Towards the beginning of the 1950 film Cinderella, her animal friends, including Jaq and Gus, help her sew together a beautiful gown for the prince’s ball. To the tune of “The Work Song”, the seamstress mice turn leftover fabric into an array of bows and frills perfect for Cinderella’s night out. While the film continues on with storylines for Jaq and Gus, what happens to the other mice? Find out in Disney’s latest novel, Delphine and the Silver Needle.

Author Alyssa Moon has always been fascinated by the animal side characters in fairy tales and deeply wanted to give a name to one of her favorites - the seamstress mice.

“The whole world of Cinderella is suffused with magic, so how might this little mouse’s life be impacted by magic?” Moon said. “What if she discovered that her true identity linked her to magic that had flourished long ago? As soon as I had given a name to that seamstress mouse, Delphine was born, and her story flowed out as if it had always been there.”

There were several stages to the creation process, including a year just spent on creating the overall world of Delphine, the system of magic and the overarching storyline for the series. Once all the details were fleshed out, Moon spent a year writing Delphine and the Silver Needle and a year working alongside Disney Publishing to create the book’s look and feel.

“The beautiful art, the layout, the design, the map, all of that - it’s absolutely gorgeous, and it perfectly captures how I had imagined the book…as if the reader had found it on the shelf of an old castle library, just waiting to be discovered,” she said.

Delphine’s story goes like this: She is a young, orphaned dressmaker living in the walls of Cinderella’s chateau when she stumbles upon an enormous secret. She takes it upon herself to uncover the truth about the past and save the kingdom before the evil King Midnight succeeds in harnessing the power of the tailor mice.

Not only is this Moon’s first novel for Disney, it is her debut as an author. The process was extremely rewarding for her as someone who thrives on receiving feedback and notes in order to improve.

“It’s like a puzzle,” she said. “Often, it’s an incredibly complicated puzzle where you only have a few pieces, and no box lid to show you the picture! But the process of sifting through and figuring out the changes that need to be made is like putting the puzzle pieces into place one by one. It’s incredibly satisfying each time you get another puzzle piece to fit just right. So although the process can make me want to tear my hair out, it’s the most rewarding feeling in the world when all of the notes have been addressed and the new draft is sparkling and perfect.”

Delphine and the Silver Needle is action-packed with magic, heart and something that ties the book together: adventure.

“Adventures can exist anywhere,” Moon said. “Sometimes the greatest magic isn’t about spells or wands - it’s about having the courage to chase your destiny against all odds. Each of us is capable of much more than we know.”

In many of the tales brought to life by Walt Disney Animation Studios, specifically the tales of heroines, their stories begin well into their teenage years. Cinderella was 19 years old when she attended the prince’s ball in a gown made by her fairy godmother. Pocahontas was 18 years old when English colonists invaded her people’s land. Mulan was 16 years old when she joined the Chinese military in her father’s place. Their tales of triumph made them infamous, but what did their earlier upbringings look like?

In Disney’s latest chapter book series, Before the Story shows characters as children, catering to the 6- to 8-year-old demographic. The series has already featured Mulan, Elsa and Anna, and recently took on the tales of Pocahontas and Cinderella.

Before Pocahontas brought peace, she was a girl ready to help. Pocahontas Leads The Way shows a younger but equally brave chief’s daughter who wants what’s best for her people. When a member of their village falls ill, Pocahontas takes it upon herself to get the help they need.

In addition to embarking on a journey that taught her courage, strength and friendship, the adventure that surrounds the plotline of searching for medicinal flowers gives the reader a sense of nostalgia for what they know comes next in Pocahontas’ life.

Before Cinderella lost her slipper, she was a girl ready to create. Cinderella Takes The Stage shares the story of a younger Ella, affectionately called Cinderella by her mother and father, who is determined to win the Midsummer Festival Puppet Contest. When she shares the puppet creation process with a new friend, she struggles to decide which of their dreams deserves the prize of a gold coin.

Friendship and love share a magical quality that outshines the need to be first place, but it’s hope and belief in magic that makes Cinderella and Valentine winners, no matter who the prize was awarded to.

In each of these stories, the reader gets the opportunity to dive deeper into each heroine’s backstory and witness their resilience begin to form. Whether it was Pocahontas’ determination to take care of everyone in her village or Cinderella’s belief in finding the good in everyone, the outcome of each tale leaves the reader with a greater understanding of how these young women came to be strong individuals.

The Before the Story series takes young readers into the world of their favorite characters, yet gives them the ability to connect on a deeper level with them as they appear to be similar ages. It is an entertaining take on the lives of these beloved heroines while continuing to develop their virtues.

In the decade since animator Rachel Larsen created The Tiny Chef with writer Adam Reid and cinematographer Ozi Akturk, they’ve managed to turn their clay friend into a viral phenomenon.

According to the New York Times, The Tiny Chef “stands only six inches tall, like an enchanted ball of moss sprung to life. Made of wood, foam latex and metal, he preps vegetables, simmers sauces and bakes pies the size of bottle caps, all while chattering in a lispy singsong that is mostly incomprehensible.”

The character became recognizable through stop-motion videos posted online, and has just released a book, The Tiny Chef and da mishing weshipee blook.

