Christine Brodien-Jones
Author of Fantasy Books for Young Readers
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The Glass PuzzleComing July 9, 2013!Delacorte Books for Young Readersreviews: "the scorpions of zahir"
"Eleven-year-old Zagora Pym is the feisty heroine of this colorful, fast-paced adventure set in Morocco ... Brodien-Jones does a beautiful job of weaving an engaging story of intrigue, myth, and adventure. Her characters seem to jump off the pages and stay with readers long after the story ends, as their transformative journey becomes ours. ... A must-have read." - School Library Journal
"Brodien-Jones mixes fantasy and adventure in a way that would make Indiana Jones feel right at home. Plucky Zagora, her absentminded father, and her often lazy brother are all changed by their journey, each finding out something unexpected about one another, the people they meet, and themselves." - Booklist "Combine a complicated…premise involving the link between a mysterious planet and a half-buried desert city, giant scorpions with the power to communicate, and an eccentric cast of characters, and you've got a wild ride indeed…(A) fast-paced, suspenseful plot.” - Kirkus "This is truly a ripping yarn, filled with adventure like the desert is filled with grains of sand...and there are indeed times when it recalls classic adventure tales with youth appeal, such as Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Treasure Island'." - VOYA "Indiana Jones-style action and supernatural danger keep the pages turning, and detailed line drawings ably capture quirky character traits and desert beauty..." - THE HORN BOOK GUIDE "the scorpions of zahir" discussion guide
why I write
Hi! I'm Christine Brodien-Jones and I write fantasy/adventure books for young readers. I live in Gloucester, Massachusetts - the oldest seaport in the country - with my husband Peter in a tumbledown seaside house. I work in a corner of the living room by the window, with a view of the sea, on a huge Shaker desk littered with carved wooden owls. When the wind blows in from the north, my house creaks like an old ship. Gazing out over the salt marshes and boats, I can see sky and waves and shifting colors. It's easy to imagine distant places and mysterious other worlds.
I write for middle graders because that was the age when I dreamed the most. I lived inside books! Reading was like a journey to the Unknown, filled with danger, mystery and adventure. My hope is to write books that spark the imaginations of young readers, transporting them from their everyday lives to other worlds--where magic and the unexpected await them. My books include the dystopian fantasy THE OWL KEEPER (Random House/Delacorte Press, 2010) and THE SCORPIONS OF ZAHIR (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2012), a fantasy-adventure set in Morocco. I'm represented by Stephen Fraser of The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency. My next book, THE GLASS PUZZLE (Delacorte Books for Young Readers), a middle-grade adventure set in Tenby, Wales, comes out July, 9, 2013. 
Thanks to Paul Samuelson, my publicist at Random House, for this fantastic poster!
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 “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”
-Albert Einstein 
Illustration for "The Scorpions of Zahir" by Kelly Murphy
"Be Careless, Reckless! Be a Lion! Be a Pirate! When You Write"
-Brenda Ueland “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Cynsations Guest Post:
christine brodien-jones on writing scary but not too scary for ‘tweens "I leave you now at the bottom of your own stair, at half after midnight, with a pad, a pen, and a list to be made. Conjure the nouns, alert the secret self, taste the darkness. Your own Thing stands waiting 'way up there in the attic shadows. If you speak softly, and write any old word that wants to jump out of your nerves onto the page...
Your Thing at the top of your stairs in your own private night...may well come down." -Ray Bradbury |
