Archive for Fan Mail

FAN MAIL WEDNESDAY #350: Amelia Sends a Summer Code!

June 15, 2026 / / No comments
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Often when I receive letters from readers, I am aware of an adult’s presence somewhere in the background. Perhaps suggesting the letter, helping to make this connection happen, going out and buying stamps, and mostly just sharing and fostering an enthusiasm for reading. I’ve been there. We want so desperately for our children to love books, to love reading. Usually that adult is invisible. But I can sense there’s a great teacher at work in there somewhere, gently guiding, or an entire family that celebrates books and reading and writing. I see them at book festivals. Mom, Dad, three kids with big eyes and bagful of books. On rare occasions, I hear from them directly. 
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Hello James,
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My daughter, Amelia, just finished 2nd grade and finished all of your jigsaw jones books. She wrote you a letter but we’re having trouble finding what address to send it to. Could you please let us know so we can mail it to you? Thank you!
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And, from an appreciative Mom, thank you for the very entertaining, wholesome and educational book series! We started reading them out loud a year and a half ago for our bedtime stories and they were perfect as Jigsaw was learning about the same things as my daughter and she LOVES anything detective related! It’s hard to find a great book series that’s age appropriate and encourages reading at a young age and we found your stories so much fun! Thank you!
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A few days later, I received a letter and a secret code in the mail. I’ll type out the letter, as the pencil is tough to read in this format: 
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Dear James Preller, 
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Thank you for writing the Jigsaw Jones books. My name is Amelia and I have just finished 2nd grade. My favorite part was when he solved the mysterys. My favorite character is Jigsaw and Mila because my short name is Mila. 
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I have read them all!
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Thanks again for writing them. 
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From Amelia (Mila)!
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And Amelia, a detective herself, included a brain-busting Summer Code and a nifty illustration!
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I replied . . . 

Dear Amelia,

Wow!

I love your Summer Code — thank you for that — and your illustration of Rags. You are so talented.

When I was your age, and even younger, I used to draw all the time. And then came horses.

I could not draw a horse to save my life. They all looked like sick water buffaloes. Ack! And in response, I did the worst thing anyone can do: I gave up. I stopped drawing.

Defeated by a horse.

I can’t believe you read ALL the Jigsaw Jones books. Are you sure?

I’m going to include one in the mail for you, since I think it’s hard to find. It originally came with a mini tape recording device that played six snippets of dialogue from the book. It was a special deal with the Scholastic Book Club. Crazy, right?

But even without it, the book stands on its own. Hopefully you’ll like it.

And if it’s true that you’ve read that hard-to-find book, too, then I’ll gladly give you one bazillion dollars!

(No, not really.)

I’m happy I helped you along on your reading adventure. You are just beginning and there are so many great books out there fo you to discover. Even now, I feel that same excitement every time I read a new book. The world is a vast and beautiful place —- we are so lucky to be alive to enjoy it —- and books are part of that pleasure.

I love trees and birds and mountains and ice cream and readers like Amelia and librarians and music and dogs and . . .

On and on and on it goes.

Have an amazing summer!

Wait.

Do they even have summers in Minnesota? I’ve heard about your winters. Brrr!

My best,

James Preller

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Category: Fan Mail, Jigsaw Jones / Tags: , , ,

FAN MAIL WEDNESDAY #349: “It Was Interesting, Reading a Book Where the Protagonist Sucks”

June 8, 2026 / / No comments

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All fan mail is wonderful. A connection, a gift. I’m grateful for every letter I’ve received over the past decades. But sometimes a particular one comes out of the blue and takes my breath away.
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And, oh yeah, I loved this line, “It was interesting, reading a book where the protagonist sucks.”
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Meet Veronica.
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Good evening,