“The Tiny Chef often cooks his famous vegetable stew for his friends, and whenever they’d ask where he got the recipe from he’d tell them about this legendary day he lost his recipe book,” The Tiny Team said. “He told that story so many times that when [Penguin Random House] approached us about a book we KNEW we had to re-create that day with The Chef, and of course share his famous recipe too!”

Reid and Chef spent hours making sure the wording was perfectly crafted on each page while Akturk and Chef focused on the lighting of each image. Larsen and Chef would take long walks and think through how to tell his story, and Chef’s “interior designer” Jason Kolowski made sure everything in Chef’s tree stump was what he needed to recreate that fateful day.

The Tiny Chef and his Tiny Team wanted everything just perfect; to make sure they were capturing the essence of the day and that every detail of every page truly expressed his feelings in that moment. It involved long, grueling hours, but those hours paid off with a blurb from friend Kristen Bell on the back cover jacket and RuPaul as the narrator of the audiobook.

“We love how committed Chef was to the project and how all of us came together to help him make it," The Tiny Team said. “It was a true team effort and we’re SO happy people get to actually cook and try his famous stew.”

From The Tiny Chef himself: “cook wif lub, cook fo your fwens, an blawaysh twy shomefing new."

When Disney decided to reimagine some of their classic stories in an urban noir environment, author Estelle Laure knew she wanted to make that series, City of Villains, hers.

Laure comes from a long line of writers, storytellers and curious people, so it wasn't a surprise that her love for it was genetic.

“I think if you have an appetite for all the facets of the human experience, there’s no better place to find information and to try on different lives than in books,” she said. “The magic of writing and being the storyteller is that you get to project your imagination outward. Maybe it’s because I grew up on Reading Rainbow, but I always think of it like a magical rainbow where my imagination and a reader’s intersect in an explosion of color and fairy dust. I love that more than anything else about being alive, and frankly I think my love of reading and storytelling have saved my life many times over.”

City of Villains shares the story of Mary Elizabeth Heart, a high school senior who spends her evenings interning at the Monarch City Police Department. She longs to follow the detectives who are out solving cases, and when the daughter of one of the city’s most powerful businessmen goes missing, the chief finally lets her.

“...As soon as I saw it I felt this kind of sticky urgency to be the one to author the proposed series,” Laure said. “I mean, an urban procedural detective story starring Disney villains as teens? It was one of the strangest, coolest things I’d ever seen and the way it began to unfurl and develop organically for me from there told me I would be able to do it in a way that could work.”

It’s surreal for Laure to think that she wrote a book for Disney with many of their legendary characters, but there were also challenging moments of keeping these characters’ legacies while giving herself the freedom to step away and evolve their backstories.

“I worked hard to update their looks, fill in their psychologies and make them feel real,” she said.

Laure hopes that readers feel like warriors after reading City of Villains. She wants them to feel like they can face difficulties with courage, just like Mary Elizabeth, and know that they can get back up after being knocked down. Mostly, she hopes readers will feel magical, because life is magic even when it’s hard.

In 2004, author Ned Vizzini published his novel Be More Chill, a story of high school student Jeremy Heere who transforms from stereotypical nerd to the coolest guy in class. It was adapted into a musical in 2015 and made its Broadway debut in 2019. In 2021, it was adapted again - this time into a graphic novel.

Author David Levithan, who is a fan of Vizzini’s, wrote the afterword to the original novel and was the perfect fit when it came time to create the graphic novel edition.

“I immediately said yes,” Levithan said. “Even though I’d never written a graphic novel before, I’d edited a bunch, so I was very familiar with the format, and thought it would be fun to bring [Vizzini’s] story to life that way.”

The story revolves around Jeremy Heere swallowing a pill-sized supercomputer called a squip, which guarantees to bring him everything he most desires in life. The squip instructs him on what to wear, how to walk and talk, and before he knows it, he’s friends with his former enemies and has the attention of every girl in school. What he learns the hard way, however, is that it comes with consequences.

While developing the story, as is typical for writers and illustrators, Levithan and artist Nick Bertozzi worked almost entirely separate.

“Nick sent in some character sketches that totally showed he understood the story and the characters,” Levithan said. “And then he just ran with it, based on my script.”

The graphic novel stayed true to the original in many ways, including the time period. For Levithan, it was exciting to decide which pieces of early-00s history would make it into the storyline (including references to 2000 Grammy Award-winning song “Who Let The Dogs Out”, colorful iMac desktop computers and Motorola razr flip phones) but jokingly admits the most difficult part was admitting that the early 00s made it historical fiction.

Not only was it a joy and honor for Levithan to adapt the novel, but it gave him another reason to stand by its message.

“The reason I love the novel, and the reason I believe the musical adaptation has resonated so much, is because Ned was so on-the-mark about how technology can alter our personhood, and how the most meaningful connections between people are the ones that are made genuinely,” he said. “Ned knew readers need to think about such things as our century began, and it’s certainly still the case.”

Be More Chill: The Graphic Novel is available here.

Lauren DeStefano knew she wanted to write a story about big feelings and how to manage them. Growing up, and even as an adult now, her imagination has helped turn scary moments into less intimidating ones. With that in mind, the story of The Unicorn Came to Dinner was born.

