Writing for Children & Young Adults
|
BUY Big Mouth House / Small Beer Press, 2011 (hardcover) Reviews: “It's 1960, but on the decayed Fairchild sugar plantation in rural Louisiana, vestiges of a grimmer past remain—the old cottage, overgrown garden maze, relations between white and black races. “As a coming-of-age story it is a triumph; as an exploration of racial inequality and the sharp edge of American history it is moving and enlightening; as a deconstruction of Southern myth into reality it is vibrant. I highly recommend The Freedom Maze, not only for its beauty, but because it is one of the most engaging and challenging novels of the year, filled with magic and truth.” Advance Praise: “The Freedom Maze is destined to become a classic of time-travel fantasy alongside Edward Eager’s Time Garden and Elizabeth Marie Pope’s The Sherwood Ring. Yes, it is that good. But it’s also something more: a novel that slides skillfully past all the usual stereotypes about plantation life in the ante-bellum South, encouraging young readers to look at race, gender, and American history in a deeper, more nuanced way. It is, quite simply, one of the very best books I've read in years. Now I want everyone to read it.” “A seamless blending of wondrous American myth with harsh American reality, as befits young Sophie’s coming-of-age. I think younger readers and adults alike will be completely riveted by her magical journey into her own family’s double-edged past.” “Delia Sherman’s The Freedom Maze ensnares the reader with mysteries and conundrums of many varieties: social, historical, and magical. . . . Adroit, sympthathetic, both clever and smart, The Freedom Maze will entrap young readers and deliver them, at the story’s end, that little bit older and wiser.” “[N]ot to be missed. . . . It’s one of those books that crashes into you, all at once. I cannot recommend it highly enough.” |
 Cover art by Kathleen Jennings See original cover sketches here! “A riveting, fearless, and masterful novel. I loved Sophie completely.”
“A bold and sensitively-written novel about a supposed-white child, Sophie Fairchild returned magically to a time of her ancestors who were slavemaster and slaves in the old South. I was mesmerized.” “A subtle and haunting book that examines what it means to be who we are.”
“Sherman has created a finely honed work of art, a novel that deals eloquently with complex and intersecting issues of race, womanhood, class and age. In transporting the reader so fully into another time, The Freedom Maze becomes timeless. This is true magic.”
“Sherman's antebellum story exposes a wide sweep through a narrow aperture, where the arbitrary nature of race and ownership, kindred and love, are illuminated in the harsh seeking glare of an adolescent's coming of age.” |
|
The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen Viking/Penguin, June 25, 2009 (hardcover) Description: Neef, the official Changeling of Central Park, has gone on a life-threatening quest and faced down a dragon, but that looks like a piece of cake compared to her first day at school. At Miss Van Loon’s School for Mortal Changelings—and that’s pronounced “Van Lo-en’s,” if you please—she meets her counterparts from all over Manhattan, learns the basics of diplomacy and simple magic, and memorizes what seems like an endless list of rules. She also makes an enemy: Tiffany of the Upper East Side, queen bee of the school.
It’s up to Neef to save the day. Again. And this time, she has changeling friends. |
   |
|
Viking Juvenile, 2006 (hardcover); Firebird, 2008 (paperback) Description: Neef is a Changeling, a human baby stolen by fairies and replaced with one of their own. She lives in “New York Between,” a Manhattan that exists invisibly, side by side with our own, home to fairies, demons, mermaids, and other creatures of Folk lore. Neef has always been protected by her fairy godmother, Astris (a very lovely white rat), until she breaks a Fairy Law. Now, unless she can meet the challenge of the Green lady of Central Park, she’ll be sacrificed to the bloodthirsty Wild Hunt. Neef is a native New Yorker, and she’s determined to beat the rap—but New York Between is a maze of magic and magical rules, and time is running out… Reviews: From School Library Journal “Do[es] for Central Park what Peter Pan did for Kensington Gardens.”
|
“Delightful, witty, and magical, Changeling shows us New York as we
secretly believe it is.” “I love it: contemporary fantasy with plenty of urban hipness and a
girl hero who thinks on her feet!”
