Esta Spalding is an acclaimed writer, poet and screenwriter who is currently at work adapting Kate Atkinson’s novel Life After Life for Lionsgate Films and Jennifer Egan’s novel A Visit from the Goon Squad for Sundance Television. She is the editor of The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology. She is the author of several books, including Carrying Place, nominated for the Gerald R. Lampert Award, and Lost August, winner of the Pat Lowther Memorial. Look Out for the Fitzgerald-Trouts (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) Spalding’s exciting middle grade debut, establishes a marvelous place where children fend for themselves, and adults only seem to ruin everything. This extraordinary world is brought to vibrant life by Sydney Smith, the celebrated artist behind Sidewalk Flowers. Meet the Fitzgerald-Trouts, a band of four loosely related children living together in a lush tropical island. They take care of themselves. They sleep in their car, bathe in the ocean, eat fish they catch and fruit they pick, and can drive anywhere they need to go–to the school, the laundromat, or the drive-in. If they put their minds to it, the Fitzgerald-Trouts can do anything. Even, they hope, find a real home.