The Unicorn Came to Dinner is the story of no ordinary unicorn: the unicorn smells wonderful, but isn’t very respectful. Heart-shaped hoof prints and a trail of glitter are made across the carpet, food is knocked off the counter and the only word spoken is “neigh”. When Elizabeth’s parents ask the unicorn if it knows where their daughter went, they find out the unicorn ate her.

The unicorn does Elizabeth’s homework, takes a bubble bath in Elizabeth’s tub, dries off with Elizabeth’s favorite towel and puts on Elizabeth’s pajamas for the fourth time this week before the reader finds out that the unicorn is how Elizabeth hides her anxiety about school.

“I wanted to write a story that shows everyone it’s okay to find a creative way to cope,” DeStefano said. “Once I figured this out, the story happened pretty quickly.”

After DeStefano had written the story, she turned it into her publisher, who ultimately found illustrator Gaia Cornwall.

“I was immediately drawn to this story and thought depicting anxiety as a huge, obnoxious unicorn was brilliant,” Cornwall said. “I could instantly picture the spread of the unicorn - complete with butter on her horn - in between the parents at the dinner table.”

DeStefano saw a few sketches early in the process, but got a full look at it when it was nearly complete. While that is fairly normal in traditional publishing, it was still a nerve wracking process for Cornwall. She hoped that DeStefano would connect to where she was taking the story visually. When she saw the finished product, DeStefano was pleased at how her writing was brought to life by Cornwall’s talent and vision.

Both of them hope that this book helps start conversations about feelings and that finding creative ways to cope with big changes and events is perfectly normal.

“Hearing from parents and guardians who say this book has become their child’s favorite, or that it helped them, is the greatest thing I can ever hear, as a writer,” DeStefano said.

“A friend of mine recently told me her daughter wants to read this book at bedtime, especially after a hard day at school,” Cornwall added. “Obviously, I don’t wish hard school days on anyone, but hearing our book is helping to get a kiddo through that really just means the world. It's so rewarding to find out our book is providing some support for families and kids.”

Sisters Elsa and Anna fondly remember their father, Agnarr, telling them a story about their grandfather establishing a treaty with a neighboring tribe, which set the stage for the 2019 film Frozen II. The film shares more details about the former king and queen, Iduna, and makes the audience wonder what else they don’t know yet about the parents of their favorite princesses. In Mari Mancusi’s book, Dangerous Secrets: The Story of Iduna and Agnarr, the story of their teenage years come to life.

Mancusi got her start in television news production before deciding she wanted to share more happy endings than sad ones. She began publishing novels and has now written more than 20 for kids, teens and adults.

A few years ago, Disney Hyperion acquired the rights to her original middle-grade novel, The Camelot Code: The Once and Future Geek, as well as its sequel and published both of them. As an avid Disney fan, this was a dream come true.

“I remember thinking it was so cool to see the Disney logo on one of my books,” she said.

From working at the Disney Store during college to moving to Orlando to be closer to Walt Disney World, Mancusi has always embodied the magical spirit of Disney and put that magic into Dangerous Secrets.

“...To be asked to write a novel for their number one animation franchise was definitely a next level Disney dream come true!” she said. “And, I’m happy to say, working with the studio and my editor did not disappoint or take away from any of the magic.”

After reading the script for the second Frozen film, Mancusi’s editor came up with the original idea for Dangerous Secrets. Since Iduna and Agnarr’s backstory is only hinted at in the film, they wanted to answer all the questions that came to mind after leaving the theater. During the process of creating it, Mancusi shares that she fell in love with them as she dove into their story.

“They are complicated, flawed, but ultimately loving and heroic in their own ways, overcoming seemingly impossible odds,” she said. “I think readers will see a lot of Elsa and Anna in them as they read the book.”

Creating this novel was different from her previous work as this time around she worked with her editor and the filmmakers to make sure no stone was left unturned. She hopes readers walk away with a greater understanding of Elsa and Anna’s parents and what they conquered in order to make them the parents they were.

Although the storyline of Iduna and Agnarr is complete, Mancusi hopes that more character development is shared similar to her novel or the short film Once Upon a Snowman. (She personally has a lot of questions about Kristoff’s backstory - What happened to his parents? How did he get adopted by the trolls? What was it like living with the trolls? Why did he have such a chip on his shoulder when he first met Anna? What was their courtship like in the intervening years of Frozen 1 and 2 that led to his eventual proposal?) Whatever happens next for the characters of Frozen, it’s sure to be filled with warm hugs.

“Does your heart hold the magic of the holidays? Is it filled with warm memories just waiting to be discovered again? Well, now is the time to open your heart, believe in that magic, and remember those treasured moments. Oh, they’re still there, deep within you, waiting to touch you once more. So come along, as the magic of the season leads the way.” - Believe… In Holiday Magic fireworks spectacular show, Disneyland

In the most magical sense of the word, Disney parks truly come alive during the holidays.

From not-so-scary Halloween parties to Christmas parades and every bit of decoration in between, the immaculate detailing of how Disney celebrates the holidays is shared in Holiday Magic at the Disney Parks. The coffee table-styled book features nearly 1,900 photographs showcasing Disney parks, resorts and cruise lines filled with special holiday menu offerings, the biggest parade and stage productions and nighttime spectacles, and the tiniest decoration details from amazing artists and designers.

