough and was beginning to feel a bit like a sci-fi novel.

By this stage I had settled upon the layout of grouping the design into three intersecting diamond shapes, and the approach of using a foil pattern had been agreed, so after a few experiments, amends and additions this became the design for the proof and the final cover.

Thanks so much to Will for taking us through this in-depth process. And with the COSTA winners to be announced on 7th January, our fingers are firmly crossed for ORPHAN MONSTER SPY and Matt Killeen!

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THEATRICAL COMPETITION TIME!

It was LOVE THEATRE DAY yesterday - so of course we’re going to shout about Maggie Harcourt’s gorgeous love letter to the theatre, Theatrical. Because you know who LOVES theatre? WE DO. 

So to celebrate we’re running a giveaway over on our Usborne YA Instagram. You could win two of our favourite theatre themed books; Maggie Harcourt’s Theatrical, and the Usborne Slot-Together Theatre. 

Look how gorgeous they are together!!! The perfect theatrical pairing! (And yes, we’ll send on the Theatrical set pieces too 😊). 

For your chance to win simply do the following three things:

🎭 make sure you’re following @usborneyashelfies

🎭 tell us in the comments what theatre show you’re most looking forward to seeing

🎭 tag the friend you’re seeing (or hoping to see - you can use this as an opportunity to nudge them!) the show with. 

Deadline to enter is 21st November. T&Cs apply

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SHELFIE SEVEN: Mel Darbon, it’s time to express yourshelf!

Mel Darbon is the author of the stunningly beautiful debut YA novel Rosie Loves Jack, a love story from a unique perspective that will make you look at the world in a different way. We put her on the spot with our Shelfie Seven questions!

1. Which book first hooked you into reading? I was hooked into reading at a very young age and loved the story of Chicken Little, a folk tale about a chicken that believes the world is coming to an end. But I think the book that sticks with me more than any other is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis. When I first read it I was transported to a magical world that I wanted to be part of. It showed me what stories could do and how they could take you out of your own life into a completely different one.

2. Where is your favourite place to read? I have an antique leather armchair with a velvet seat by the side of our old stone fireplace. Behind it is a vintage theatre light to see by. In the winter I have a log fire burning and curl up in my chair to read.

3. You're about to embark on a mission to Mars but can only take one book; what do you pack? I think it would have to be The Inheritors by William Golding, my all time favourite book. I was always fascinated by the Neanderthals and this book is such a beautifully realized tale of their last days. I still cry at the ending and every time I read it I find something new to wonder at.

4. If Rosie Loves Jack was going to be made into a film, who's your dream director? Who gets to be Rosie and Jack? My director would have to be Ken Loach because he is, in my opinion, the best there is for producing powerful, thought-provoking films about ordinary people and their dilemmas.

I would love an actress called Sarah Gordy to play Rosie, as she is a great actress who would fit the part perfectly - and even has the same colour hair as my character! Sarah was recently honoured with an MBE for her services to the arts and people with disabilities.

I would like Jack to be played by an undiscovered actor with learning disabilities, so would set out to find one by opening up auditions all over the country.

5. You're booking a holiday to a literary location, real or fantastical. Where do you go? I'd like to go back about three hundred thousand years ago to William Golding's world of The Inheritors and see a place untouched by by the modern world and observe Neanderthal man and all the creatures that existed during that period. Well, as long as I didn't end up as dinner!

6.You're going away on a writer's retreat and the cottage sleeps four - who's coming with you? Oh goodness - how to choose? I think I'd take Ken Kesey who wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest  to hear about his research on the human mind in all its complexities, so that I could refer to it for one of my books. I'd like to take Brian Conaghan, author of When Mr Dog Bites and The Bombs That Brought us Together, because he could give me help writing dark and difficult topics with humour and humanity, but would also keep us all entertained with his wonderful repartee. I'd like to invite Emily Bronte to discuss Wuthering Heights, so that hopefully I would be able to write a love story one day with such passion and intensity. And finally I'd have to invite William Golding, author of The Inheritors. Mind you, I might have to change my mind about him because I probably wouldn't get any of my own writing done as I'd be too busy listening to him! 

7. You can travel back in time and give sixteen-year-old-you a book you've read recently; what do you choose? It would have to be a Holly Bourne - Am I Normal Yet? We didn't have books like this when I was a teenager and I think it would have been fantastic to have stories that are a real comfort during the difficult time of adolescence that deal with tough issues such as mental health, friendship and feminism - and are as funny as they are heart-rending.

Rosie Loves Jack is out now, and if you commute in London, keep an eye out this Thursday as it may appear on a train near you!

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MEET MATT KILLEEN AT YALC

2-4 PM SIGNING AT YALC 4PM PANEL With Ed McDonald, Joanne Harris, Melinda Salisbury, Sarah Maria Griffin, chatting Frankenstein and the portrayal of MONSTERS in YA. 