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For my English class, I had to watch a Ted Talk where this guy went around thanking everyone responsible for his coffee. He thanked the barista, he thanked the men who grew the coffee, he thanked the woman who conducted the pest control where the coffee was stored. He wanted to recognize the thousands of people who put in the work to make something as simple as a cup of coffee. His story inspired me to write this email, to thank you for writing the Fall.
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I know that it was written over a decade ago, and that you’ve written much since. But, while at the library, I picked up your book. I read the back cover, which intrigued me, and brought it home. 
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It was interesting, reading a book where the protagonist sucks. I don’t see it very often. I’ve heard that writers are encouraged to make their characters likeable and someone the readers would like to relate to. After I learned that Sam had a kind of friendship with Morgan, I almost put the book down. I couldn’t bear to continue. How dare he play such a role in the harassment when he could see what it did. 
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At the end, I was in tears. It’s a rare thing. The worst part was that Sam sees his wrongs after it is too late. No matter what he does, who he apologizes to, Morgan will never hear it. It’s heartbreaking. I’m worried I will make the same mistake.
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What I’m trying to say, Mr. Preller, is that your book moved me. It made me feel something. I wanted to read it again. And for that I want to thank you. I thank you for writing, in my opinion, a great book.
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You should be proud of your work.
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Veronica
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I replied . . . 
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Veronica,
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My goodness, what a letter.
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What a gift.
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You are a special human being. Not just that you read my book, or even that you felt it, but that in an act of pure kindness, you wrote to say so out of the goodness of your heart. Amazing, really.
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Today I’ll walk around with thoughts of you in my mind, inspired to be a little better, a little more grateful to one and all.
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I’ve mentioned it before on this blog, but the Irish have an expression, “Flowers for the living.” That we don’t have to wait for someone to die before we say something nice about them. I do try to keep that in mind. And now, thanks to you, even moreso.
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Thanks for the flowers.
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As for my unlikeable protagonist, Sam, I wrote from that perspective a few years after writing a book titled, Bystander. In that book, there’s a bully and, weirdly, I found myself feeling sympathy for him. That book is not told from the bully’s perspective. At that time, there was a lot of anti-bullying sentiment out there, appropriately so. But here’s the thing: Bullying is a verb, an act, not a noun. I don’t really believe in “the bully,” strictly speaking. Walt Whitman’s, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” The so-called bully might be a gifted athlete, kind to his grandmother, sweet with animals, a musician, funny and charismatic, etc. But in this one area, he is making some poor decisions. Not to gloss over the very real damage that he might cause. We are each responsible for our actions. But no one should be defined by the worst thing they’ve ever done. 
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I wanted that complexity to show in Sam’s character, even though that’s uncomfortable and even confusing at times. 
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Have a great summer, and feel free to write again if you wish.
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My best,
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James Preller
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P.S.  Check out the Japanese cover!
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This is the beautiful, haunting cover of the Japanese translation of my book, THE FALL. I love it so, so much.

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Category: Fan Mail, The Fall / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

FAN MAIL WEDNESDAY #348: The Sometimes Disappointing Business of Children’s Publishing

May 25, 2026 / / 2 comments

 

 

 

 