Readers will find detailed facts and photographs of all autumnal and winter events that take place around the world. Inside its pages are the first time Disneyland celebrated Halloween, how The Haunted Mansion transforms to The Nightmare Before Christmas, the technology of lighting effects to create illusions on the castles, the elaborate gingerbread house designs and a legacy of fireworks productions.

The book was created by a trio of researchers, writers and photographers who logged more than 180,000 miles visiting each park and resort to document newer holiday traditions as well as dig through the archives to find information of holidays past. Graham Allan is a writer for Disney twenty-three magazine, the D23 website and has produced numerous scavenger hunts and trivia challenges for Disney’s parks and resorts. Rebecca Cline has worked for Disney since 1989 and is currently Director of Archives, responsible for collecting and preserving all aspects of Disney history as well as making the material available to the public. Charlie Price is a writer of books and magazine comics for Disney Publishing Worldwide and has also worked at Disneyland and within the Disney Consumer Products and Disney Television Animation divisions. With their extensive background and dedication to the story behind the magic, this book shares the joys of Halloween, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Years that are brought to life at Disney.

According to the book, the numerous theme parks, resort hotels, cruise ships, dining and shopping districts have shared more than six decades of holiday experiences. Decorations are carefully chosen to fit within a story and are expertly placed. Installation, maintenance and disassembly are important to their preservation and presentation. Parades and shows require dozens, if not hundreds, of creative individuals on and off stage. There is no such thing as a small role when it comes to creating a holiday experience for Guests.

What if Wonderland was in peril and Alice was very, very late?

In Disney’s latest A Twisted Tale series, titled Unbirthday, a now- 18-year-old Alice hasn’t visited Wonderland in many years. She prefers to spend her time behind her camera, photographing her favorite shop owners and children playing in the square before returning to her Aunt Vivian’s business to develop the shots.

One day, as she’s developing photos, she notices that she doesn’t see the same images that she originally took. The portrait she took of her neighbor, Mrs. Pogysdunhow, isn’t her neighbor at all. It’s the Queen of Hearts.

The more photos she develops, the more the photos turn out to be Wonderland creatures. There’s something off about the photos too; they aren’t the nonsensical people she met during her first visit. The Mad Hatter looks worried. A spectacle-faced bird appears to be running away from something. Upon looking at her self-portrait, she sees a very different Alice. Wonderland Alice is not only slightly different in appearance but is blindfolded and covered in thick, black blood. Suddenly, the photo moves and Wonderland Alice is screaming. Something terribly wrong has happened, and she must figure out a way back.

Wonderland is nothing near the same as anyone, including Alice, remembers. Its impending doom unsurprisingly stems from the Queen of Hearts wanting to rule far beyond anything she’s done before, and this time she isn’t afraid to kill anyone to get what she wants. It’s no longer “off with their heads”, but complete bloodshed.

Unbirthday is not just an electrifying adult take on Alice in Wonderland but gives the reader a more developed storyline for minor characters. Several side stories get a chance to fully develop before being shown their importance to saving Wonderland. The reader also meets new characters such as Abraham Katz, a barrister who shares the same whimsical outlook on life as Alice.

The characters of Wonderland and Angleland are fighting real world problems, and this storyline might be the most important of all. Similar to today’s climate, the characters of this book encounter xenophobia, political injustice and sexism. Alice learns the importance of standing up for what she believes in and making sure that all voices are heard instead of just the majority.

Alice learns a great deal from her time back in Wonderland, and so does the reader. As this series continues to turn Disney classics into extended adventures, it provides children at heart the chance to learn more about what happened next.

Author Suzanne Selfors raised her son, Walker Ranson, on the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. They loved the action and adventure that came alongside an animal-centered fantasy book, and knew that they too wanted to write something together that shared those same ideals.

They knew that stories with squirrels, mice, rabbits and foxes had been done plenty of times. They were looking for an animal that had yet to play a large role in children’s literature, and thanks to the many hours Selfor has spent watching videos of wombats, Lola Budge was formed.

Lola Budge is the protagonist of Braver: A Wombat’s Tale, a story about a young wombat who takes on the task of saving her family, her neighbors, and ultimately, the entirety of Tassie Island. Lola is both curious and talkative, which is how she finds herself being delivered a cryptic message - T.B. is ready. It clearly has something to do with everyone in the Northern Forest being kidnapped by a Tassie Devil, a predator that their Queen banished many generations ago. Lola takes it upon herself to travel to the golden city of Dore to find the Queen and save everyone she loves.

Along the way, she makes friends, escapes predators and discovers more about her family than she ever bargained for. When Selfors and Ranson began writing the book, however, they very much made up the story as they went.

“We knew that our young wombat would take part in a grand adventure, we knew she'd be crossing her island, meeting lots of other critters and facing danger,” Selfors said. “Some of the characters came from my brain, some from Walker's. I've written over 30 books for young readers and I never outline. So the story reveals itself to me as I go. That's the fun part.”

This was the first time that Selfors was writing with a partner, and it took them a while to find a happy medium of how they wanted the story to go. Selfors wanted more humor; Ranson wanted to go darker. In the end, Selfors would write a chapter focusing on pacing and dialogue before Ranson would add descriptions and action scenes.

At the end of the story, Lola not only saves the city and her loved ones but gets to play a role in the city’s history. Her story of how she persevered and created a change is placed into a new edition of her favorite book, The Tales of Tassie Island.