Can you tell us about your book and who we will be meeting? Orphan Monster Spy is set at the outbreak of World War Two. Sarah, a German Jewish girl, is orphaned in an escape attempt but runs into a British agent. He recognises her special skills - she's smart, a gifted athlete and a cunning actress - but critically, she's blonde and blue-eyed. He sends her undercover in a school for the daughters of elite Nazis so she can infiltrate the estate of a reclusive nuclear scientist... but the school is full of human monsters and the mission becomes a living nightmare. 

How important was it for you to have such a brave female character such as Sarah? She arrived in my brain pretty much fully formed, whether I liked it or not, so she made herself important... and she was inspired by real women like SOE agent Violette Szabo. It was more important to me that she was well written and multi-dimensional, rather than strong, brave or likeable. Female protagonists don't have to be those things to be worthwhile. If she is, that's great but a bit incidental... and Sarah herself wouldn't give a hoot. Is it important to have well written female protagonists? Absolutely. Representation is invaluable and let's face it, there's no shortage of male (and white and straight) heroes in fiction, more than enough to go around. They don't tend to be very interesting. They're always starting from a position of privilege in one way or another. 

How important do you thing it is for YA fiction to draw attention to big historical events such as the Second World War? No one should allow themselves to think that the Holocaust and the Third Reich couldn't happen again. From Rwanda to the last US Presidential Election, the same events and themes constantly recur. The more you know about how they play out, the more likely you are to recognise and stop them. I grew up in a world that venerated the tales of WW2, and not always in the healthiest ways. But that did mean that I absorbed a huge amount of information and that did a lot of the groundwork for my later studies. Most children today are taught the Holocaust in school, but I wonder how much of that is "going in"? I know I spent far too many history lessons staring out the window or, on one occasion, asleep. Back in the 19th century, Lord Macaulay said, "history must be burned into the imagination before it can be received by the reason". Sometimes you need to tell a story. 

How important do you think it is for YA readers to be exposed to tricky subjects through books? Young adults and older children are largely resilient, thoughtful and capable of entering into a dialogue on most subjects. If it's dealt with in the right way and isn't prurient or exploitative - which is the truly tricky bit - I don't think there's anything you can't discuss. Given that, why wouldn't you want to touch on those things? It's generally the important stuff. 

What inspired you to write Orphan Monster Spy? How much research was involved? My mother's best friend was German and as a child I had real problems squaring the lovely, pacifist people I knew with the war stories that made up the majority of the films, comics and TV programmes at the time. As I learned the details of the Holocaust that dichotomy grew more profound and disturbing. I've carried this horrified fascination ever since and a lot of the research for this book was built on that foundation. Going past the Violette Szabo memorial in Stockwell every week had me considering how young she was when she volunteered. I wasn't that much more mature at 21 than I had been at 18 or 15... and Sarah was born. The fact that Stockwell was where Jean Charles de Menezes was killed - what happens when you let fear dictate action and policy - made the whole bus trip fertile creative ground. 

What message, if any, do you want readers to take away after reading Orphan Monster Spy? No matter how insignificant you feel you are, resistance starts with one person. That's how the world starts to change. So, stand up and change it. 

How did you find the experience of publishing your debut book? Wonderful, terrifying, brilliant and nauseating - all at once. When the deal was announced I got emails from other published authors to check I was OK, because they know what an emotional roller-coaster it can be. It's a very nice "problem" to have though and I'm in great hands. Most of the negative stuff is in my head. 

Name three of your favourite books of all time. Very hard to choose three... Watership Down by Richard Adams takes some beating. It's a deep and exciting story, beautifully written, with the power to delight and appal in equal measure. Most of the things I've ever learned about responsibility and leadership come from that book. Anne of Green Gables is a book I came to later in life as I explored all the things feminine in my teens. I feel head-over-heels in love with the tragical (sic) misadventures of Canada's most famous orphan and her puffed sleeves. Anne (with an E) is one of my very favourite characters. The Phantom Tollbooth is a work of genius. Every step of Milo's quest to rescue the Princesses Rhyme & Reason is a delight, both intellectually and emotionally. It has one of the most terrifying demons ever created and has a great map. All fantasies need a good map.

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OMG OMG OMG. IT'S FINALLY HERE! COME MEET KIM CURRAN AND SLAY YOUR DEMONS - IN THE ACTIVITY AREA NOW, FOLLOWED BY SIGNINGS AT THE USBORNE STAND.

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We meet Rebecca from Taken Moons...

Hi Rebecca! Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions about your literary candle company, Taken Moons. We just LOVE what you're doing and couldn't get enough of your The Extinction Trials candle, so we can't wait to find out a little more about you!

