Patrick Carman, the Walla Walla author who moved from self-publishing to the world of big-time literature, is on the move. Literally. Carman, whose children’s book “The Dark Hills Divide” attracts Harry Potter-like lines at bookstore signings, says: “Scholastic has made The Dark Hills Divide’ their lead title for 2005 and the book releases in hardback on Dec. 28. I’ll be doing a four-month, coast-to-coast tour in a bus with my family, visiting hundreds of schools and bookstores. It should be quite a ride!” No doubt.Carman reports that Scholastic will run an initial printing of 400,000 copies. And, he adds, “Every Barnes and Noble and Borders in the country will be using a floor display.”"The Dark Hills Divide,” a fantasy novel that Carman invented while telling stories to his daughter, tells the story of a young girl, 12-year-old Alexa Daley.While spending the summer with her father in the walled town of Bridewell, she stumbles onto the reasons why there are such walls in the first place. They have to do with a presence in the dark woods that cover the distant hills.Pretty soon Alexa is caught up in a classic tale of good versus evil. The question is, where does the evil exist: outside or inside the walls?”The Dark Hills Divide” is the first book in Carman’s “Land of Elyon” series. And, as he said in an interview in May, what separates the book from other fantasies is its protagonist. “If you look across the landscape of work that’s out there for young adults, there really aren’t that many where there’s a female heroine who doesn’t get bailed out in the end,” he said. “There’s always some other character, a guy usually, who helps her.”I really felt like I wanted to write a book in which the world revolved around one really strong female character.”

Walla Walla Youth fiction author Patrick Carman will be kicking off his nationwide tour in Seattle, the city that helped launch him from self-published wordsmith to Scholastic lead author for 2005. In March; Cecelia Goodnow of the Seattle-PI said, “For authors with drive a good story, self-publishing can be the ticket.” For Carman it was a ticket to a 3 book deal with Scholastic, the publisher of the Harry Potter series. Scholastic has made The Dark Hills Divide, the 1st book in The Land Of Elyon trilogy their top priority for 2005. The tour – Scholastic’s largest to date for a first time author – will kick off January 10th at Third Place Books in Lake ForestPark at 6pm. He will follow the same formula that made him successful on his self-publishing run by visiting 3 schools the day of the event. Carman will also visit 20 more elementary schools and 6 more bookstores while in Seattle. Carman’s tour in support of The Dark Hills Divide will span four months. The tour will cover 22 cities, hundreds of school visits, and 70+ bookstores. The author will be driving a forty-foot tour bus – wrapped to look like the book – across America, and he’ll bring his family along for the ride. “My wife Karen was a teacher before she became a full time mom,” says the author. “So she’ll teach the kids on the road. I’d rather be with my family than away from them on such a long haul. Plus, the kids will know their United States geography by the time they get home, so that”s a plus.” The author will journal with photos, film footage, and written entries from the road – all available to the press – and the author’s two elementary age daughters will be Scholastic “kid reporters”, reporting for Scholastic News and local media from city to city. Seattle Stops:Jan 10: Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, 6pm Jan11: Village Books, Bellingham, 6pm Jan12: Secret Garden, Seattle, 6pm Jan13: Queen Anne Books, Seattle, 6pm Jan14: Barnes & Noble, U Village, 6pmJan18:TBA Jan19:TBA For more on this unique tour or to book an interview with author Patrick Carman please contact:press@patrickcarman.com_____________________NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS22 cities, 200 schools, 70+ bookstoresAttachments – Tour map with dates – In store display – Tour bus image The tour will include a multitude of activities and promotions including:- The Land of Elyon map has been transformed into a sculpture by artist Squire Broel. The sculpture will be on display at book signings where kids can literally touch and feel the places where the story unfolds. A making of video will accompany the sculpture on its trip across America. – Glass Jocasta stones, created by Seattle glass blowing artist Daryl Smith, will be on display at all book signings.- Codes for entrance into secret online content will be given out during book signing events. – Autographed full color posters will be given out at all book signings. Other items of note about The Dark Hills Divide- $200,000 National Dark Hills Divide advertising and publicity campaign – Three different floor displays are available to stores, with thousands already sold to chains and independent book stores around the country – The web site for The Dark Hills Divide is a ground breaking effort by Scholastic, with a variety of new technologies – Foreign rights have been sold in the UK prior to publication. Contact informationCharisse Meloto VP, MarketingScholastic, Inc. cmeloto@scholastic.com 212-389-3785