The story touches on environmental degradation, empathy, bravery and politics of poverty in a way that gets children to question what is right versus what is happening in the current state of the world. The storyline also gets children excited to turn the page and see what Lola and her friends will do next.

Braver: A Wombat’s Tale gives the children’s fantasy genre a take at modern, impactful storytelling. It combines action and adventure with humanity to bring out the best in each character and each reader.

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, abuse is more than physical violence. Its definition is “a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship.” Domestic abuse can happen to people of any race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, educational level or economic status. Multiple forms of abuse can be present at the same time. It’s easy to know what to look for when it isn’t happening to you, but it can hide or present itself as something different when you’re the one involved. In order to shed a light on the topic and create a dialogue about its various forms, author Rose McClelland chose to write about it in her latest novel.

Under Your Skin shares one story in many different perspectives. Kyle comes home from work to find his wife, Hannah, missing. Hannah gives off the impression that she is kidnapped. Kerry, a detective of the police department, is assigned to Hannah’s missing persons’ case. Kate is in a relationship with Guy, Hannah’s co-worker, and is concerned with her disappearance. Julia attends the search party for Hannah and gets to know Kyle. Each chapter bounces between these characters and it turns out that there is a lot more about each of them than meets the eye.

It comes to light fairly quickly that Hannah is in an abusive relationship. She doesn’t admit it to herself for quite some time, and because of Kyle constantly gaslighting her, she thinks that she’s at fault or that it won’t happen again. She turns to alcohol and prescription drugs to get through her day, and even tries to leave him on multiple occasions. It’s difficult to read what she’s going through as it’s such a heartbreaking situation. She has no one to help her, no one to turn to. Even when she finds herself at a shelter, it isn’t long before she’s back with Kyle.

It becomes pretty easy to hate Kyle’s character and find reasons to dislike the other characters as well. Julia started out by wanting to aid in Hannah’s search party and ended up getting involved with a married man whose wife is missing. The detective is interested in her married partner and indulges in his flirtatious behavior. While Guy and Kate become important pieces to Hannah’s story, Kate’s treatment of Guy is hurtful. Despite all their flaws, the conversation about domestic abuse is the one that makes itself most known.

“My main priority as a writer is to hook the reader in, create suspense, and let the interesting themes come to light along the road,” McClelland said in a press release. “If this book raises awareness of domestic abuse and if it helps some women find strength, or identify a bad situation, I will be very pleased.”

Everyone deserves healthy relationships. If you need help and are ready to talk to someone about it, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7. Call 1-800-799-SAFE or visit thehotline.org.

Svetla Radivoeva thinks it sounds cliché, but she remembers the exact moment that she realized her true passion for animation.

She was 8 years old and drawing while watching Beauty and the Beast for the 100th time. She paused the movie, adjusting her stare between the television and the paper. She realized that what she was watching on the screen was drawings that moved.

"Before that it all looked so real to me since the characters felt like real people with real emotions that I was feeling for,” she said. “It was then that I realized that this was what I wanted to do - to make my drawings as alive as the drawings I loved watching over and over again, that made me laugh and cry.”

For nearly the last decade, Radivoeva has been an animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios. In addition to working on films such as Frozen, Moana and Zootopia, she recently released her first children’s book for Disney Press, Malina’s Jam. The story focuses on Malina, a hedgehog who loves to tend to her raspberry bushes and make jam from the berries. When her animal neighbors show interest in her jam, she happily shares with them and forgets to save some for herself.

Radivoeva had big dreams for an environmental story, but went back and forth with the idea as she felt it was too preachy and was talking about too many topics at the same time. Instead, she focused on an idea about an animal that survives on her food during the winter. She knew that she wanted the main character to end up with nothing and she knew she wanted other animals to be featured, and the rest of the story found its way to her.

“The rest of the puzzle came with going over the story many times, talking it through and iterating it to a point that started to make sense,” she said. “I have to admit that the heart came later and the theme as well. It caught me off guard because it sort of happened on its own. I wish I could say I meant it as it is from the very beginning, and I just had to write it down. I have heard before that you cannot force a story and they are their own thing that just have to come to life but I never really have realized it before I worked on this one. It was definitely a challenging but very, very cool experience that gave me a new perspective to the creation process.”

A sizable portion of adults have a story from their generation about their toys coming to life. For many, it’s the Toy Story franchise. For Daniel Kraus, it’s Watership Down. For the next generation, it may very well be Kraus’ new middle-grade trilogy, The Teddies Saga.

It started with Kraus’ obsession with Stephen King in middle school. While reading his nonfiction book, Danse Macabre, he learned about King’s love for Watership Down. It intrigued him because, in his own words, what was the master of horror doing celebrating a book about bunny rabbits?

“This made no sense to me,” Kraus said. “I went down to the library. It was a small town, and a small library, so it wasn't a sure thing they'd even have a copy, but they did - a large-print edition. So I hauled that giant sucker around and read it, and fell in love. It made me realize that, the more vulnerable your characters, the more incredible their feats of bravery. I've always wanted to write something in that vein.”

The first in The Teddies Saga, They Threw Us Away, introduces main characters Buddy, Sunny, Horace, Sugar and Reginald - Furrington™ Teddies. They all wake up at the garbage dump with no recollection of getting there; one minute they were at the Store, hoping a child would take them home, and the next they were surrounded by trash. They are determined to figure out how they ended up there, and try to make their way back to the Store.

