by hatfield13

Happy, Happy Book News!

It’s official!  Super-Agent literaticat   says I can share the news that’s had me over the moon for the past three weeks or so….

She sold my picture book to Chronicle Books!  Here’s the official announcement from Publishers Marketplace:

Children’s:
Picture book 		 
Kate Messner’s OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW, in which a girl on a ski trip discovers the secrets of the animal kingdom beneath the snow, to Melissa Manlove at Chronicle, by Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (World).

…and here are some of the juicy details.

If you read my blog much, you know that I love spending time outdoors in every season — especially winter.  Really astute blog readers might even remember this entry, where I talked about a snowshoe trip I took with my 7th grade students in the Adirondacks.  We saw tracks like these…

…disappearing into a crevice in the packed snow and heard all about the tunnels of the subnivean zone, under the snow.  I was enchanted.  So I started reading and researching and writing, and playing around with the poetry of snow, and then I went to the Kindling Words retreat and shared the manuscript with a new writer friend, Joan.  She loved it and gave me a few ideas for revision.  In early February, I sent OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW off to Jennifer, my agent.  She fell in love and sent it out to a few editors she thought might fall in love, too.

One of them did.  She took the book through the acquisitions process, and Chronicle’s formal offer came a few weeks ago. 

I am thrilled — more than thrilled — to be working with a house that publishes such beautiful, beautiful picture books.  Plus, there’s the added bonus of Ivy & Bean.  My daughter LOVES the Ivy & Bean series and was very excited when she found out it’s the same publisher.  I told her this kind of makes her related to Ivy and Bean in a way…like distant cousins or something. 

Since then, my house has been a chatty, excited place — even more so than usual.  There’s been a lot of squealing and jumping up and down and imagining what the illustrations will look like. I’m early for the Thankful Thursday blog post, but this time, I was too thankful to wait.

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112 Replies on “Happy, Happy Book News!”

  1. Omg, I’m SO GLAD you just posted this bc I JUST READ the PM announcement and wanted to give you a CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so happy for you, Kate!!!! Keep squealing with your fam. This is awesome news!!!!!!!

  15. Congratulations!!!!!!!
    I’m so glad your book is about the subnivean zone! (I’ve studied ecology–can you tell?)
    🙂

  17. KATE!!!! This is fantastic. I am so happy for you and for us! Another great book out there in the world. It can’t get better than that.

  25. KATE! What an absolutely AWESOME idea. I’m captivated, especially because I know nothing about snow being as desert rat, and am content experiencing it via books.
    YAY!

  28. Hooray for you, Kate!

    And Hooray for the good people at Chronicle for knowing a gem when they see it. I can’t wait to see this book!

  33. Kate, YAYYYYY!

    What fantastic news!

    Wow – I’m so happy to hear about all the squealing and jumping up and down.

    🙂

  40. Thanks, Lindsey! (By the way, I’m dying to read your princess book and expect to read your announcement any day now! :^)

  42. Re: Hooray for you, Kate!

    Thanks, Loree!! (And I saved my research photos from this one…just in case our presentation idea is a go!)

  50. Thanks, Laurie! I can’t wait to see what it looks like (even though I’d better get used to the idea of waiting… picture books take a while!)

  55. Congratulations 🙂

    I just friended you, and our mutual friend, Stephanie Gorin, told me about your book. 🙂

    May this be the first of one hundred contracts!

  68. This is SO exciting. CONGRATS!! Weird, too. I had a strange dream about you last night. Maybe I knew something LOL.

  70. YAYA KATE!!!!!!

    How exciting! Though I dread the cold of winter, there is something magical about it and the way it makes things new again. It sounds like you captured that (as an illustrator) can’t wait to see the illustrations! So much good news– HAPPY SPRING TO YOU!

  79. You are awesome and never cease to amaze me. Can’t wait to see you in SEVEN DAYS and jump up and down and squeal with all of you. CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!!!! Love, Mom

  94. Ivy and Bean rock…and so does Annie Barrows. We wrote her a letter after E read and loved the first book, and she wrote right back with a nice note.

  97. Thanks, Jeannine! And on another note…oh, how I wish I could hear you & Loree speak in Cambridge this weekend. We’re booked with kid events here, but I wish you the best, and I’m sure it will be great!

  98. Thanks, Sara! I was going to drop you an email this week. We just got five copies of Sweethearts in my school library, and they’re ALL signed out to kids who are surreptitiously reading under their desks in math class. I love it.

  99. Wow! You’re actually the first person to make that pun…although I’m sure I’ll hear it many times before the book comes out!

  105. Thanks, Eric! This one is so different from my regional historical novels – it’s going to be a brand new learning experience. I can’t wait!