(5th MMGM) Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard by Jonathan Auxier (review, interview, giveaway)

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Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard

(Peter Nimble #2)

by Jonathan Auxier

April 5, 2016

Amulet Books

It’s been two years since Peter Nimble and Sir Tode rescued the kingdom of HazelPort. In that time, they have traveled far and wide in search of adventure. Now Peter and Sir Tode have been summoned by Professor Cake for a new mission: find a 12-year-old girl named Sophie Quire.

Sophie knows little beyond the four walls of her father’s bookshop, where she works as a bookmender and dreams of leaving the confines of her city walls. But when a strange boy and his talking cat/horse companion show up searching for a rare and mysterious book, she finds herself pulled into an adventure beyond anything she has ever read.

goodreads / amazon

Two years after their fantastical adventures, Peter Nimble (the greatest thief in history), and his cat/horse companion, Sir Tode, are back, and find themselves on another grand adventure. Professor Cake has tasked the pair with finding a young bookmender named Sophie Quire. Sophie Quire doesn’t know it yet, but she’s the last Storyguard and must protect four magical, unbelievable books. With the help of Peter Nimble, Sir Tode, a tigress, and a group of incredible beings, Sophie sets out to save her world and become like the heroines she’s only read about.

I fell in love with Jonathan Auxier’s writing and storytelling several years ago when his Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes came out, and was super excited to learn of this sequel...and Auxier definitely does not disappoint! Once again, with Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, Auxier tosses readers head and heart first into a wildly wondrous and whimsical world that enchants, enthralls, and excites! With an absolute pitch-perfect, witty, and self-aware voice, Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard speaks to its intended middle-grade audience beautifully. Auxier’s storytelling sparkles and captivates, giving readers that delicious tingly feeling that comes with starting a book you just know is going to take you somewhere unforgettable.

Like its predecessor, Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard is bursting with all things fantastical, from spells, mandrake men, mythical beings, books with unimaginable power, magical jeweled eyes, and so much more. There is so much fun, engrossing imagination on every page! And epic, heart-racing adventure abounds as Sophie, Peter, and Sir Tode set out to collect and protect the four powerful books. Young readers will be on the edge of their seats from beginning to end!

One thing I’ve come to expect from Auxier, are wonderful characters, and with Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, my expectations were fully met. A gaggle of old and new characters can be found within the pages and readers will have a blast getting to know all these engaging, intriguing, and full-of-life people.

my final thoughts: With Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard Jonathan Auxier once again reminds me why middle-grade fantasy is my favorite genre. Readers will be charmed by the magic of Auxier’s words and unable to walk away from Sophie’s awesome adventure!

What three words best describe your book, Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard? 

Aux: Mysterious, wonder-filled, bookish

Can you give us your best one sentence pitch to convince young readers, especially reluctant readers, to give Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard?

Aux: Sophie Quire is a swashbuckling adventure about a girl who must hunt down and protect a set of mysterious books that can answer any question asked of them. I was a reluctant reader growing up, and wrote Sophie because it’s the book I wish someone had given me when I was that age. Also, it has a ton of monsters in it.

Grab a copy of Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard and answer the following:

Favorite chapter? Aux: My favorite chapter might be “Highway Robbery” in which Sophie finds herself being kidnapped in a carriage on a moonlit road—only to have a highwayman show up and kidnap her again. Needless to say, things do not turn out as planned for said highwayman!

Favorite page? Aux: I don’t want to spoil anything, but I think my last page is pretty swell. I still get a little shiver when I read the final lines.

Favorite setting? Aux: My favorite setting has got to be the Lighthouse at the End of the World. The lighthouse is a huge, rickety structure, cobbled together from dozens of derelict ships that sit at the literal edge of the world. The place entirely populated with creatures and characters from fairy tales that Sophie has grown up reading about—never once realizing that they were actually real.  

Flip to a random page and give us a 1-2 sentence teaser: 

Aux: From an early chapter, when Sophie first discovers The Book of Who:

“Hello,” Sophie said, and for a moment, she almost thought she could feel the book vibrating beneath her fingers. As if it wanted to say “hello” back to her. 

What inspired the series? How did the idea for Peter Nimble and Sophie Quire come to be?

Aux: All of my stories come from sketches in my journals. In the case of Sophie Quire, the whole story was sparked by a drawing of a girl mending books in a city that was determined to burn all of its stories. 

