Dig a little deeper into the books you love to read with The BiblioFiles, our one-on-one interviews with children's book authors! From award-winning bestsellers to books you might not have heard of but should definitely check out, hear what the authors have to say about their creations!

Is there someone you'd like to hear? E-mail your suggestions to: danas@princeton.edu

Featured Author...

JACQUELINE KELLY

This November, our guest will be Jacqueline Kelly, author of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. The book is set in Texas in 1899, where eleven-year-old Calpurnia Tate lives on a large farm with her parents, grandfather, and six brothers.

Calpurnia is being groomed for a typical 19-century female future of cooking, piano lessons, sewing, knitting, and debutante parties. But what she really wants is to be a scientist. Calpurnia is utterly fascinated by the natural world around her and longs to go to University. Her only ally is her imposing Grandfather, an amateur naturalist who divides his time between his library, his laboratory, and the fields, streams, and woods around the house.

Narrated by the frank, insightful, defiant, and delightful Calpurnia, the book is an amazing and humorous combination of personal story, natural history, and life in turn-of-the-century Texas. The audiobook version of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is due out this month.

Premiere date: November 21, 2009

Want to learn more about Jacqueline Kelly? Click here to visit her website!

Welcome to our Audio Archive!

Authors are listed in alphabetical order by last name. Simply click to listen to the interview. Enjoy!

JOSEPH DELANEY

We're delighted to talk with Joseph Delaney, author of The Last Apprentice series for young adult readers.

The books tell the dark, spooky, and intriguing tale of Thomas Ward, a young apprentice whose job is to deal with the frightening things that inhabit the night. As the series progresses, Tom’s job gets more and more difficult and the stakes get higher for him, his master, and his close (and highly suspect) friend, Alice, who has a penchant for dabbling in dark magic.

The Last Apprentice series is full of suspense, ancient lore, and terrifying creatures. The books are written in simple yet descriptive prose, and the visual elements are enhanced by chilling black and white illustrations at the start of each chapter. If you love a good scary story, this series is definitely for you.

Mr. Delaney’s books have been printed in 24 languages, and a film version of the first book is currently in production. The newest book in the series, The Spook’s Tale, is due out this month.

Premiere date: April 18, 2009

Want to learn more about Joseph Delaney? Click here to visit his website!

WENDY MASS

Wendy Mass has authored many books for young adults, but in this interview, we’ll be focusing on two: A Mango-Shaped Space and Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life.

A Mango-Shaped Space is about a girl named Mia, who has a rare, but extremely interesting, condition that she is finding increasingly difficult to hide from her family, friends, and schoolmates. Written from Mia’s perspective, the book gives an intimate and completely fascinating first-hand look into what it’s like to have this condition.

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life is about a soon-to-be teenager who is thrown into a modern-day quest when he receives a mysterious package from his father, who died 4 years earlier. It’s a fantastic and intriguing read – full of humor, wit, insight, and emotion as Jeremy comes to grips with the death of his father and yes, the meaning of life.

A Mango-Shaped Space won the American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award in 2004; Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life was named as a Junior Library Guild Premier Selection and was included in the New York Public Library's Best Books for the Teen Age in 2007.

Premiere date: May 30, 2009

Want to learn more about Wendy Mass? Click here to visit her website!

KENNETH OPPEL

Listen in as we talk to the talented Kenneth Oppel about his award-winning books Airborn, Skybreaker, and the new third book in the series, Starclimber.

Set in a Victorian-era world parallel to our own, the books follow the adventures of Matt Cruise, a young sky sailor aboard the airship Aurora. To say these books are action-packed is an understatement – from relentless sky pirates to ghost ships sailing 20,000 feet above the earth, to the airless realms of outer space, the books are fast-paced, dynamic, witty, and absolutely addictive.   

Airborn won the 2004 Governor General's Award and the Michael L. Printz Honor award in 2005. Skybreaker was the 2005 London Times Children’s Book of the Year, and a New York Times bestseller in 2006. The third book, Starclimber, is due out this month.

Premiere date: February 7, 2009
Posted with the kind permission of WPRB

Want to learn more about Kenneth Oppel? Click here to visit his website!

BRANDON SANDERSON

This October, our guest is Brandon Sanderson, author of the Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians series. The premise of the series is simple: everything you know is a lie. Evil librarians control the world, feeding us false information (like physics) to keep us complacent and blissfully ignorant.

The veil is lifted forever the day our hero, orphan Alcatraz Smedry, turns 13. Alcatraz (a self-proclaimed liar, coward, and deviant with a talent for breaking things) receives a bag of sand from his long-lost parents. The sands lead him to a new world – a world where Occulators and members of the royal Smedry family do battle with evil, sword-wielding, librarians with taped glasses.

Narrated by the unreliable Alcatraz, the books are hilarious, innovative, and infinitely clever, taking all the familiar concepts you know, twisting them, and then presenting them in a completely new light...with plenty of swords, explosions, battles, traps, and dinosaurs with English accents thrown in.

The third book in the series, Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia, is due out this month.

Premiere date: October 3, 2009

Want to learn more about Brandon Sanderson? Click here to go to his website!