RACE THE SANDS Book Necklace Countdown: Book 10

I'm counting down to the publication of my 20th book, RACE THE SANDS, out 4/21, by sharing pics of each #booknecklace my husband gave me to celebrate each of my prior books...

Book 10 (middle grade): THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM is about a girl whose family owns a dream shop where they buy, bottle, and sell dreams, and the adventure she goes on with her best friend, a monster named Monster who loves cupcakes. My #booknecklace is an adorable monster.

Usually my characters develop over the course of many revisions. But with Monster... It felt like he plopped down on my desk fully-formed and said, "Write my story! And feed me cupcakes!"

GIRL Selected as 3rd Place Winner of Florida SSYRA Award!

Wow!!! Thank you so much, Florida SSYRA and Florida readers, for selecting THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM as the 3rd place winner of the Sunshine State Young Readers Award! I'm thrilled and honored! And big congrats to Gordon Korman and Jason Reynolds!

If you can't see the video above, you can view it here: https://www.facebook.com/FLSSYRA/videos/813663489015433/

Sunshine State Young Readers Award List

Thanks so much, Florida librarians! I'm so thrilled, honored, and grateful to see that THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM has been nominated for the Sunshine State Young Readers Award! And I love the amazing video they made listing all the nominees! Congrats to all!

 

THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM out today in paperback!

Very excited that the paperback edition of THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM is out in the world today!!! And with a lovely new cover! Thanks so much, Clarion Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt!  Monster is so excited to now exist in an all-new, much more bendy format.

*shares cupcakes with everyone*

http://sarahbethdurst.com/Girl.htm

(Cover art by Manuel Sumberac)

THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM Comes Out Today!!!

I am delighted and thrilled and completely ecstatic to announce that my 10th book, THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM, comes out today!!!

THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM is a fantasy novel for kids, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / Clarion Books.  It's about a girl whose family owns a secret dream shop where they buy, bottle, and sell dreams, and the adventure that she and her best friend -- a loyal and cupcake-loving monster named Monster -- go on when someone starts kidnapping dreamers.  (That's Monster right there on the cover, the one with the tentacles next to a pink ninja bunny.)

This book was born from a wish.  Or maybe I should say... a dream.

When I was six, I had a reoccurring nightmare: a robot from outer space who looked exactly like Gonzo would invade the Earth and shoot M&M-sized beetles out of his curved nose, killing people.  Freaked.  Me.  Out.  So every night at bedtime, I'd chant, "Dream about dragons.  Dragons, dragons, dragons!"  Sometimes it worked, and I'd get a fun dragon dream.  Other times, killer robot Muppets.  I used to wish I could bottle the fun dreams and save them for scary nights. 

The truth is I still wish that.

That's where this book came from.  It started with an image of a secret shop, filled with blue bottles that stored swirling, shimmering dreams.  You drink a bottle; you dream the dream.  Flying through the clouds, picnicking with pink bunnies, befriending monsters… everything in the infinite world of the imagination is available to you, if you dare.

I wrote the first scene four years ago, while I was supposed to be working on an entirely different book.  It sneaked up on me, the way Monster sneaks out of the closet and becomes part of Sophie's life.  I knew someday I'd write about this girl and her best friend, a six-tentacled monster who may or may not like to eat small children with ketchup, but I didn't tell anyone.  Sophie and Monster waited patiently, my secret, tucked away in a file on my computer, until it was time to write their story.

About halfway through writing THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM, I had an epiphany, one of those so-obvious-why-didn't-I-think-of-it-before kind of epiphanies: that this is why I'm a writer.  I'm trying to create my own dream bottles.

I've always thought of books as magic, and I believe that being a writer is the closest you can get to being a wizard -- to creating a spell that takes people out of their own lives and brings them into a shared dream.

So here it is, my story, bottled in book format, and I am inviting you to drink.  I hope you enjoy it and that it keeps the killer robots away.  Happy reading!  And happy dreaming!

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You're Invited!