“There’s so much to love about this book—Sherman’s incorporation of the contemporary with the timeless is both seamless and endlessly amusing.” |
| Stories in Anthologies “The Witch in the Wood”Under My Hat, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Random House, 2012. “The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor” Steampunk!, ed. Grant & Link, Candlewick Press, 2011. “Flying” Teeth, ed. Datlow & Windling, HarperCollins, 2011. “The Wizard’s Apprentice” Troll’s Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales, ed. Datlow & Windling, Viking, 2009 ; The Way of the Wizard, ed. John Joseph Adams, Prime Books, 2010. “The Fiddler of Bayou Teche” Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, ed. Datlow & Windling, Viking Penguin, 2006. “CATNYP” The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm, ed. Datlow & Windling, Viking Penguin 2004; The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens, ed. Jane Yolen and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Tor, 2005. “Cotillion” Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Sharyn November, Viking Penguin, 2003. “Grand Central Park” The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest, ed. Datlow & Windling, Viking Penguin, 2001. “The Twelve Months of New York City” A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales, ed. Datlow & Windling, Simon & Schuster, 2000. |
 
 
 |
|
Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, Bantam Books, 2002 Description: Theron Campion, an aristocratic student, is drawn into a controversy about the nature of the ancient kings and the northern wizards. Basil St. Cloud is at the center of this dispute and as his relationship with Campion deepens, he finds that his historical findings have modern, highly political implications. As all scholars know, the kings were corrupt and their wizards were simply charlatans, but St. Cloud has discovered an ancient source that promises something altogether different. However, the Council of Lords becomes aware that the northern-most parts of the country are murmuring for a return to monarchy and, suspecting the University as a source for the discontent, they send a spy to ferret out information. St. Cloud and his students become the focal point for an explosive denouement that is as tragic as it is inevitable. Reviews: From School Library Journal From Library Journal From Booklist “Immensely appealing, intelligent, and great fun.” “The authors tap into fantasy’s genuine source of drama, its ability to haunt, appall, transform.” “Embraces the age-old struggle between scholars and mystics… to bridge the gulf that separates history from mystery.” “One of the bawdiest and most intellectually stimulating novels of the year!” “Richly textured… authentic… A fantasy novel that won’t insult your intelligence.”
|
“Gorgeous prose and a galloping story, with… a deep understanding of a true scholar’s passion for his subject.” “Stunning… If Oscar Wilde were writing high fantasy, he’d want to write The Fall of the Kings.” “Attractive characters, realistically enmeshed in social, political, and personal concerns… realized with a robust depth and realism.” “Kushner and Sherman don’t spin fables or knit fancies: they are world-forgers, working in a language of iron and air.” “The Fall of the Kings is, if possible, even better [than Swordspoint]— twistier and deeper.” “Splendid… one of my favorite books this year!” “This is how fantasy should be written!… sweeps you in and lets you live the story with the characters.” “A delicious read… dark, sexy, and wickedly funny by turns. I loved it. You’ll love it too.” |
|
Dutton, 1993; Plume, 1994 Description: Eighteenth-century France is the setting—a time and place where age-old superstitions shadow an age of enlightenment, where the minuet of aristocratic life is deaf to the approaching drumbeats of revolution, where elegance masks depravity and licentiousness makes a mockery of love. Against this background, Berthe Duvet, maid to Adele du Fourchet, later mme la duchesse de Malvoeux, tells her tale of a doomed society and of a family seeking to break a terrible curse. Vivid in its re-creation of a vanished age and delightfully iconoclastic in its view of women and history, The Porcelain Dove is a triumph of the imagination. Reviews: From Publishers Weekly From Library Journal From Kirkus Reviews |
 |
|
Dutton, 1993; Plume, 1994 Description: In a medieval kingdom both like and unlike 13th C. England, a mysterious young man appears at the door of the palace kitchen, seeing to serve the king. In a lonely stone tower, a woman watches the world through her mirror of bronze. The young king mourns the death of his friend in battle and and puts off choosing a bride. A child abandoned on a farmer’s doorstep grows up to be a powerful witch. The lives of these characters intersect and intertwine in strange and fateful ways as the young man rises from cook to steward to chamberlain and the king becomes more dependent upon him as the sorceress turns his country upside-down in her attempts to defy the fate her mirror has shown her. Reviews: From Publishers Weekly |
 |
Stories in Anthologies “How the Pooka Came to New York City” Naked City, ed. Datlow, St. Martin's, 2011. “The Red Piano” Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Ellen Datlow, Solaris, 2009. “La Fée Verte” Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy, ed. Datlow & Windling, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006. |
  |
READ a Short Story |
|