Buddy is the clear leader and was the first to end up outside of his packaging. He next found Sunny, who also has strong leadership skills and understands the importance of their Teddy Duty. Horace is dramatically terrified of anything and everything. Sugar’s box is clearly marked damaged merchandise and shows in her head-in-the-clouds demeanor. Reginald is the wisest and oldest of the Teddies, and recalls the origin of their creation.

The longer they try to survive in the real world, the more they learn about its harsh realities. They get dirty, they make and lose friends, they turn against each other and they question everything they see. They also refuse to give up hope.

Much like Kraus questioned King’s celebration of talking rabbits, the same can be said for a series about colorful, talking teddy bears. But also much like Watership Down, They Threw Us Away brings vulnerable characters to life in more ways than one and leaves the reader rooting for the teddies to make it to their end goal.

This is Kraus’ first time as a middle-grade writer, but he doesn’t let audience demographics affect his story choice.

“Whether I'm writing adult, YA, or middle-grade, I focus on the story, and the writing style the story requires eventually makes it clear which age group might best respond to the book,” he said. “The language of middle-grade is a bit different - the sentence construction, the length of paragraphs, and so forth. But really it's the same set of challenges: making sure your characters connect and creating a world that makes sense.”

They Threw Us Away is available here.

One of the most magical parts of being a Disney fan is that there's always a story attached to a certain character. Whether it's from a vacation to a Disney park or the most watched VHS tape as a child, the stories and characters behind the story make an extraordinary difference in someone’s life.

In honor of the revised version of Disney’s Who’s Who, we asked Disney fans what their most memorable character is. In an A-Z fashion similar to the book, here is what they said:

Anastasia (and Drizella): We had just eaten breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table, and we were getting all the characters to sign a frame. Afterward we went to meet the stepsisters across from the fountain, and they noticed that Cinderella had apparently gotten distracted after writing her C. Naturally they were not going to let her off the hook, so they started ranting to the crowd about how Cinderella is illiterate. They grabbed my daughter’s hand and marched into the castle lobby demanding that Cinderella fix her mistake; it had to be passed through different cast members and many confused people, but the mistake was fixed and I was laughing all day. - Jill, TN
Baymax: When 20 weeks pregnant and barely showing with our daughter, we went to Epcot. My brother, who works at Disney, convinced us to see Baymax despite my husband and I never seeing the movie. I was sporting my red Mom Disney shirt with a button on my shoulder saying "We're Celebrating" and a button on my belly that stated "Baby's First Visit". All the characters we had met usually pointed out the buttons and we got some great maternity photos to frame for the baby's room (of course it's Disney-themed). Baymax reacted the best when he put his hand on my belly and then my husband encouraged him to belly bump me. On the same trip I felt the baby move for the first time. We also were stranded in Florida that trip because Hurricane Irma hit, closing everything. Baby's first hurricane too. - Michelle, IL
Chip: At a Chef Mickey’s breakfast when I was around 7, Chip stole my sister’s scrunchie and ran around the entire restaurant until they found Pluto and Goofy, brought them back and proceeded to put the scrunchie on Pluto’s nose and try to put Goofy’s ears up with it. It made my whole family laugh so hard. - Jillian, CT
Dumbo: Being new to America I always felt different. I remember going to school and kids making fun of the fact I didn't know English and that I had lisp with the few words I did know. I was at home and my mom gave me a VHS with one of my first Disney movies, Dumbo. I remember feeling the same pain that Dumbo felt. In the scene when he was being taken away from his mom I started to cry. To this day it still makes me cry. - Estefany, TX

In Patrick Canning’s Hawthorn Woods, he combines the best pieces of 1980s nostalgia and mystery novels to bring an adult Nancy Drew with a twist. The main character, Francine, is stumbling her way through life after her divorce and retreats to her sister’s home in Hawthorn Woods, Illinois while Ellie and Pete enjoy a late honeymoon. It seems like the picturesque neighborhood is the perfect place to spend some time alone, with the exception of her nephew Charlie, until her first few nights in town begin with a drink being thrown in her face and nearly catching an unidentifiable person murdering another neighbor’s pet. It’s a good thing she read all those Nancy Drew novels as a kid, because she was prepared to use her detective skills to find out what was going on.

“Everyone loves a good mystery,” Canning said in a press release. “As Francine points out in Hawthorn Woods, solving a mystery can be a defiant act of taking a slice out of the chaotic universe and working until it makes logical sense. I hope readers will enjoy joining her as she attempts to do just that, and find some light in otherwise dark circumstances.”

In no time at all, Francine has questions. A lot of questions. What is going on with Michael Bruno, who is clearly lying about being an author? Why did Magdalena Durham throw her cranberry vodka at her when they had never even met? What’s hidden in the back of the Banderwalt’s shed? Who wrote a threatening message in blood and hung a Nazi flag? Is there just one neighbor trying to keep a secret, or all of them?

The reader stays engaged throughout the entire story with both the realistic characters and slow-burning suspense. The neighborhood comes to life through its descriptions and while the twists and turns catch the reader off guard, it’s easy to follow along. By the time the story comes to an end, it’s hard to believe that the outcome was hardly what the reader anticipated.