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Here’s another letter from a reader who enjoyed EXIT 13: The Whispering Pines.
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It kind of kills me, because there’s a sad story here, one that I suspect is fairly common in contemporary children’s publishing. I was asked to write two books in a new series for Scholastic. They came to me with the title, “Exit 13,” and a plan to feature the first book in Scholastic Book Fairs. They owned the concept. Beyond that, I did most of the heavy lifting. I was grateful for the opportunity. It was also a return to my publishing roots, since that’s where I first good my start. 
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I was pleased with the first book. I thought I accomplished something.  This was a fun, fast-paced, genuinely mysterious story. And it was well-published, too, featuring great art by Kevin Keele. 
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Of course, that first book had no advance promotion, no buzz whatsoever, when it appeared in Book Fairs next to some of the most popular books in the business. I gather that sales were disappointing. And before the second book came out, Scholastic had decided to pull the plug. There would be no third title. The series was dead on arrival, with no time to reach an audience. Honestly, all things considered, it would have taken a near-miracle to succeed.
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Hey, publishing is filled with tough decisions. It’s a business. They are in it to shift units, make cash registers sing. I understand how it works. Maybe they were right. But in my heart, I felt like that series could have been something. I had hopes!
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Oh, well. You move on. And occasionally answer a letter from a reader. 
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Hello Mr. Preller,
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My name is Ella _____ and I’m a 4th grader at South Dakota ______ Elementary and I really like your book Exit 13 The Whispering Pines. I like your book because I like how mysterious it is with the creepy man that Willow has a crush on until she starts to think differently about him. I also like how Ash goes into the forest with Willow to find their dog Daisy the goldendoodle.  I also like the part when they are in the pool that is not filled and the wolf comes when Willow isn’t there and she’s getting a drink while Ash and the girl are in the empty pool. A question I have  is why was the snake in the janitor’s cart? Another question i have is how did the dad fall and sprain his neck during the fire alarm? Mr. Preller thank you so much for reading my paragraph about your book Exit 13.
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I replied . . . 
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Dear Ella,
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Good morning! Thanks for your patience. I’ve been covering a lot of ground lately — drove from Albany, NY, all the way to New Orleans and back (almost 3,000 miles!), then to Long Island for a school visit to speak to 7th graders who all read my book Bystander, and then yesterday at a local school to talk to students, PreK-5. 
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So, finally, at last, a quiet morning at home. It’s overcast and rainy and my dog Echo is looking at me, wondering when we’ll go out for a walk. I’ve patiently explained that he’ll have to wait until I finish this letter to Ella in South Dakota.
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He just doesn’t get it. 
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Thank you for reading EXIT 13: The Whispering Pines. I’m glad you enjoyed its overall creepy, mysterious vibe. There’s a sequel, EXIT 13: The Spaces In Between, that I think is even more exciting. Anytime I write a story, there’s a degree of setting things up in the beginning: introducing characters, the setting, the situation. It’s always going to be a little slow at first, by necessity. With this book, I hoped to sprinkle in enough strangeness to keep the reader involved until the plot reveals itself and the action picks up. If the reader doesn’t care about the characters, then it’s not going to be a good book, period. For the second title in the series, I was able to launch right into it. In the process, I stumbled upon a device that worked really well. I found a way to put both Ash and Willow in peril — but separately. Then I was able to alternate chapters between them. Just when Ash was in trouble, I’d cut to Willow, get her in danger, then cut back to Ash, and somehow maintained that pace for about six chapters. It worked out really well, I think. I have a new series coming out next year, THE SURVIVAL CODE, that’s basically a wilderness survival series, and I use that device again to, I hope, great effect. Keep your eye out for them in the future.
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So here I am, 65 years old, a published author for 40 years, still learning new things. That’s one of the best things about this job. 
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By the way, I once had a goldendoodle named Daisy in real life. Now that she’s gone, I put her in that book. 
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You asked about the snake. Is it two-headed? I forget. To me, it was another odd element, part of the motel’s creepy backstory that I hoped to further develop in future books. Alas, Scholastic, my publisher, did not have an appetite for more, a decision they made before the second book was even published. It’s like a new TV show getting pulled after only a few episodes; it’s hard to build an audience when you don’t have time to grow. Oh, well. In Book #2 I do get to hint at some of the forces at work, and possibly an alien presence. The ground is poisoned, if you will. Weird things happen there. A rift in time and space. 
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The father hurt himself during a late-night fire alarm. Wakened in the middle of the night, in a strange room, he simply stumbled and fell. It served to keep the family in place for a bit, though of course we later learn that leaving was never an option. 
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Okay: Echo is really giving me the evil eye right now. I have to end this letter, get out of my pajamas, and start the day. Ella, I really appreciate hearing from you. Thanks for reading EXIT 13. You might also like my book Blood Mountain, where I have a brother and a sister and a dog (Carter, Grace, and Sitka) lost in the mountains. It is realistic fiction, unlike EXIT 13, but it shares many of the same qualities, including two parallel plot threads that occur at the same time, jumping back and forth in alternate chapters. In that book, I strive for similar creepiness and a general feeling of dis-ease and danger. Not exactly scary (do you know my SCARY TALES books?), but quietly unsettling. 
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What can I say? I like that stuff. 
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Anyway, time to go!
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James Preller
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P.S. Here’s a few from a winter walk. I love that dog!
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Category: EXIT 13, Fan Mail / Tags: , , , , , ,

FAN MAIL WEDNESDAY #347: Letter from a “Huge Soccer Girl”

March 6, 2026 / / No comments

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From last night’s email: 

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SHAKEN will be available in paperback, featuring this new cover, on March 17th.

i just read your book shaken and i am a huge soccer girl and i love reading this book i love how she had a hard thing in her life and kept going on what she loved and i love how much she tried

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thank you its hard i had a concussion too it was hard so i loved how i could relate to this book 

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T____, 6th grade
pls answer back if you can

 

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I replied . . .

