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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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www.julietbell.com

KEPLER'S DREAM

Juliet Bell

A young girl makes her fractured family whole again with the heip of a very special book.
When eleven-year-old Ella's mother has to be hospitalized to undergo a dangerous cancer treatment, Ella spends the summer at "Broken Family Camp" with her eccentric grandmother, whom she's never met. The situation is hardly ideal for either of them. Ella is scared her mother may die, but her grandmother seems to care more about her library full of books than she does about her very own granddaughter. But when a rare and beloved book, Kepler's Dream of the Moon, is stolen from her grandmother's amazing library, Ella and her new friend Rosie make up their minds to find it. Finding the beautiful book her grandmother loves so much could even be the key to healing Ella's broken family. An affecting and beautifully written story of family, forgiveness and the wonder of the stars, Kepler's Dream is a sparkling and memorable debut.

Juliet Bell grew up a California kid like Ella, who always loved stories in all shapes and sizes. She enjoys riding, and looking at the stars, and did have an amazing grandmother who kept a hundred peacocks at a place pretty similar to the House of Mud. As family and friends will tell you, Juliet has a close personal connection to the writer Sylvia Brownrigg, who has published five books for adults, but her children especially are hoping Juliet will write more stories for young people. Her next one may be about a boy and an adventure on the river, since her son likes to fish. Juliet lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and their children, and a big curly-haired brown dog. She loves getting letters from her readers, and helping kids learn how to write their stories down, too—whether under their own names, or a name they've made up.
Available products
Book

Published 2012-05-01 by G.P. Putnam's Sons

Book

Published 2012-05-01 by G.P. Putnam's Sons

Comments

Ella's touching and dry-witted letters to her mother detail her adventures and lessons learned, lending the story emotional complexity without sentimentality. Despite her circumstances, Ella translates the world with a candid, sassy voice and a surprising amount of wisdom.

Kepler's Dream" is full of smart, subversive commentary on the numbing effects of contemporary youth culture. (After she talks with her mom, Ella has a "huge urge to watch TV or some dumb YouTube video, but at my grandmother's house all I could do was play Jewel Quest on my phone.") But in the end it is Ella's voice — utterly captivating, idiosyncratic, rich and memorable — that ties all the pieces together in, yes, a kind of dream logic, making this not only an entertaining book but an absorbing and artful one.

Utterly satisfying.

Two strong individuals under stress, they come across as fully rounded characters, and even the minor players here are distinctive, credible, and memorable. An impressive debut for Bell.

Smart and thoughtful, the story sparkles like Kepler's favorite stars in Bell's debut offering for children.