Sparrow, Always: a guest post by Gail Donovan

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It comes as no surprise Maine is a pretty literary place. We punch far above our weight in sheer numbers,  considering there's just a tad over a million people here. (Of course, Stephen King counts for 57 writers in any other state.)

You might be more surprised to find there are four published authors in my church alone. (Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Portland, Maine, guests and visitors welcome!) One of them is my friend Gail Donovan. She writes middle-grade fiction, loosely defined as reading for kid aged 7-12. 

 

 

Gail has won or been nominated for a boatload of awards and 'best of' picks, and I used to encourage her to branch out from her stand alone novels into a series. "Everyone likes series!" I would say over tea at her comfortable and colorful home. "Just look at me!" But she never found the right character to keep bringing back on stage, as it were, until Sparrow Robinson, who "loves to dance and leap around. She loves cats. She has a million questions about the world, and she’s not afraid to ask them." Sparrow also loves animals, helping find homes for a neighbor's cats in SPARROW BEING SPARROW, rescuing an injured bird in SPARROW SPREADS HER WINGS and, in the upcoming SPARROW, ALWAYS (this November!) getting involved with a service dog-in-training. 

 

I know Gail well, and I know she hasn't personally been involved with any guide dogs (although she does have an adorable granddog who looks like Laika the Space Dog.) So I asked her what was the inspiration for SPARROW, ALWAYS?

 

 

 

This will be embarrassing, but here goes. I was young. The book was Light A Single Candle by Beverly Butler, and the character was a girl named Trudy, who loses her sight and then receives a guide dog. A guide dog! I was so transported by the story I wished that that would happen to me! I spent hours wandering the streets of my suburban Connecticut neighborhood, picturing a dog leading the way.

 

I know better now than to wish that I needed a guide dog, yet I am still in awe of both the power of writing and the deep imaginative leaps that a reader is willing to take. And I still have a deep reverence for guide dogs. So does my character Sparrow, of whom a school librarian said, “Everyone loves a spunky heroine!” 

 

See what happens when Sparrow—spunky, nine going on ten years old, and passionate about animals of all kinds—finds herself living next door to a guide dog puppy raiser, determined to do everything she can to help the puppy pass his test.  

 

Would you like a complimentary copy of Sparrow, Always? Share your story of a book that carried you away— the more embarrassing the better. I’ll pick a winner at random.

 

Sparrow, Always, the third book in a series featuring Sparrow Robinson, will be released by Simon & Schuster this November. You can pre-order here. The first two books are Sparrow Being Sparrow (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and Sparrow Spreads Her Wings (winner of the Maine Literary Award for Young People’s Literature).