Can you tell us a bit about your heroine, Sophie? What makes her unique, what do you love about her?

Aux: Sophie is sort of a tribute to every girl I’ve ever known who grew up loving to read. She is a true outsider in her world—the only person who cares for stories that other people would rather cast aside. One of the exciting challenges in the story was seeing how heroic I could make her without actually giving her “powers” of any kind: figuring out how a smart-but-ordinary twelve year old girl be able to contend with monsters and wicked villains.

If you could visit ANY world from ANY book, which would you choose and what would you do there?

Aux: I recall crying actual tears as I finished reading the last pages of Watership Down as a kid. At the end of that breathtaking epic tale, I wanted nothing more that to live with those rabbits forever.

What is your all time favorite middle-grade book and/or character?

Aux: Those who know me know that I am a huge fan of Peter Pan, which to me is an almost perfect story. As for favorite character, I might say Matilda Wormwood from Matilda (a character who played a major inspiration for Sophie Quire).

What do you love about writing middle-grade books? Why do you think middle-grade literature is so popular and important?

Aux: My favorite children’s books are often about those last moments of childhood right before you pass into the next phase of life. The themes in those kinds of stories—nostalgia, loss of innocence, finding home, discovering one’s true self—are things that I will never outgrow because they appear again and again in my life.  

Fill in the blanks:

I’m really awesome at yo-yo tricks.

I’m really embarrassed to admit that canned meat products give me gas.

The last great book I read was Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

If you were to create and bake a cupcake inspired by Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, what would it look like and taste like and what would you call it?

Aux: Sophie Quire ventures down a long river called the Wassail, named after the spiced beverage sung about in that old Christmas carol “Here We Go A-Wassailing.” So the cakes would probably taste like hot wassail. They would have dark purple frosting that glittered slightly under direct moonlight, and when you bit into them, they would be unexpectedly warm. People would call them Wassail Cakes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JONATHAN AUXIER writes strange stories for strange children. His first novel Peter Nimble and his Fantastic Eyes was an ABA New Voices pick and a BookPage Magazine "Best Book" of 2011. His new book The Night Gardener ia a Junior Library Guild selection, an ABA IndieNext pick, an Amazon Editor's Pick of the Month, and a finalist for the Governor General's Award, The Silver Birch Award, and the Texas Bluebonnet Award. He lives in Pittsburgh with his family and their adorable pet umbrella. website * facebook * twitter

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After The Book Deal- "Shutting Out The Voices": Guest Post by Jonathan Auxier, author of The Night Gardener {Giveaway}

I'm pleased to have Jonathan Auxier, author of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes and The Night Gardener, stopping by today! Jonathan is currently touring across blogs with his guest posts series, After the Book Deal.

The Internet is full of great advice about how to sell a book, but what about after the sale? When my first book came out, I found it was surprisingly hard to find answers to some basic questions. Like most authors, I learned most of the answers through trial and error. And so in anticipation of the launch of my new novel, The Night Gardener, I’ve decided to write down everything I learned so I don’t make the same mistakes twice!

AFTER THE BOOK DEAL is a month-long blog series detailing the twenty things I wish someone had told me before entering the exciting world of children’s publishing. Each weekday from now until MAY 20, I will be posting an article on a different blog. Follow along and please spread the word!

Day Ten: Shutting out the Voices

by Jonathan Auxier

Last week, we discussed the ups and downs of signings and book events. Today, we’ll look at another aspect to publishing: reviews.

Book reviews are tricky. They are clearly an important part of the publishing and reader ecosystem—but what value do they hold for authors? I think reviews can be helpful for authors, but they can also be very, very harmful.

The Internet Hype Echo Chamber

One thing to keep in mind is the nature online conversation. We’ve been trained to tack exclamation points on to every email/Facebook/Twitter sentence in order for people to understand our positive meaning. But where genuine compliments are concerned, this forced enthusiasm can sort of mess with your brain. Instead of someone just saying “I enjoyed your book” they say OMG BEST BOOK EVAR!!!!! Don’t let it go to your head. Your work is not done; you have more stories to tell.

Bad Reviews

So far, I’ve been pretty lucky: reviews of both my books have been very positive. That being said, it’s astonishing how even a lukewarm response (or a single quip in an otherwise positive review) can drive me crazy! I can obsess over every little criticism—and it takes quite a bit of willpower not to respond. (Note to authors: NEVER RESPOND!) To guard against this temptation, I don’t have a Google Alert on my name or my book titles—that stuff all goes to my wife’s inbox. She reads every review and tells me if there are any criticisms I should be aware of. Her rule for what to pass on is simple: “Will hearing it make Jonathan a better writer?” Very rarely is the answer “yes.”

