Middle Grade Ninja: Book of the Week: WATCHDOG by Will McIntosh

First Paragraph(s): Vick never got used to the smell. Usually he stopped noticing bad smells after a while, but the eye-watering stink of mountains of trash baking in the blazing August sun was so bad, it made every breath an ordeal. And then there were the flies buzzing around Vick’s face, landing on him with their […]

Middle Grade Ninja: ENTER THE NINJA

Dear Esteemed Reader, I’m changing my online presence up a bit. For the past year, I’ve been promoting both my adult horror writing and my middle grade fiction from my website www.robertkent.net, which is just a silly thing to do. The two genres are not compatible. Hence Forth, I shall be THE MIDDLE GRADE NINJA! […]

Middle Grade Ninja: GUEST POST: “The Book Lady” by Judy Newman

I go by three different names. I am Judy Newman, President and Reader in Chief of Scholastic Book Clubs.I am also Pepper Springfield, author of the Bobs and Tweets rhyming chapter-book series, illustrated by Kristy Caldwell. And if you come to my town, Montclair, New Jersey—especially this time of year—you will hear people call me […]

Middle Grade Ninja: GUEST POST: “I Never Went to School in My Pajamas: The Story of a Homeschooled Author” by Kristiana Sfirlea

Hi, everyone! My name is Kristiana Sfirlea, and I am the author of Legend of the Storm Sneezer, a middle grade fantasy involving time travel and things that go bump in the night. Oh, and I was homeschooled. Once upon a time, that statement would’ve drawn out the usual reactions: 1) The dubious, “How did […]

Middle Grade Ninja: Guest Post: “A Pulse-Pounding, Hair-Raising, Gut-Busting Good Time (Reading and Writing as Physically as Possible)” by Patrick Hueller

I went to a great, weird elementary school. One of the great, weird things about it was that we didn’t have assigned classrooms or teachers. Or rather we did have these things, but only briefly. We had Homeroom for a few minutes at the beginning and the end of the day. We saw our homeroom […]

Middle Grade Ninja: GUEST POST: “The Village Approach to Fellow Author Strokes” by Sunny Weber

I recently solicited endorsements for my new middle-grade book, The Dog at the Gate: How a Throwaway Dog Becomes Special. I chose other authors as well as various experts in related fields. One middle grade author asked why I wanted an endorsement from her, as she saw herself as “a small fry.” One look at […]

Middle Grade Ninja: March 2016

When my middle grade novel, The Sweet Spot, launched last June I was sure that I had made the final and best decision on how I was going to put it out into the world. The book had previously found an agent, gone through rounds of revision and rejection and revision – and not sold. […]

Middle Grade Ninja: Hilary Harwell

Before joining DeFiore in early 2016, Reiko Davis was an associate agent at Miriam Altshuler Literary Agency for four years. She grew up in Kansas City, received her BA in Comparative Literature and Art History from Brown University, and is a graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course. Reiko’s interests are varied, but she is particularly […]

Middle Grade Ninja: Salvo Lavis

We write children’s picture books about an elementary school-aged boy and his marvelous pet weasel. Often we are asked—understandably so—for what age groups our fun little episodes are intended. The answer: children between four and ten years old and the adults who read with them. But the deeper truth: anyone and everyone. Humans love a […]

Middle Grade Ninja: Literary Agent Uwe Stender’s Never-Ending Thirst for Fantastic YA and MG

THIS WEEK IN NINJA-ING: Tuesday’s Book of the Week is The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda, Wednesday we’re discussing Chapter 7 of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Thursday author Tom Angleberger will face the 7 Questions. Saturday, as ever, we’ll be joined by a surprise literary agent. Today, we are incredibly fortunate to have a guest post […]

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