Kids Only
Which of my books should you read next?
Medusa Series
Giving Medusa or The Gods’ Revenge as a gift?
Download a specially designed bookplate here! Right click on the image to save it to your computer and print it out.
Which Greek mythological monster are you descended from?
Enter the 2025 Medusa Competition!
What magical elective would you like to see at the Accademia Del Forte and why? Submit your answer here by October 1, 2025. UPDATE: We have a winner! The winner will be announced and receive their free signed book in 2026.
Want to join an Accademia Del Forte extracurricular?
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The Lost Year
Giving The Lost Year as a gift?
Download a specially designed bookplate here! Right click on the image to save it to your computer and print it out.
My Reader Challenge
If you’ve read The Lost Year, you probably know that there are secret histories everywhere. Also, that everyone has a story, even you. Here are some ways you can contribute to the historical record—even as a kid.
- History is lived; we are history: On March 28, 1944, a fifteen-year-old Jewish girl in hiding in a secret annex in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands heard a resistance radio report encouraging citizens to save diaries and other personal histories documenting their war experiences. Anne Frank had been keeping a diary and she began to revise it in hopes of publication. Anne would not live to see this, but The Diary of Anne Frank would become one of the most powerful, widely read, and lasting testaments to the victims of Nazi Germany. Another more recent example of personal history telling a larger story is the Library of Congress’s page of Covid-19 oral history collections. My challenge to you: Write about what is happening in your country, town, school and family. You can also create an audio or visual record. I invite readers to share these with me if they like. See the Contact page for my email.
- Growing up with my grandma, I heard a lot of stories about her childhood and life in Ukraine. Not everyone has grandparents or lives close by them but there’s probably someone older in your family who’s lived through historical events and has a story. Are they an immigrant? Did they experience or fight in a war? Did they live through a major American historical event—the Civil Rights movement, September 11th, 2001, the Kennedy assassination? Interview a family member and ask them about their lives with attention to what they lived through and survived. Like Matthew, make an oral or video recording to start. Then take the transcript and see if you can edit it into a written story. You can give this story to the people in your family (a great birthday or holiday gift!) or possibly even to a historical archive. (See here for more on resources on how and where to do that). I also invite readers to share any of these written histories with me.
Nowhere Boy
Giving Nowhere Boy as a gift?
Download a specially designed bookplate here! Right click on the image to save it to your computer and print it out.
My Reader Challenge
I wrote Nowhere Boy because I truly believe that anyone can be somebody’s hero. You don’t have to be the smartest, loudest, most perfect, or even bravest person in the world to change someone’s life. Heroism is often just a quiet act of kindness for someone in need.
Take my Everyday Heroism challenge: one week, seven days. Each day, tick off the act of kindness or add an alternate one of your own. But remember, this isn’t for bragging rights—do this without telling anyone! At the end of the week, write down how the challenge made you feel about yourself. Feel free to share the results with me if you like.
