“Chris wrote a draft and then I worked with that.

“Then I told Chris to do whatever it takes to make the story as compelling as possible,” he adds. Patterson says he wrote an extensive 70-page outline, with 80 percent of the illustrations in place.

Patterson’s work with Grabenstein on I Funny involved the same collaborative process that his earlier coauthored projects have. The key for getting more kids to read is giving them books with fast-moving plots that have something to say and that will compel them to move on to another book.” “I think that’s the most valuable thing I can do right now. “What’s behind all of my books is the notion of getting kids to become readers,” he says. Making books all the more accessible to kids fits firmly with Patterson’s mission to encourage reading. “Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret turned me on to the possibilities of this combination of pictures and text.” Like Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life and Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! (both coauthored by Chris Tebbetts), I Funny is illustrated by Laura Park. It’s a very funny story, but it’s a very human book and a very emotional book, in the same way that my Middle School novels are.” “I thought it was a cool idea that he learns everything he possibly can about comedy from books. “I liked the notion of a kid who at an early age finds a passion,” Patterson says. The hero of this series launch is wheelchair-bound Jamie Grimm, who’s adjusting to a new school and living with his aunt, uncle, and bully of a cousin while pursuing his dream of becoming a comedian. I didn’t want to do it unless it felt somehow more distinctive and edgy than what’s already out there.”įalling into a very different genre is I Funny, which has an announced first printing of 600,000 copies. Of his inspiration for this series, whose kickoff title has a 750,000-copy first printing, Patterson says, “People have been saying to me for some time, ‘Why don’t you write a detective novel for kids?’ The idea of doing a Hardy Boys type of book didn’t appeal to me.

One is Tandy Angel, heroine of Confessions of a Murder Suspect, who is a prime suspect, along with her three brothers, in their parents’ shocking murders. While bidding farewell to Max, Patterson is giving two new protagonists their own series.

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