Lev Grossmanis getting younger.
Heres the official synopsis: Kate and her younger brother Tom lead desperately uninteresting lives.
And judging by their desperately uninteresting parents, the future isnt much more promising.
Credit: Mathieu Bourgois
If only life was like it is in books, where you have adventures, and save the world!
The novel publishes Sept. 1, and isavailable for pre-order.
Shed never even seen a picture of him.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
He was her mothers brother, and her mother and Uncle Herbert didnt get along.
Which was weird when you thought about it.
But apparently with grown-ups that was a thing.
Uncle Herbert never came to visit.
Where did he live?
What did he do all day?
Thats what she wouldve done.
But it was all a big mystery.
They only ever changed the subject.
Which isnt to say that Kates parents were bad parents.
Parenting just never seemed to be right at the top of their list of priorities.
Maybe thats why he annoyed them so much.
Either way, they never seemed to have much time for Kate.
Kate had plenty of time for Kate though.
Sometimes it seemed like too much.
Her parents sent her to piano lessons and tennis lessons.
(They sent Tom to cello lessons and hapkido lessons.)
What was the point?
She felt ready for something more exciting.
Something that actually mattered.
But there wasnt anything.
Just toys and games and tennis and piano.
And unlike in books, you couldnt skip ahead past the boring parts.
So she put it in the mailbox.
She didnt even have a stamp for it.
Which made it all the more surprising when a present from Uncle Herbert arrived the very next morning.
It was a train.
Kate didnt especially want a train.
Its not like she was into trains, that was more of a Tom thing.
Kate tried to be philosophical about these things.
What was really surprising, though, was how big it was.
I mean this thing was really big.
Like too big to send through the mail.
It arrived at their house on a specially reinforced double-wide flatbed truck with 28 wheels.
It was giant and black and incredibly complicated.
That, Uncle Herbert explained, was because it was one.
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