I'm having a book launch party, and I'd love it if you could come!  The party will be on Saturday, November 14th, from 1 to 3pm, at Books of Wonder in Manhattan, one of my absolute favorite bookstores, and I'll be joined there by Bruce Coville, one of my absolute favorite authors, who has graciously agreed to play emcee and lead our discussion of the book, writing, and lots more.  Please feel free to bring the whole family, as well as anyone else for that matter.  The more the merrier!  Here's the info:

BOOK LAUNCH PARTY FOR THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM BY SARAH BETH DURST, IN CONVERSATION WITH BRUCE COVILLE
Saturday, November 14th, from 1pm to 3pm
Books of Wonder
18 West 18th Street
New York, NY

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For more about THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM, including the first two chapters, please visit my website.

Cover Reveal for THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM!

Cover art!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*runs in circles, shrieks, and flails arms like a Muppet*

I am extremely excited to share with you the cover art for my upcoming middle grade novel, THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM, coming in November 2015 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / Clarion Books:

I love it so very much!  Look at Monster!  Seriously, look at him!  He looks exactly the way he's supposed to look -- lemur eyes, tentacles, even the golden tongue -- and the artist (the amazing Andrea Femerstrand) really captured his spirit. 

He's Sophie's loyal best friend who may or may not like to eat small children with ketchup.  I can't wait for you to meet him and Sophie and Ethan, not to mention the ninja bunnies...

THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM is about a girl whose parents own a secret dream shop.  Here's the description from the jacket flap:

Sophie's favorite place in the world is the hidden shop beneath her parent's bookstore where dreams are bought and sold to select and secretive strangers. Sophie is fascinated by dreams -- weird, scary, or magical -- in part because she has never had a single dream of her own.

When the shop's dreams are stolen and her mother and father go mysteriously missing, Sophie must unravel the truth to save her parents. Together with her best friend -- a wisecracking and fanatically loyal monster named Monster -- she must decide who to trust with her family's carefully-guarded secrets. Who will help them, and who will betray them?

I am also thrilled, honored, and very grateful to be able to share with you these lovely blurbs from two of my all-time favorite authors, the magnificent Bruce Coville and the fabulous Jessica Day George:

"Boy, do readers have a treat in store for them! Funny, scary, and endlessly inventive, this is the kind of book I would have adored as a kid." -- Bruce Coville, author of Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher

"A perfect combination of adventure, humor, and pure imagination!" -- Jessica Day George, New York Times best-selling author of the Tuesdays at the Castle series

Coming November 2015!!!!!
 

Announcing THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM!

I have news!!!

Look what appeared in today's Publishers Weekly Children's Bookshelf:

Anne Hoppe at Clarion Books has acquired YA author Sarah Beth Durst's debut middle-grade novel, The Girl Who Could Not Dream. The book tells of a girl whose family owns a secret store where they buy, bottle, and sell dreams, but who can't have any of her own, and the adventure that she and her pet monster go on when someone starts kidnapping dreamers. Publication is planned for fall 2015; Andrea Somberg at Harvey Klinger negotiated the deal for world rights.

Pausing now to toss confetti into the air and dance madly under it...

I am so, so, so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you keeping track, this will be my twelfth book, and it means I am now writing young adult books (ages 12+), middle grade books (ages 8-12), and books for adults.  I am so very grateful to have the opportunity to write for all these markets and I hope to write tons more of each in the years to come.  The next YA book, CHASING POWER, will be out in October, and the next book for adults, THE MISSING, will be out in November.  After that comes THE FOUND (adult) in April and THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM (MG) in fall 2015.

As to why I chose to write an MG novel...  Honestly, it's the same reason I chose to write an adult novel, or a YA novel for that matter.  I didn't choose.  The story chose.  I know that sounds a bit twee, but it's true!  I had the idea for a dream shop, and every time I imagined the store, I pictured a young girl in it, shelving bottles of dreams, wanting to drink one...  That made this story an MG.  Others are YA.  Others are adult.  Story ideas don't come out of my brain wearing labels, but once they do worm their way out of there, it's usually not too difficult to parse them into buckets.  And I'm quite grateful to now have a third (MG) bucket for my ideas.

My new MG publisher, the Clarion Books imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has been absolutely wonderful, and I'm thrilled to be working with Anne Hoppe, my amazing new MG editor.  Currently, I'm in the middle of revisions for THE GIRL WHO COULD NOT DREAM, and I am loving working on it.  I can't wait for you all to meet Sophie and Monster!