Mira Bartók reads and signs copies of her debut children’s book, “The Wonderling”
Mira Bartók, the illustrator and bestselling memoirist of “ The Memory Palace,” was working on a book for adults about the wondrous Age of Discovery. But her heart, she says, wasn’t in it.
So she scrapped the idea.
Instead, the western Massachusetts-based writer embarked on a Dickensian tale about a one-eared fox-like orphan who doesn’t realize he’s musically gifted called The Wonderling,” now out on Candlewick Press.
Bartók will sign and read from the first of her middle-grade fantasy series’ two installments, subtitled “Songcatcher,” at Book Soup in West Hollywood on Friday, Nov. 10. She also plans to continue the orphan’s story in the second book “The Singing Tree” even as a mixed live-action/animated movie version of “The Wonderling” to be directed by Stephen Daldry and produced by Working Title Films, is currently in development.
What’s “The Wonderling” about?
“The Wonderling” opens on an 11-year-old orphan called Number 13.
A shy and sweet-natured boy, he spends his days toiling away at Miss Carbunkle’s Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures instead of laughing, playing and singing like kids typically do. But with the help of his bird-friend Trinket, who dubs the boy Arthur after the good king, he escapes and embarks on a life-changing journey.
“Part of his path is finding his own voice, and so music plays a huge role in the whole book,” she says.
Why is music Arthur’s superpower?
Bartók subconsciously gave her character the gift of music as a way to regain a part of her that remains elusive nearly two decades after a fall on ice, and then an 18-wheeler plowing into her car resulted in traumatic brain injury.
“Before my accident, I was in about five different (world and early) musical groups and played several instruments,” she says, “and then it was just gone. I have slowly tried to get back into music. So I think it’s a little bit about my reclaiming music for myself.”
Bartók, who played piano, double and Celtic harp, ukelele, percussion and sang, plans to immerse herself in music lessons before beginning book two.
“It takes a lot of discipline,” she says. “When you write and draw for a living, and you have deadlines, it’s harder to bring that musical discipline back in.”
And while she continues to struggle with the effects of TBI, from overstimulation to long- and short-term memory – she touches on it in “The Memory Palace,” her National Book Critics Circle Award-winner about her relationship with her schizophrenic mother – it hasn’t deterred her.
How did she get a movie deal?
Right now, Fox 2000 is in the process of adapting “The Wonderling” into a screenplay.
Bartók owes it all to her literary agent.
“She was at a meeting with (Creative Artists Agency) about another author, ” she says. “When the meeting was over, she asked to use the room for another few minutes to go over my auction strategy.”
That’s the process in which interested publishers bid on a book.
The agents saw the illustration of Number 13 featured on the manuscript open on the literary agent’s computer. They asked to read what was then only a quarter of a novel and shared it with their clients, which triggered a Hollywood bidding war.
“It ended up being Fox, who bought the rights to do more than one “Wonderling” film and a possible theatrical show,” she says. “It’s been a great experience.”
When: 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10
Where: Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood
Admission: Free
Information: www.booksoup.com