In the early 2000s, Mike Henneberger booked the band Bayside at his small, South Texas college. No one came except for Henneberger’s bandmates, who were opening the show, and their significant others. Near the end of that decade, he watched Bayside play the main stage at Vans Warped Tour. He went up to lead vocalist, Anthony Raneri, after their set and told him that while he wasn’t any type of fatherly or authoritative figure to him, he was nonetheless proud of everything he had accomplished. That is the exact feeling while reading Henneberger’s book, Rock Bottom at the Renaissance: An Emo Kid’s Journey Through Falling In and Out of Love In and With New York City.

The book consists of journal entries ranging from 2011-2013 with flashbacks going as far back as 2007. It’s what, looking back on, Henneberger sees as the darkest period of his life and details his unconscious effort of abusing prescription drugs and alcohol. The reader finds him struggling to find himself when he had no guidance or direction, and going down several difficult paths in hopes to come out on the other side.

The book also details his search for love and wanting a partner to share all his experiences with. Just when he thought he found The Girl, it would turn out that the T and G were lowercase. While the book ends, spoiler alert, without a happy ending, it’s what came after it that makes its pages all the more gratifying.

“Most of it was written in 2011 and I just put it away for at least a year because if somebody reads this, you can tell how dark of a headspace I was in when I wrote it,” Henneberger said. “I didn’t want to go back to that. I was really scared to put myself back in that so I didn’t touch it for a while and then when I finally did I was still going through the same things. I wasn’t on a bender like I am in the book but I was still really depressed and really lost and really alone and that’s how this book became about this period in my life.”

Once he had finished, then there was a whole new fear of letting people know what he had been going through. It took Henneberger reading it back one day a few years later to not recognize the person that wrote it. While both those people are former Army, struggle with anxiety and depression, and have tried every aide and therapist to find a solution, the mindsets of these two are now completely different. Despite all that, it still wasn’t the right time to release it.

It took another handful of years to know not to be ashamed of what he went through and to see that it didn’t defeat him. It was also important to recognize that while he no longer related to those words, depression and anxiety has no cure. It is something that he still struggles with and has found that talking about it helps him and could potentially help someone else.

Another major detail of the book, and his road to recovery, is music. From Jimmy Eat World’s “23” playing as he walked home in the first chapter to seeing Two Door Cinema Club play “What You Know” live, finding a song to relate back to that moment in time was simple. It goes beyond a song playing at a specific moment and taps into the concept of music saving lives. These bands and the others referenced in each chapter were songs that Henneberger listened to while in that headspace.

“I am still here because bands like Bayside and The Dangerous Summer wrote songs that were just as dark, and wrote about cutting their wrists or killing themselves. But they didn’t kill themselves, they didn’t cut their wrists; they wrote these songs and those songs kept me alive.”

Fast forward to 2020, and Henneberger knew it was time to share this memoir for a few reasons. For one, he’s an empath. He cares about others struggling with anxiety and depression and hates the idea that people feel like there is no way out of that struggle. That being said, he doesn’t want anyone to think that he’s glorifying the topic. Reading his words and only beginning to understand his mental state is heartbreaking enough, but he hopes that what he risked comes across as what not to do.

Second, he’s been a writer as long as he can remember. For him, releasing this was only a matter of when because he knew he wouldn’t be able to release anything else until this was out for the world to read. He struggled with the consequences of publishing it - Would his family and friends understand? Would his wife and her family understand? - but there was never a part of him that thought he wouldn’t publish it.

It’s the semi-finals of the 10th season of America’s Got Talent, and stand-up magician Derek Hughes steps onto the stage of Radio City Music Hall in a pair of light blue and grey striped pajamas. He’s wearing house slippers, has a brighter blue handkerchief in his breast pocket and is holding a newspaper. He tells the judges he’s taking the live television opportunity to read his children a story as they’re getting ready for bed back home in California.

The nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty is read aloud with detailed illustrations on the newspaper and on the digitized screen in the background, but it’s not the version heard as a child. This version gives Humpty Dumpty a background and a purpose.

Humpty Dumpty Lived Near A Wall was always going to be a book in Hughes’ mind, starting from the day after it was spoken into existence. Nearly 10 years ago, while driving down Interstate 10 on his way back home from an LA performance, Hughes was on the phone with a friend and laughing hysterically at the idea of Humpty Dumpty being a hero. The next morning, he spent a few hours in between commercial breaks of Back to the Future playing on TBS to hammer out the initial rough draft.

“I had this moment when I read it back to myself there in the apartment that morning [where] I started to weep,” he said. “I had very strong emotions; it really moved me. From the right perspective you can see that he hasn't failed, that he has won; but it was no longer comedic or funny. It was touching and moving and in many ways, inspiring.”

That first draft sat for a while before he memorized it and started incorporating it into his live performances. As a performer with a strong show of stand-up and magic, going from consistent laughs to pure silence could have meant the moral of the story landed or the finale turned into a long awkward moment. It was when the audience came up to him after the show and praised the thought-provoking ending that he knew he found an once-in-a-lifetime piece.

“That moved me, that inspired me, which is the drive and the goal of the artist ultimately. You want to do work that is important in one way, shape or form and if I can through my efforts inspire someone to strive to improve their world in some way, shape or form, well, then I'm winning.”

