Author Interview: Polly Shulman (and Giveaway)

About a week ago, I posted up a review for The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman. I also contacted her and asked her if she would be willing to be my first author interviewee. Polly replied that she would be delighted and so, I present her answers to my questions. 

Much like Elizabeth, you also worked at a library and had your social studies teacher help you get the job. How much of The Grimm Legacy was inspired by events in your own life?

All of it, especially being chased by a rat after being shrunk with a shrink ray ... okay, not really. The parts from my own life are the ones you mentioned. The rest I borrowed from fairy tales or made up.

Besides some of the familiar fairy tales, there’s some which I’ve never heard of. How much research did you have to do before you actually began to write The Grimm Legacy?

I re-read zillions of fairy tales while I was writing: the Grimm stories, the Andrew Lang books, collections of folktales from India and Africa, literary fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen and George Macdonald, and tons more. But I did the research and the writing simultaneously - otherwise I might just have sat there reading fairy tales for years and never started writing.

Those fairy tales are super interesting! Do you have a favourite one in particular?

I have so many favorites! They include: George Macdonald's "The Day Boy and the Night Girl"; The Grimms' "The Twelve Dancing Princesses"; and Andersen's "The Snow Queen."

Do you have any writing projects currently planned for the future?

Right now I'm working on a companion volume to The Grimm Legacy, called The Wells Bequest. Like The Grimm Legacy, it takes place in The New-York Circulating Material Repository and centers around one of the secret collections in the basement. This time, though, it's not fairy-tale objects, but objects from classic science fiction - think shrink rays and time machines. Most of the main characters are new, including the narrator - a boy named Leo - but readers of The Grimm Legacy will recognize his crush. It's Jaya, Anjali's kid sister from The Grimm Legacy, now a teenager and just as pesky as ever.

Yay, does this mean that Jaya will be working at the Repository, and will readers see the other characters from The Grimm Legacy as well? I know Aaron has a key to the Wells Bequest ...

Yes, Jaya is a page at the Repository, and the librarians are still there. Aaron, Elizabeth, Anjali, and Marc are away in college, but we might glimpse them in passing as Jaya and Leo travel back in time. Andre is still a little kid, but who knows? Maybe eventually he'll work in the Repository and have his own story. 

Do you by any chance have a release date that's tentatively set up for the The Wells Bequest? 

I'm not sure when The Wells Bequest will be published, but it won't be for at least a couple of years. First I have to write it - I haven't gotten very far yet - and then my editor (the wonderful Nancy Paulsen) has to edit it, Putnam has to print and distribute it, and so on.

There are other Special Collections in the New York Circulating Material Repository besides the Grimm Collection. What’s your favourite Collection and if the Repository actually existed, what would you borrow from it?

Probably the Grimm Collection - I always wanted to fly, and I would love to use that cloak of invisibility (if only I could find it) - but the time machine in the Wells Bequest is awfully tempting too. I would love to watch an original production of a Shakespeare play or see what Manhattan looked like before the Europeans arrived. I'd go back and find out what colors dinosaurs were, listen to their mating calls, watch dodos walk, watch passenger pigeons fly...

Assuming you’re allowed to borrow only one thing from the Grimm Collection, what would it be and what would you deposit in exchange for it?

Ha! That's one more bit of autobiography I forgot about - Elizabeth's sense of direction, which she leaves as a deposit when she borrows a magic object from the Grimm Collection. I can get lost in my own kitchen. My sense of direction is so bad I would hardly miss it. Might as well use it as a deposit, right? On the other hand, I would want to borrow an object that lets you fly - the winged sandals, maybe - which means I would need whatever sense of direction I have or I'd never get home again. So I think I'd leave my singing voice as a deposit. It's nothing to write home about, and I doubt I'd be doing much singing while flying.

That's actually not a bad deposit to leave! Plus, if you don't return the sandals in their original condition, losing your singing voice doesn't sound so bad.  

Exactly. You'd say that even more loudly if you'd ever heard me sing.

Would you like to add anything else, Polly?

Yes, I'd like to mention my friend Cyril Emery. You talked about the call numbers in your review. Cyril's the one who wrote them. He's a United Nations librarian, a brilliant, hilarious, generous guy who came up with a witty way to modify the Dewey Decimal System to accommodate not just books, but objects - and not just objects, but magical ones.

