Announcing STAND ON THE SKY

I've been promising news for a while, and I am finally free to tell you -- I have a new book coming out!

It's called Stand on the Sky, and it's a middle-grade adventure with a classic feel -- I pitch it as "Where The Red Fern Grows, but in Mongolia, with a girl, an eagle, and a happy ending." It will be out in March from HMH Books for Young Readers in the US, and from Scholastic Canada in Canada.

And, guys, look: It's so beautiful!

(Cover art by the tremendous Ji-Hyuk Kim. He's so talented!)

I have a life-long passion about birds and falconry, and I spent the summer of 2015 in Western Mongolia, living with a nomadic family of Kazakh eagle hunters, looking for the shape of a book. I found it!

(photo by Seanan Forbes. I basically spent the whole time in Mongolia looking this gormless)

And obviously it's a shape very dear to my heart.

Many thanks to the Waterloo Regional Arts Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting my summer of goats and eagles. I will have lots more pictures and stories to share over the next few months. I hope, too, that there will soon be exclusive sample chapters, and Advanced Readers Copies (ARCs) to share.

In the meantime, here is my book's new homepage! And my take on the flap copy, for those who don't want to click through:

Thirteen-year-old Aisulu has never been her family's golden child: that's her older brother, Serik. She loves her brother, so she's never really minded. But when Serik falls critically ill and the family rallies round him, Aisulu is left on the outside.

But Aisulu also has a secret: her last adventure with Serik left a baby golden eagle orphaned in its nest. If she can save the eagle and win a place among Mongolia's famous eagle hunters, Aisulu might also be able to reshape her family -- and save Serik's life.

A middle-grade with a classic feel, a tale of adventure and heroism, healing and hope, STAND ON THE SKY will leave your heart soaring.