Usborne YA: Tell us about yourself ­– how long have you been running Taken Moons? What made you start making candles, and most importantly why book-themed candles?!

Rebecca: Hi! I'm Rebecca, fangirl, candlemaker and blogger of things (mostly books) and at the end of January this year I started Taken Moons as a way to fulfil my need to be creative while working in retail. Book-themed candles were the obvious choice for me because books are one of my biggest passions, and I love getting to work with authors to design things ­– it's a fangirl’s dream come true.

Usborne YA: What goes into making your candles? What's your favourite part?

Rebecca: So the process starts with an idea, a character or a book. Scent matching comes next, which is my favourite aspect of making candles. This is usually when I message an author and ask if they have any ideas, or if I've read something in a book that sounds good I just take that directly and mix the scent. I design the labels and order all the ingredients, so the process takes a couple of weeks but the end result is worth it.

UsborneYA: You made the coolest purple candle inspired by Storm in The Extinction Trials ­– why did you choose Storm to focus on? Are you always inspired by characters or does it depend on the book?

Rebecca: Storm was my favourite character in The Extinction Trials. She's who I want to be in a lot of ways, like back in the day when I read The Hunger Games and wanted to be Katniss Everdeen. If there’s a symbol for the book, it's Storm. I like to base candles on a character because it's like I can put something of myself into the products - it's a The Extinction Trials candle but it's my favourite character; the same with my The Hunger Games candle, it's Haymitch, and then my Jurassic Park candle is Ian Malcolm and so on.

UsborneYA: What's next? Can you give us any tasters of what candles are in the pipeline? How can people get hold of your awesome literary-inspired wax creations?

Rebecca: I'm working on some Gothic literature candles right now. The Picture Of Dorian Gray is my favourite classic/gothic novel so it's inspired a new range of candles that will include Dracula and The Raven. My Etsy shop is https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/takenmoons and if you use the code YASHELFIE20 you can get 20% off everything - including my Pride Month candle box!

UsborneYA: What's your favourite YA series at the moment?

Rebecca: The Extinction Trials is my favourite for sure, I can't wait for book 3 and I think the wait is going to be tough. I also really loved Everless by Sara Holland and The Cruel Prince by Holly Black, so I can't wait for the next books in those series either.

UsborneYA:  Who was your first literary crush? Rebecca: My first literary crush I believe was Legolas from The Lord of the Rings, which was only strengthened in the film adaptation when Orlando Bloom was cast (obviously I was older then). I really think it's an Elven thing - I remember wanting to marry Legolas from about the age of 9 because he was my hero and I hoped that marrying him would make me an elf too.

Thanks so much, Rebecca! We’re off to buy ourselves some gorgeous candles!

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Curtains up on Theatrical!

It’s the official publication date for the adorable Theatrical by Maggie Harcourt today! We’ve been excited about this one for MONTHS, and can’t wait for you all to read this adorable love letter to theatre, and most importantly, to the people behind the scenes! These people basically create magic passports into new worlds for all us lucky audience members, and they deserve the biggest round of applause.Theatrical gives them just that.

And if we weren't excited enough, we've managed to find fellow YA AND THEATRE lovers who feel the same! For the next month, 30 (30! BLIMEY!) bloggers will be sharing their #Theatrical stories with us, and we can't wait to hear them all.

And we don't want to stop there, we want to hear about YOUR transformative moments! When were you so swept away by a play you could have been in another world, another time? What does theatre mean to you?

Get involved here on #YAShelfies, or head over to Twitter: @Usborne / @MaggieHarcourt and Instagram: @UsborneYA / @MaggieHarcourt to carry on the #Theatrical conversation... We can't wait to hear your #Theatrical memories!

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Transatlanticism: US and UK Covers

To celebrate our British May Day bank holiday this weekend, and Memorial Day weekend in the US, we’re taking a little look at some of the different cover approaches our books have had Stateside.

It’s pretty common for the UK and US versions of a book cover to look quite different to each other – just check out this Buzzfeed list for examples. And the UK and US covers for Matt Killeen’s ORPHAN MONSTER SPY really couldn’t have gone in more different directions. 

Penguin Teen’s US cover focused strongly on the historical setting, with a background featuring Nazi soldiers and planes, and a cinematic feel reminiscent of Jennifer Lawrence spy thriller Red Sparrow - a brilliant comparison, as Sarah in ORPHAN MONSTER SPY is an equally kickass hero.

Here in the UK we went for a more subtle historical feel and a luxe attention-grabbing finish, with a 1930s art deco pattern picked out in gold foil, signed off by a killer strapline introducing Sarah and the dark, dangerous thrill of her story: “The deadliest weapon is a girl with nothing to lose”. Nice work, Will Steele. 

We hope you’ll agree, it looks gorgeous on bookshop shelves!

The result: one incredible story, two very different and equally stunning covers.

