After 20 years of writing and editing weekly newspapers in coastal Maine, Ellen Booraem quit her day job to write fantasies for young teens. Her latest, TEXTING THE UNDERWORLD, will be out in August with Penguin/Dial Books for Young Readers. It’s about a twelve-year-old South Boston boy who persuades a young banshee to help him stop the death she’s been sent to announce. This involves visits first to middle school, then to the afterlife. Cell phones come into play.
Ellen’s first book, THE UNNAMEABLES (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), was a Junior Library Guild selection, a Kirkus Reviews best book of the year, and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Her second, SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS (Penguin/Dial, 2011), made “best of the year” lists for Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The Washington Post, and the Bankstreet Center for Children’s Literature. A Massachusetts native, she lives in Brooklin with a painter, a dog, and a cat, one of whom is a practicing curmudgeon. More information is available at www.ellenbooraem.com.