A big thanks to Polly for taking the time to answer my questions. I really appreciated her prompt reply to my request and to show my gratitude, I'm giving away a copy of The Grimm Legacy.

So, read the rules below, and then fill out this FORM:

1. This giveaway is open to any country that The Book Depository ships to. 
2. You must be a follower.
3. You must be over the age of 13.
4. This giveaway will end on January 14, 2011.

Review: The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman

From Inside Jacket: Lonely at her new school, Elizabeth takes a job at the New York Circulating Material Repository, hoping to make new friends as well as some cash. The repository is no ordinary library. It lends out objects rather than books - everything from tea sets and hockey sticks to Marie Antoinette's everyday wig. It's also home to the Grimm Collection, a secret room in the basement. That's where powerful items straight out of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales are locked away: a seven-league boots, a table that produces a feast at the blink of an eye, Snow White's step-mother's sinister mirror that talks in riddles and has a will of its own. When the magical objects start to disappear, Elizabeth and her new friends embark on a dangerous quest to catch the thief before they're accused of the crime themselves - or the thief captures them.  

My Rating: 5 hearts

Thoughts on the Novel: I was first introduced to Polly Shulman’s The Grimm Legacy when someone was giving an ARC of it away with a bunch of other ARCs. I quickly skimmed the accompanying blurb, and figured it sounded pretty interesting. Plus, I loved my fairytales growing up and so, added the novel to my wishlist. Well, I just finished The Grimm Legacy and I loved it!

Right from the start, it was extremely easy to get lost in the pages of The Grimm Legacy. The world that Shulman has created is so realistic and vivid that it’s not hard to imagine the New York Circulating Material Repository, a building that looks like a normal Manhattan brownstone on the outside but is actually much bigger on the inside, having expanded into the neighbouring properties. I especially love the fact that Shulman began each chapter of the book with a Repository object that would be used in the chapter and a call number. Much like Elizabeth then, I felt overwhelmed at first because the call numbers really aid in imagining how vast the Repository’s collection is, but as the book progresses, I too learned how to read the call numbers and so the library started to feel more like a second home. This neat detail to the book just makes you feel as if the Repository does exist! I love my library, but if there’s an actual place like the Repository, feel free to let me know.

The other thing that I really enjoyed about The Grimm Legacy is the cast of characters. They’re all very fleshed out and I love that it’s a multicultural mix since the Repository is located in New York. As much as I liked Elizabeth though and watching her come into her own, my two favourite characters are Marc and Anjali’s siblings, Andre and Jaya. Readers are introduced to Andre when he comes up to Elizabeth while she’s working and tells her he has to go to the bathroom. A three-year-old miniature version of his brother, I couldn’t help laughing as Elizabeth hoped that he wasn’t Marc shrunk by a shrink ray. Plus, Andre calls his brother “butter” and Elizabeth “Libbet,” which I found so cute! Meanwhile, Jaya is that annoying younger sibling, and her interactions with Anjali bring back memories of growing up with my own younger sister. She’s also smart and witty though, which meant that scenes with Jaya were always fun to read.   

Shulman’s writing was absolutely brilliant! For example, she does an amazing job describing the Repository without spending a huge amount of time on minute details about how the Repository would work – the basic details are covered – or slowing down the story. In addition, while there’s references to many fairy tales, some of which I haven’t heard of, Shulman does a good job determining which objects’ back-stories would need to be explained a little more. Speaking of objects, Snow White’s stepmother’s mirror is featured prominently, and I loved that it would only answer questions when addressed in a rhyme. Then when answering back in a rhyme, although the mirror had to speak the truth, it would make the truth as ambiguous as possible and call Elizabeth by variations of her name simply to annoy her!

Despite the hints of threat though, the novel remains a fun and light read that will appeal to tweens, teens and adults alike. Part adventure, part fantasy and part mystery, The Grimm Legacy was released by Putnam Juvenile in July 2010.

Comments About the Cover: Whoever did the cover is a genius! It’s not only gorgeous and super detailed but the colours and design just convey this magical, ominous feeling, which goes perfectly with the book’s catch-phrase of “Borrow the magic … if you dare!”