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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English

THE WILD BOOK

Juan Villoro

Over one million copies sold in the Spanish edition

From one of Mexico's foremost authors comes a wondrous adventure story of a boy who goes to live with his kooky, book-obsessed uncle in a library where books have supernatural powers.
"We walked toward the part of the library where the air smelled as if it had been interred for years .. Finally, we got to the hallway where the wooden floor was the creakiest, and we sensed a strange whiff of excitement and fear. It smelled like a creature from a bygone time. It smelled like a dragon."

Thirteen-year-old Juan's summer is off to a terrible start. First, his parents separate. Then, almost as bad, Juan is sent away to his strange Uncle Tito's house for the entire break! Who wants to live with an oddball recluse who has zigzag eyebrows, drinks fifteen cups of smoky tea a day, and lives inside a huge, mysterious library?

As Juan adjusts to his new life among teetering, dusty shelves, he notices something odd: the books move on their own! He rushes to tell Uncle Tito, who lets his nephew in on a secret: Juan is a Princeps Reader, which means books respond magically to him, and he's the only one who can find the elusive, never-before-read Wild Book. But will Juan and his new friend Catalina get to The Wild Book before the wicked, story-stealing Pirate Book does?

An unforgettable adventure story about books, libraries, and the power of reading, The Wild Book is the young readers' debut by beloved, prize-winning Mexican author Juan Villoro. It has sold over one million copies in Spanish.

Juan Villoro is Mexico's most prolific, prize-winning author, playwright, journalist, and screenwriter. His books have been translated into multiple languages. Several of his books have appeared in English, including his celebrated 2016 essay collection on soccer brought out by Restless Books, God Is Round. Villoro lives in Mexico City and is a visiting lecturer at Yale and Princeton universities.
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Published by Yonder

Comments

“For me, when it comes to good writing, texts are alive and living among us, no matter the genre. Juan Villoro's The Wild Book — a story in which books themselves are characters — is an especially good example.... In Uncle Tito's library, the books choose their readers. So Villoro's novel chose me.... Equal parts ecology and magical realism, Villoro explores the nature of literature and reading. The best stories are wild, after all.... Villoro entrusts young readers to care for and sustain the magic — and in doing so, takes them seriously. But the novel is also generous with its adults.... Villoro's novel illuminates why YA literature has such a large adult readership. Even as we age, or perhaps especially then, our purpose is not to tame our life stories — but rather to allow them their wild lives.” —Kristin Van Tassel, Los Angeles Review of Books