We speak with several YA authors who are venturing into adult fiction for the first time. Plus we’ve got a selection of the season’s biggest titles for kids and teens.
Happy reading!
Breaking Boundaries: YA Authors Cross Over into Adult Fiction
As young adult authors are venturing into the adult market in higher numbers, we surveyed several of the biggest names to find out more about how they're navigating the transition.
Agents Help YA Authors Find Crossover Success
We spoke with literary agents who are supporting their clients as they pivot from YA to adult fiction, and back.
Riding the wave of interest in middle grade historical fiction, Alan Gratz returns to Nazi Germany with a fast-paced Olympic thriller, and releases a graphic novel adaptation of a backlist bestseller.
How 'The Scammer' by Tiffany D. Jackson Got Made
We take an inside look at how Jackson's new ripped-from-the-headlines YA thriller came together.
Fall 2025 Children's Preview: Publishers A-C
Fall 2025 Children's Preview: Publishers D-H
Fall 2025 Children's Preview: Publishers I-O
Fall 2025 Children's Preview: Publishers P-S
Fall 2025 Children's Preview: Publishers T-Z
About Our Cover Artist
Self-described Luddite Kevin Henkes doesn’t have an email address, and he only bought a cell phone a few years ago. “It’s a smartphone,” he says, “but I’m not very smart with it.”
Maybe so, but Henkes spoke loud and clear by phone from his longtime home in Madison, Wis., describing his third-floor workspace, with five windows and a skylight—“and lots and lots of books”—as a kind of tree house. “I love being up here.” His wife of 40 years, illustrator Laura Dronzek, works just down the hall. Sometimes they collaborate, as with last year’s Finding Things.
A recipient of the Children’s Literature Legacy Award, Henkes is the author or author-illustrator of 64 books and counting, including Caldecott Medal winner Kitten’s First Full Moon, Newbery Honor winners Olive’s Ocean and The Year of Billy Miller, and popular picture books and early readers starring a mischief of mouse characters. Each of his books has been published by HarperCollins imprint Greenwillow Books, a level of fidelity to a publisher that is rare these days. “I love the familiarity and continuity of being in the same place,” he says. “It goes back to not liking change, I suppose.”
Whether he’s crafting picture books or novels, Henkes prefers to write longhand in a notebook. “I feel very comfortable using old-fashioned things,” he says. In terms of his artwork, he favors ink and watercolor. “I love the boldness of the way black ink looks. I tend to always go back to that.”
Working across multiple formats and age ranges, Henkes finds he’s “really drawn to common experiences,” he says. “I think of all my books—the novels and the picture books—as being small, domestic stories.” He cites Jane Austen as a master in the art of using small-scale specificity to “illuminate” bigger truths about life.
In addition to his picture book making, Henkes also works in a more abstract key, creating collages and wooden assemblages that are inspired by artists such as Joseph Cornell, Henri Matisse, and Giorgio Morandi. He’s looking forward to his “first real solo show of non-children’s book art” in Milwaukee this November. He says of branching out into other media, “If I’m working on a book and I’m stuck, it’s a really nice way to take a break but still be creative.”
But Henkes’s roots are firmly planted in children’s books, dating back to his early trips to the Racine Public Library with his mother. “Going to the library was just something we did regularly, the way you go to school or to the grocery store,” he recalls. “I was a very big reader growing up, and I always thought of myself as an artist.” Is This You? by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Crockett Johnson (another husband-and-wife team), was a favorite.
In turn, his own books have become a source of inspiration for young people. The most rewarding aspect of his fruitful career, he says, is when he meets readers at book signings or out in the wild who have a personal connection to his characters and stories. He remembers one such encounter several years ago while visiting his now-retired editor Susan Hirschman on Maine’s Monhegan Island. In an art gallery, he and Hirschman overheard a woman ask her child, “Why are you acting so Wemberly-ish today?” Their ears perked up at the reference to Henkes’s anxious mouse protagonist, and they introduced themselves as author and editor. “And then it was this lovely moment where I realized that my book had become part of this family’s life and vernacular,” he says.
