Wendy Mass

Well, you asked to read the first chapter…how about the first SEVEN chapters? The full book won’t be out until June 11th, but my ever-so-kind publisher is offering this sneak peek early. It’s like a third of the book!

If you have any kind of e-reader it’s easy to order it directly from whoever provides your ebooks, or Amazon (and probably other places) allows you to read it right on your computer as well. When you look it up make sure to add “preview” to the title or else you’ll just get sent to the regular book. It should look like this:

MANGO IS TEN TODAY!!

It’s been ten years since my first book — A Mango-Shaped Space — was published and it’s been a wild ride!! It took 49 rejection letters and many years of writing before that first acceptance letter, and I’m so grateful to Little Brown and Company in Boston (now NYC) who took a chance on a new writer and a strange story about a girl who sees letters and numbers in color. I want to thank all the teachers and librarians and booksellers and editors and parents and my fellow writers and especially the young readers who have read my books and haven’t stopped asking when the next one is coming out. Thank you for welcoming my stories into your heads for the last decade; I’m honored by that each and every day.

Will be posting a real blog entry in the next few days with some fun news, but just wanted to tell you today THE CANDYMAKERS is Kindle’s Kids Deal of the Day (April 3)! You can get the ebook from Amazon for only $1.99!

Happy Passover / Easter / Spring Break!

xo

Wendy

Okay, I’m staring at a large number of “waiting for moderator” comments, so in the interest of life being short and not wanting to keep you waiting till graduation, i’m going to post a lot of them over the weekend, but will have to answer your questions here instead of individually. Most of the recent questions on the blog are about the next two books. So here’s what I know so far: PI IN THE SKY is coming out June 11. That’s sooner than it sounds. It will be warm then. Warm is good.

Happiest of holidays to all!! I hope yours is filled with laughter and love! (and chocolate. ;o)

Thank you to everyone who gave suggestions for the last Willow Falls book in the previous post. It’s almost done and I’m pretty sure I was able to get everything in. Keep ‘em coming for the next few weeks as the book is edited, though, since there’s still a chance to squeeze things in at that point.

UPDATE: 2 more days of bidding to raise money for those in need from hurricane Sandy in NJ..Over 200 signed & personalized books from your favorite authors. This is my listing for the Candymakers.

Pi in the Sky is off to proofreading! That means no more last-minute changes on my part. That’s always the toughest moment when you hand it in for the very last time knowing that you’re not going to see it again until it’s all bound up. There are going to be fun illustrations to go along with each chapter, which I’m really excited about. Never had any real illustrations in my books before! So this will be very fun!

Calling all Mother-Daughter Book Clubs!! 11 Birthdays is a featured book in Scholastic’s Mother-Daughter book club this month. They have a lot of fun activities and a contest for a free skype for any clubs who would like to use the book.

Below is a Sneak Peek at the cover for Pi in the Sky. I really love it! The illustrator who did the cover for The Candymakers did this one, too. The book, about a very unusual boy who must rebuild the solar system from scratch, is due out in June ’13.

Why is it no one ever says the Cat Days of Summer? But putting aside my preference toward cats, I was interested to learn that the phrase originally stemmed from Ancient Rome. The hottest days of summer coincided with the rise of Sirius, the Dog Star. It was believed the added “shine” made it hotter. It didn’t. Still, pretty cool.

I have lots of notes for a real blog post, but it will have to wait till I hand in the revisions for PI IN THE SKY, due in a week. So until then I just wanted to share this picture of a lovely cardboard display that a friend of mine snapped at his local Barnes & Noble store. All the books in the Twice Upon a Time series are here: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (brand new!) and the other two paperbacks, RAPUNZEL and SLEEPING BEAUTY. So if you’re looking for some funny books to take to camp, or the beach, or your backyard, or your front stoop, or wherever you like to read in the summer, look no further.

I hope everyone had a piece of pie to celebrate Pi Day! (3-14)! I’m still hard at work on PI IN THE SKY, but it’s getting there! It should be out next spring.

In fact, I have to get back to writing even though it’s almost midnight! No rest for the writer on deadline!

Hey, the Jeremy Fink movie is now available wherever DVDs and digital downloads are found.

And Sleeping Beauty, the next Twice upon a Time, book will be out in a few weeks (but some stores might have it now…)

Cheers!