Likewise, we took a very different approach when we redesigned the UK cover for American National Book Award winner, Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine. 

Here’s the original US cover; so simple and universal, and suggesting wide crossover appeal. 

However, at Usborne in the UK, we’d all fallen for the main character, Caitlin. Her voice in the book is incredible - a young girl with Asperger’s, struggling to cope with her older brother’s death in a high-school shooting. Therefore we settled on a photographic cover, as for us, this book was all about the readers’ connection with Caitlin. 

However, when we republished the book as part of our new Usborne Modern Classics series, celebrating our backlist, we opted for an illustrative cover in line with the look of the other Usborne Modern Classics. It was time for something simpler and more symbolic; timeless. Thanks, Kath Millichope. So funnily enough, we came full circle with this one, although we think all three covers communicate the book’s power and beauty, albeit in very different ways.

If you’re gearing up for a three-day weekend, you could do a lot worse than kick back with these two beauties! Enjoy the sunshine (maybe!).

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Shelfie Seven: SLAY author, Kim Curran, it’s time to EXPRESS YOURSHELF!

To celebrate the publication of the kick-ass, demon-killing Slay last week, we caught up with Kim Curran to ask her the quintessential Shelfie Seven questions...

#1 Kim, you can travel back in time and give thirteen-year-old you a book you've read recently; what do you choose? It would probably be Circe by Madeline Miller, which I have just finished reading. I was obsessed with mythology as a teen and am sure that past me would adore the book as much as present me did.

#2 Who was your first literary crush? Huckleberry Finn – to the point I spent a summer dressing like him. I just wanted to get on a boat and run away!

#3 Where is your favourite place to write? Probably on trains – the sense of forward motion and the fact I'm generally disconnected from the internet helps me focus.

#4 You're going away on a writer's retreat and the cottage sleeps four  – who are the other three guests? You don't have to know them, or live in the same period of history. They'd be the three women I've already been on writers' retreats with: Amy McCulloch (AKA Amy Alward, author of The Potion Diaries), Laura Lam (author of the Micah Grey series) and Rebecca Levene (author of the Hollow Gods series). Not only are they all amazing writers, we're also disciplined enough to stop talking long enough to actually get some work done! I fear if I were to bring Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde or Jane Austen (who might be my dead author choices) then I'd spend so much time listening to their stories I wouldn't do any writing!

#5 Which song provides the perfect soundtrack for Slay? Choosing just one song is so hard. But it has to be Drag Me Down by 1D, which features on my Slay playlist!

#6 If you were to write fan-fiction about any book, series  – literary or otherwise  – what would it be? My favourite series of the moment is Lockwood & Co by Jonathan Stroud. Five books just wasn't enough – I need to know what happens to Anthony and Lucy! I want more – so I might just write it.

#7 And finally, who's playing your characters in the film version? Such a tough question, I imagine it would be some as yet undiscovered talent. But, from my character inspiration board you have a young Sophie Wu for Milly, I have no idea about his acting ability, but a young and dark-haired Lucky Blue for JD, and Skin from Skunk Anansie as Gail Storm.

Slay by Kim Curran is OUT NOW, featuring a demon-killing boyband, one hell of an adventure, and lots and lots of fun...

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Ready, steady, SLAY!

Drum roll, please... We’re thrilled to say that Kim Curran's SLAY is now officially out and on the shelves! Here at Usborne HQ, we are SO excited about the world's ONLY demon-killing boy band. Yes, you heard that correctly - a boy band who play music by day, and slay demons by night... Pretty awesome, right? Plus, if that wasn’t enough to tingle your reading tastebuds, Patrick Ness tells us, “it’s going to be huge and you’re going to love it”. We agree! 

When Milly arrives home to discover that her mum has been taken over by something very evil, she finds herself in mortal danger. But the last people she expects to rescue her are the boys in the hottest band on the planet! Enter SLAY – playing killer gigs, and slaying killer demons. Suddenly Milly's on the road with JD, Tom, Niv, Zek and Connor, helping save the world, one gig at a time...

If you like music, demon-slaying, boy bands, kickass characters, lots of action and a whole lot of fun, then SLAY is most DEFINITELY for you. It made us gasp, giggle, punch the air and wish we were on the road in a tour bus too... So hold on to your guitars, and get ready to welcome SLAY to the stage! You can find out more about Kim on her website, or over on Twitter and take a look over at the Usborne YA Instagram feed for lots more SLAY action!

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WOOHOO! IT’S THE COVER OF THEATRICAL.

Isn’t it flipping gorgeous? Illustrator Helen Crawford-White is a true star.  

“What’s it about?” I hear you cry. 

A Hollywood star, a top director, a sold-out show, a major crush...and a girl with everything to prove. 

What’s not to love? 

Pre-order here!

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Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.