Clare Vanderpool won the 2011 Newbery Medal for her novel Moon Over Manifest—a surprise to a lot of readers, as Vanderpool was a debut author. When I saw her speak at ALA in New Orleans last summer, she had the entire audience cracking up. (Sample quote: “People asked me if winning the Newbery was like having a baby. I said: Winning the Newbery was like having a baby . . . if you didn’t know you were pregnant.”) Ever since then I’ve wondered about her next project.
BookPage interviewed Vanderpool shortly after she won the Newbery. When we asked her what she was doing next, she only mentioned returning to the town that inspired Moon Over Manifest, and celebrating with the people who live there . . . nothing about a new book.
However, this week Publishers Marketplace published a listing for Vanderpool’s second novel! It’s called Navigating Early, and it’s about:
two boys who are the unlikeliest of friends [who] go on an odyssey in search of a great black bear, where they meet truly strange characters, some of whom are dangerous, all of whom are in some ways lost, and each of whom figures into a concurrent myth based on patterns in the number pi.
Interesting. I love adventure stories and anything involving a complicated myth, so this is definitely something I’ll look for. What about you?
It’s exciting to read about the ‘next’ one. Everyone was surprised last year with Moon Over Manifest winning the Newbery, but it was a good story and many of my students have loved it. Looking forward!
Glad your students enjoyed the novel! We’re excited about the “next one” too, especially after hearing Vanderpool’s Newbery acceptance speech at ALA.
Looking forward to reading Moon Over Manifest