Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Spotted: Asta in the Wings by Jan Elizabeth Watson


Where: 3-train
Who was reading: A t(w?)een girl, with galoshes matching the book cover precisely and every fingernail painted a different color. She bent forward in concentration, a sleek curtain of hair swaying as she scanned the pages, while her dozing mother rested a heavy head upon her shoulder.
Asta, apparently... is a word that you can be named. This information is of limited usefulness to me since I’ve already named my future progeny (all ten of them) after characters from the Eragon series. (“Get thee to thy chamber young Galbatorix, it’s Zar’roc’s turn to wield the war hammer!”)
Professional author/blurb-er Margot Livesey writes:Jan Elizabeth Watson has created one of the most appealing fictional heroines I've encountered in a long time. Asta is brave, resourceful, intelligent, and loyal. She also happens to be seven years old, which means she's at the mercy of the unreliable adults who rule her world. The result is a vivid and suspenseful narrative where, over and over again, Asta shows us the world from her own very particular angle. A highly original debut.”
Tin House Books, the company that brought us Asta in the Wings, is a little publishing house in the big wood that is the Pacific Northwest. Although Tin House operates as an imprint of one of the big New York houses, it’s awfully nice to see a West Coast publisher make good.

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