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T, 
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I’m very glad to read your kind note. While I hoped to write a book that was more than “just” a soccer story, I did very much want the approval of “huge soccer girls” like you. 
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My daughter Maggie played soccer until knee surgeries forced her to quit (three ACL surgeries and done). One unexpected thing she told me was about the first few minutes of practice, how warm and friendly they were, everybody touching base and connecting before the work begins. I tried to capture that small moment in the book. That feeling of being a team. 
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Another moment in the story was inspired by an actual USWNT  soccer star, Claire Hutton, who attended our local high school in Bethlehem, NY. Everyone who followed local sports knew about Claire from a young age. I only met her once, she may have been 15-16 at the time, when I was out walking my dog Echo on a summer day by the high school. Claire was out on the football field, alone, practicing with an assortment of orange cones. Running sprints, ball drills, and so on. I stopped and we chatted amiably for a few minutes. But that scene — a determined athlete, all alone, driven by some inner flame — was all I needed for Chapter 1 of my book. I wanted my character, Kristy Barrett, to have a little bit of the fire that burned inside Claire.
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How do you not root for a kid — now a young woman — like this?

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I’m sorry but not surprised to hear that you experienced a concussion. Hopefully your recovery went well and you can avoid another incident. The health of your brain is everything. And yet if you are playing the game, and competing, it’s impossible to go halfway. It’s hard to be careful when you are fighting for the ball. 
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I wish you luck. My best,
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James Preller
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Category: Fan Mail, Shaken / Tags: , , , , ,

FAN MAIL WEDNESDAY #346: Noelle Inspires a Longer Than Usual Response

February 24, 2026 / / No comments

 

To get a letter, any letter, is a wonderful thing. 

Here’s one from Durham, NC . . .

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I replied . . .

Dear Noelle,

It is a kind and generous thing, to sit down and write a letter. Especially in these times, when letter-writing feels like a thing of the past.

In our whirlwind of days, it is the gift of time and thought and presence and, yes, words. And for that letter to be sent to an author, after reading a book, it’s all the more meaningful.

So thank you, Noelle, very much. It means a lot.

When I think about it, I’m amazed by how books connect us through space and time. We can read a book written 150 years ago and somehow co-exist with that writer —- who lived a life very different from our own. A different time and place. And yet by reading we are linked.

Books are remarkable, don’t you think?

You have an Etsy shop! Holy wow. At 12 years old! And you crochet?

From that I gather that you are not the standard edition, everyday, run-of-the-mill preteen. You might even be, I suspect, quite extraordinary.

You asked a few questions: I can’t exactly remember how long it took to write The Courage Test. Less than a year. I know that it required quite a bit of research. I had much to learn about Lewis and Clark’s journey. I sent away for river maps, read up on hotels, had to figure out where Will and his father might actually go for breakfast, on and on and on. But at a certain point, a writer has to push the research aside and start writing, despite never knowing enough.

On that note, you might enjoy this post.

Or this one.

The one true thing I’ve figured out is that the only way to learn how to write a novel . . . is to write a novel. If you wait until you know enough, until you’ve got it all nailed down, you’ll never get started. The learning is in the doing.

Your questions touch on support and guidance and inspiration. Those are important things. It’s so valuable in life to have someone who believes in you, who roots for you, who thinks you can do it — even when, or especially when, you yourself have doubts. Don’t we all? It may be a teacher, a parent, a friend, or someone you meet in a book. Whoever it might be, hold onto that person for dear life.

For myself, I can think of different teachers I’ve met over the years. Co-workers, friends. As for my parents, I can’t say that they ever encouraged me to write, or were particularly interested in the arts. They never dragged me to museums or asked me to watch foreign films. They weren’t big readers. But I grew up the youngest of seven children. I saw so many living pathways, directions I could take. And the gift that my parents gave me was the sense that it was all available to me. I was swimming in the world of the possible. I could do what I liked, dream my own dreams, and no matter what they would love me and support me. They wanted me to find my own way.

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What more could I ask for?

Thanks for reading my book and inspiring me to sit down with my thoughts, and a blank screen, and put down some words. Sorry I prattled on so long!

My best,

James Preller

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SOME REVIEWS . . .

“Preller stirs doses of American history into a first-rate road trip.” — Booklist, starred review.

“There is plenty of action . . . A middle grade winner to hand to fans of history, adventure, and family drama.” — School Library Journal.

“Whatever young explorers look for on their literary road trips, they’ll find it here.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.

 

THE COURAGE TEST WAS LISTED AS ONE OF “THE BEST CHILDREN’S BOOKS OF THE YEAR,” 2017 EDITION, BY BANK STREET COLLEGE. 

IT WAS ALSO A JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION.

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Category: Fan Mail, The Courage Test / Tags: , , ,
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