Rajani LaRocca's Blog, page 10

A New Middle Grade Novel!

The only thing better than writing a book is writing a book with a dear friend—Chris Baron!! Chris and I are so thrilled to be working on THE SECRET OF THE DRAGON GEMS, our nerdy, out-of-this-world epistolary novel with Charlie Ilgunas at Little Bee Books! We’re eternally grateful to our agents, Brent Taylor and Rena Rossner, for believing in this project from the very beginning!

This book was our pandemic project that we wrote for sheer joy starting in July 2020, and we can’t wait to share how much fun we coming up with this story!

WHERE THREE OCEANS MEET is a California First Partner’s Summer Book Club Selection!

I am SO thrilled that WHERE THREE OCEANS MEET, written by me and gorgeously illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan, has been selected to be part of the California First Partner’s Summer Reading Club! Huge thanks to Jennifer Siebel Newsom and her staff for selecting my book to be read by children across the state! You can check out the whole list here, and see below for my virtual storytime!

MIRROR TO MIRROR ARCs Arrrive!

I was thrilled to get a package from HarperCollins with ARCs of my forthcoming novel, MIRROR TO MIRROR! This novel in verse is about twin sisters who grow apart and must find their way back to each other releases March 21, 2023! You can learn more and find preorder links here.

RED, WHITE, AND WHOLE in Korean!

Copies of the Korean translation of RED, WHITE, AND WHOLE arrived today, and they are so beautiful they made me weepy! The cover and interior are absolutely stunning, and it includes QR codes to my RED, WHITE, AND WHOLE Inspiration playlist on Spotify! And check out that gorgeous interpretation of the Newbery Honor seal!

Where Three Oceans Meet Wins a 2022 South Asia Book Award Honor!

I’m thrilled that WHERE THREE OCEANS MEET, written by me and gorgeously illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan, has been named a 2022 South Asia Book Award Honor book! Congratulations to all the winners and honorees: Srividhya Venkat, Kavita Ramachandran, Padma Venkatraman, Sheba Karim, Anuradha Rajurkar, Andrée Poulin, and .

2022 Newbery Celebrations!

The most exciting part of the ALA Annual Conference was celebrating the Newbery Awards!On June 25, I got to attend the #Newbery100 Celebration — which, as you might guess, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Newbery Award, the oldest children’s book award in the world! We learned about the history of the award and took a look at all the books that have been honored in this way in over the past one hundred years. And then came a very special Author/Fan Face-Off hosted by Steve Sheinkin and Stacey Rattner and featuring authors facing off against librarians regarding their own books!That night, I went to an intimate Newbery celebration dinner with my fellow 2022 Newbery authors, Donna Barba Higuera, Andrea Wang, Kyle Lukoff, and Darcie Little Badger, our editors, and our Newbery Committee members. We had a beautiful evening with delicious food, toasts by all the authors, and plenty of happy tears! Then, on June 26 we got dressed to the nines for the Newbery Awards! First, my family, agent, and I went to a HarperCollins cocktail party. And then came the Newbery Caldecott Dinner and Award Ceremony, a beautiful, star-studded affair in which everyone received their awards. The speeches by Jason Chin (Caldecott Medal winner), Donna Barba Higuera (Newbery Medal winner), and Grace Lin (Children’s Literature Legacy Award winner) were heartfelt and inspiring. And it was mind-blowing to hear my name called and to go up to receive a Newbery Honor for RED, WHITE, AND WHOLE!When I was a little girl, I always looked for the books with the shiny stickers on them. How stunned am I that now my book — a book of my heart — now has one? It’s almost too wonderful to believe!

The 2022 American Library Association Annual Conference!

From June 24-27, 2022 I went to Washington, DC to attend my first ever ALA Annual Conference, the first held in person since the pandemic started! I was so grateful to see so many friends, hang out with my publishers, meet amazing librarians, and sign books. And it was the thrill of a lifetime to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Newbery Award, and to receive a Newbery Honor for RED, WHITE, AND WHOLE! I got to sign copies of I’LL GO AND COME BACK, THE SECRET CODE INSIDE YOU, WHERE THREE OCEANS MEET, and of course, RED, WHITE, AND WHOLE! It was a thrilling week, and a joy to attend, especially since my family was also able to come!

 

Four More Novels!

I’m out of my mind THRILLED that I get to write FOUR more books with QuillTreeBooks / HarperCollins!! I’ve got two more middle grade and two young adult (eek!) novels coming from 2024-2027!! My forthcoming books include a fantasy (THE SOUND OF MAGIC), a contemporary (NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH), a mystery (MYSTERY PARTY), and a rom-com (CHEMISTRY LESSONS)! I’m so fortunate to be able to write such a wide variety of books!

The 2022 Walter Awards Ceremony!

I was honored and thrilled to attend the 2022 Water Dean Myers Awards for Outstanding Children’s Literature at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC on June 23! After a wonderful panel featuring Honorees Kekla Magoon, Eden Royce, and Natasha Donovan, Grace Lin introduced the winners in the Young Readers and Teen categories, presented the awards, and introduced speakers Angelline Bouley . . . and me! Great news: I made it through my speech! You can see the whole awards ceremony, including my speech, below. Huge congratulations to the all the honorees and winners!

 

The 2022 Walter Award Ceremony!

I was honored and thrilled to attend the 2022 Water Dean Myers Awards for Outstanding Children’s Literature at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC on June 23! After a wonderful panel featuring Honorees Kekla Magoon, Eden Royce, and Natasha Donovan, Grace Lin introduced the winners in the Young Readers and Teen categories, presented the awards, and introduced speakers Angelline Bouley . . . and me! Great news: I made it through my speech! You can see the whole awards ceremony, including my speech, below. Huge congratulations to the all the honorees and winners!