Recent Book Deals

A sample of recent deals, as reported in Publishers Marketplace. This list is by no means exhaustive!
Subscribers to PubMarketplace can view older and more in-depth deal listings here.

Intense Young Adult

Morris Award finalist Stephanie Oakes's THE MEADOWS, pitched as a YA THE HANDMAIDS TALE meets NEVER LET ME GO, centering around a queer girl who has pretended to "reform" following years in a government-sanctioned conversion therapy center, but can't forget the girl she left behind, and so resolves to find her, to Dial.

Birdy Business

HOW TO WALK AN ANT author-illustrator Cindy Derby's TWO MANY BIRDS, about a feathered flock that fights back against a beaked bully, to Roaring Brook Press.

A Graphic Adaptation 

GRACELING, a graphic novel adaptation of the 2008 NYT-bestselling novel by Kristin Cashore, adapted and illustrated by Gareth Hinds, to HMH, for publication in fall 2021.

Ssssizzling Nonfiction​

Kate Messner's TRACKING PYTHONS: THE QUEST TO CATCH AN INVASIVE PREDATOR AND SAVE AN ECOSYSTEM, a look at how invasive Burmese pythons are affecting south Florida and what high-tech strategies scientists are using to keep these massive snakes from taking over the ecosystem, to Millbrook, for publication in spring 2020.

Best Animal Buddies

Erica Sirotich's CAN WE BE FRIENDS, featuring unusual animal pairs, from famous hippo and tortoise Owen and Mzee to less well-known real-life animal besties, to Harper.

Home is Where the Heart Is

Ezra Jack Keats Award-winning illustrator Phoebe Wahl's THE BLUE HOUSE, about a father and son who lose their home in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood and must learn to accept the new while honoring and celebrating the old, to Knopf Children's and Tundra Books.

Middle Grade Thriller Debut 

Debut author Sheila M. Averbuch's FRIEND ME, in which an Irish transplant to America is mercilessly bullied at school and pours her heart out to her online BFF; when the bully suffers a gruesome accident, she begins to wonder if her BFF could be responsible—or hiding even darker secrets. To Scholastic.

All Hail Fuzzball!

Author-illustrator Isabella Kung's debut NO, FUZZBALL!, the story of a pampered and fluffy feline despot who loves creating havoc and having her human subjects do her bidding, but when they leave the kingdom for the weekend, she questions whether she should be a more benevolent ruler, to Scholastic, in a two-book deal.

Tragedy and Triumph

Don Brown's YA graphic novel IN THE SHADOW OF THE TOWERS: AFTER 9/11, a graphic novel recounting of the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attack—both the triumph and courage as well as the darker struggles and developments resulting from this historic day, to HMH.

Presidential Material

Kate Messner's THE NEXT PRESIDENT, exploring the idea that in any given presidential administration, there are a handful of someday-presidents living—maybe learning the alphabet, maybe working on a farm, or starting law school, or filming a TV show—and one of the next presidents could be YOU - to Chronicle, in a two-book deal.

Water for Everyone

Nancy Castaldo's YA nonfiction WATER, about the current worldwide water crisis, what is to come, and how we can help, to Algonquin Young Readers.