Howard Price The-Trades.comBridewell is a city walled in all about. The three roads leaving Bridewell are also walled until they reach Lunenburg, Lathbury, or Turlock, all of which are also walled about. The walls were put there by Warvold, with the good intentions of protecting the citizens from the perils of that which lived in the wilderness. But the greatest peril was the one Warvold created himself in the erection of the walls.Alexa Daley is a 12-year-old girl with an insatiable curiosity about what lies beyond the walls of her world. She consistently runs afoul of Pervis Kotcher, the head guard whose job it is to keep the outside out and the inside in, and he’s none too fond of this little child of privilege running about whereve she pleases.Alexa spends much of her time in the library, or with her father (the mayor of Lathbury) and his friends. With the former, she reads about what may lie beyond the gate, but it’s with the latter that she learns the most about Warvold and his wife, Renny, who had the wonderful talent of creating Jocastas: etchings within gemstones that you have to magnify in order to see. Nicolas, Warvold’s son, shows him the Jocasta in his own stone that his mother made for him, and it is this that Alexa ponders as she sits once again, alone in the library: ————————————————————————Safely tucked into my chair, I had a brief moment of anxiety as I realized the possibility of another encounter with Pervis. This time Grayson was not in the library to save me. Just as I was nursing this unpleasant thought, Sam jumped up on my lap, followed a second later by Pepper. They purred and dug their heads into my chest, looking for all the scratching they could get. I kept rubbing Pepper’s belly, only to have him turn and force his head under my hand.”Since when did you cast off belly rubs?” I said out loud. He just kept on pushing his head into my chest, and then Sam started in with the same routine. I grabbed them both by the nape and lifted them up to my face. I stared them in the eye and they each gave a single meow. Then my gaze focused down to the jeweled collars and the medallions hanging from them.For a moment I went cold, paralyzed, as I’d been when I’d realized Warvold was dead. Meow, meow! the cats screamed. I had forgotten I was still holding them both up by the backs of their necks.I set them both down and apologized as I tried to gain my composure. The cats sat at attention and I took their collars in my hands. The medallions were each about an inch square; one was green and one red. They were adorned with beautiful alternating patterns. Since the cats had belonged to Renny, it was certainly possible that the medallions contained Jocastas. I was beside myself with anticipation about what they might reveal, and I knew exactly where I could find what I needed to unlock the mystery of the gems. ————————————————————————The first Jocasta Alexa uncovers provides a launching point into a plot that could spell the end of Bridewell. For there are, indeed, forces outside the walls of the cities that would invade them and do them harm. But before Alexa can convince anyone of the threats both without and within, she must first become an explorer herself, much like Warvold, and leave the confines of the walls! What she discovers beyond will thrill, enchant, and skillfully bind the reader to the book from page to page as Alexa encounters a world of Narnian proportions.Patrick Carman is not so much an author as he is a lapidary, much like his fabled Renny Warvold. He has carved and refined and polished the story of Alexa Daley until it shines like a mystic gem. You’d be far remiss not to pick this one up and peer inside for the enchanting secrets within.

When Pacific Northwest entrepreneur Patrick Carman began to publish a children’s fantasy trilogy, The Land of Elyon by himself, he was such an effective promoter, doing readings at schools and stressing kids’ literacy, that he had soon sold 10,000 copies of the first volume. Word came back of his success, from a Scholastic sales rep, to the ear of editorial director Craig Walker, who promptly sought out agent Peter Rubie and asked to see the book. Rubie suggested that Walker should talk to Carman and, when he did, he said he was “excited to find that [Carman] was very much on Scholastic’s wavelength, stressing school appearances and the importance of literacy. So I decided we have to have him and the books.” He made a six-figure preemptive offer for world rights, and Scholastic will publish the first book, Dark Hills Divide, next month. It’s about a girl trying to save a fantasy world. Scholastic is pushing the boat out next spring with an unusually extensive promotion that will send Carman, accompanied by his two young daughters, on a bus tour to 22 cities from coast to coast, doing readings all the way.

Bridewell is a city walled in all about. The three roads leaving Bridewell are also walled until they reach Lunenburg, Lathbury, or Turlock, all of which are also walled about. The walls were put there by Warvold, with the good intentions of protecting the citizens from the perils of that which lived in the wilderness. But the greatest peril was the one Warvold created himself in the erection of the walls.Alexa Daley is a 12-year-old girl with an insatiable curiosity about what lies beyond the walls of her world. She consistently runs afoul of Pervis Kotcher, the head guard whose job it is to keep the outside out and the inside in, and he’s none too fond of this little child of privilege running about whereve she pleases.Alexa spends much of her time in the library, or with her father (the mayor of Lathbury) and his friends. With the former, she reads about what may lie beyond the gate, but it’s with the latter that she learns the most about Warvold and his wife, Renny, who had the wonderful talent of creating Jocastas: etchings within gemstones that you have to magnify in order to see. Nicolas, Warvold’s son, shows him the Jocasta in his own stone that his mother made for him, and it is this that Alexa ponders as she sits once again, alone in the library: ————————————————————————Safely tucked into my chair, I had a brief moment of anxiety as I realized the possibility of another encounter with Pervis. This time Grayson was not in the library to save me. Just as I was nursing this unpleasant thought, Sam jumped up on my lap, followed a second later by Pepper. They purred and dug their heads into my chest, looking for all the scratching they could get. I kept rubbing Pepper’s belly, only to have him turn and force his head under my hand.”Since when did you cast off belly rubs?” I said out loud. He just kept on pushing his head into my chest, and then Sam started in with the same routine. I grabbed them both by the nape and lifted them up to my face. I stared them in the eye and they each gave a single meow. Then my gaze focused down to the jeweled collars and the medallions hanging from them.For a moment I went cold, paralyzed, as I’d been when I’d realized Warvold was dead. Meow, meow! the cats screamed. I had forgotten I was still holding them both up by the backs of their necks.I set them both down and apologized as I tried to gain my composure. The cats sat at attention and I took their collars in my hands. The medallions were each about an inch square; one was green and one red. They were adorned with beautiful alternating patterns. Since the cats had belonged to Renny, it was certainly possible that the medallions contained Jocastas. I was beside myself with anticipation about what they might reveal, and I knew exactly where I could find what I needed to unlock the mystery of the gems. ————————————————————————The first Jocasta Alexa uncovers provides a launching point into a plot that could spell the end of Bridewell. For there are, indeed, forces outside the walls of the cities that would invade them and do them harm. But before Alexa can convince anyone of the threats both without and within, she must first become an explorer herself, much like Warvold, and leave the confines of the walls! What she discovers beyond will thrill, enchant, and skillfully bind the reader to the book from page to page as Alexa encounters a world of Narnian proportions.Patrick Carman is not so much an author as he is a lapidary, much like his fabled Renny Warvold. He has carved and refined and polished the story of Alexa Daley until it shines like a mystic gem. You’d be far remiss not to pick this one up and peer inside for the enchanting secrets within.