Good Reviews

I’m not going to lie: good reviews feel great. My first book had strong reviews, which was helpful and felt nice. There’s a special thrill to seeing your name inside a publication like the Wall Street Journal—not only does that make for a nice blurb on the paperback, but it stands as irrefutable proof to family and friends that your are, in fact, a “real” author.

One downside to good reviews is that they can leave you feeling very nervous about writing a second book: After Peter Nimble, I was afraid of disappointing readers and critics in a second book. This self-doubt was paralyzing, and led to my next book taking a lot longer to write than it should have. When I talked to other authors about this problem, I learned I was not alone. For me, the only way to move forward was to change the way I thought about reviews, good or bad. My rule: when writing, think of reviews as useless—the opinions of other people will not make you a better storyteller. Once you’ve finished writing, you can go back to caring about reviews.

For my new book, The Night Gardener, I’ve nabbed some STELLAR early reviews. (You can read some here!). And I can say that they have already had a positive impact on the book—more booksellers and librarians are paying attention to the title. And, just as importantly, the publisher is paying attention ... putting energy behind it and spreading the word. Hooray!

I’ll end with some wisdom from CS Lewis on the subject:

“Pleasure in being praised is not Pride. The child who is patted on the back for doing a lesson well [... is] pleased and ought to be. For here the pleasure lies not in what you are but in the fact that you have pleased someone you wanted (and rightly wanted) to please. The trouble begins when you pass from thinking, ‘I have pleased him; all is well,’ to thinking, ‘What a fine person I must be to have done it.’”

In summary: ignore the bad; be grateful for the good. And above all, KEEP WRITING.

That’s it for AFTER THE BOOK DEAL! Tomorrow we’ll be talking about when and how to start writing your second book. You can catch up on previous posts (listed below), and please-oh-please spread the word!

AFTER THE BOOK DEAL stops so far:

WEEK ONE: Before Your Book Comes Out 

April 21 – “Finding Your Tribe” @ Shannon Messenger

April 22 – “Do I Really Need a Headshot?” @ Novel Novice

April 23 – “I Hate Networking” @ Charlotte’s Library

April 24 – “A Night at the Movies” @ The Lost Entwife

April 25 –  “Giveaways!” @ Smack Dab in the Middle

WEEK TWO: Your Book Launch

April 28 - “Can I have Your Autograph?” @ Haunted Orchid

April 29 –  “Cinderella at the Ball” @ The O.W.L.

May 1 – “Being Heard in the Crowd” @ The Misbehavin’ Librarian

May 2 - “The Loneliest Writer in the World” @ Shelf Employed

The Night Gardener

This much-anticipated follow-up to Jonathan Auxier’s exceptional debut, Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, is a Victorian ghost story with shades of Washington Irving and Henry James. More than just a spooky tale, it’s also a moral fable about human greed and the power of storytelling.
The Night Gardener follows two abandoned Irish siblings who travel to work as servants at a creepy, crumbling English manor house. But the house and its family are not quite what they seem. Soon the children are confronted by a mysterious spectre and an ancient curse that threatens their very lives. With Auxier’s exquisite command of language, The Night Gardener is a mesmerizing read and a classic in the making. Amazon

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

“Now, for those of you who know anything about blind children, you are aware that they make the very best thieves. As you can well imagine, blind children have incredible senses of smell, and they can tell what lies behind a locked door—be it fine cloth, gold, or peanut brittle—at fifty paces. Moreover, their fingers are so small and nimble that they can slip right through keyholes, and their ears so keen that they can hear the faint clicks and clacks of every moving part inside even the most complicated lock. Of course, the age of great thievery has long since passed; today there are few child-thieves left, blind or otherwise. At one time, however, the world was simply thick with them. This is the story of the greatest thief who ever lived. His name, as you’ve probably guessed, is Peter Nimble.”  Amazon

JONATHAN AUXIER writes strange stories for strange children. His new novel, The Night Gardener, hits bookstores on May 20—why not come to his book launch party? You can visit him online at www.TheScop.com where he blogs about children's books old and new.

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The Night Gardener!

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