He turned to his friend from college, Nathan Christopher, and asked him to illustrate the story. He was more than up for the challenge – he spent five years placing the utmost detail into every page. Every time he would send over a draft, Hughes would say, “This is perfect!” But to Christopher, it wasn’t. To him, there was so much more to do.

With Christopher working on the illustrations, Hughes ran the story by one of his magician friends, Teller. The silent performer of duo Penn & Teller reached out to Hughes years ago after multiple people showed him Hughes’ work, and during a visit to his home in Las Vegas he gave a remarkable piece of advice.

“’If you are going to be committing it to the page I would encourage you to spend a little more time perfecting the meter and the rhyme,’ and then he launched into Lewis Carroll from memory and started reciting from Alice in Wonderland. It was beautiful and the rhyme was perfect and he immediately made his point. There's great power in going the extra mile and really, really working it out so the reader can experience it the way you intended it to be experienced. You don't have to leave anything to chance.”

By the time the semi-finals of America’s Got Talent rolled around, eight pages of the story were complete, which were the number of pages Hughes needed for his newspaper trick that he would perform while reading the story. As he read through it, he tore up the newspaper and had somehow restored it by the ending. As he flipped through the newly restored newspaper, there was a piece missing. He recited the last sentence – One piece was on top, that piece had a smile. – and showed the audience the missing piece that was laying on the floor. It was an illustration of Humpty Dumpty; smiling, of course.

It would take another four years before Hughes self-published the story with Christopher’s finished illustrations. The black fabric hardcover and stunning artwork bring the story to life, and was everything Hughes could have hoped for. Then one day he gets a call from his friend, Derek DelGaudio. He has a meeting with publishing company Penguin Random House and wants to show them the book. Two weeks later he hears from President and Publisher of Penguin Workshop, Francesco Sedita. He can’t stop thinking about the book.

With a team of extraordinary editors, they helped Hughes keep the content and the meaning intact while upgrading a few minor details. The original artwork had a page with a beautiful image of a crescent moon and a rocket ship face down near the moon’s closed eyes. It was homage to Georges Méliès who directed the film A Trip to the Moon and was an illusionist in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was meant as an Easter egg to pay tribute to Hughes’ craft, but did not make its way into the second edition as it was agreed upon that it might be confusing to the uninitiated reader. There was also a line towards the beginning – But a vision had hatched, Humpty kept under cloak. If the King knew his plan, he’d scramble his yolk. – that they suggested changing as Humpty Dumpty wasn’t wearing a cloak. “Could it be, ‘it was no joke’?” Turns out they found a way to pay tribute to his craft after all.

Hughes finds the serendipity of it all, reminiscing on a conversation he had with the creator of publishing house Baby Tattoo, Bob Self. He was the go-to person for getting the story self-published and Hughes remembers asking him if publishing the story himself would hurt his chances of it getting picked up by a publishing company later down the road.

“If I self-publish will that in any way preclude or reduce the interest of an entity like Penguin Random House from picking it up and publishing it?” he asked.

If it were to be published, that was the vision that he had in his head: that little orange penguin on the spine. He spoke it into the universe, and so it came to be.

Humpty Dumpty Lived Near A Wall is available here.

The Mists of Avalon, one of the first fantasy books of its kind to tell a well-known legend through the eyes of the female characters, made a major impact on author Marie Benedict during her informative junior high years.

When she decided to shift careers, The Mists of Avalon circled back in her mind. She was an avid history lover (she received her undergraduate degree in the subject) and always had her nose in a book, but never thought she’d end up as a writer.

“I think I was intimidated by the fact that there were all these books that I absolutely adored and writers that I loved but I never really thought I could walk in their ranks,” she said.

However, the idea of unearthing little known perspectives and voices of history lead her to starting a series focusing on the women whose stories deserve to be told.

The first novel, The Other Einstein, focuses on Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva. A physicist herself, it is widely debated on her contributions to the theory of relativity and how she became lost in Albert’s shadow. The second novel, Carnegie’s Maid, gives Clara Kelley the recognition of businesswoman that Andrew Carnegie relied on. The third novel, The Only Woman in the Room, shares more than Hedy Lamarr’s story as a screen star but as an immigrant and inventor. The latest in the series, Lady Clementine, focuses on a woman who was much more than “the woman behind the man” - Clementine Churchill.

Once Benedict committed to writing this specific genre of nonfiction-meets-fiction, she really developed what she calls an “antenna” to finding these women. As she was conducting research for The Only Woman in the Room, she kept stumbling across Winston Churchill and wondering, who were the women in his life?

Turns out Clemetine was in his life throughout all aspects. With all the roles Winston took on through World War I and World War II, Clementine was more than just by his side. She was his global partner in every capacity, taking on the burden of leadership just as much as he was. She was his advisor, his speech editor; she had a hand in everything he did and everything he was.

When Benedict researches these women of history, she makes it a point to find original source material that make her novels as authentic as humanly possible. She has combed through letters, journals, photographs and any kind of documentation she can find. Only as a secondary source would she use materials such as biographies.

“I wanted to make my own decisions about what I thought about the letter they wrote and pictures they took and journal entries they made,” she said. “One of the reasons why I write fiction instead of nonfiction is because it's only recently that documentation, research material, narratives about women have really been considered worthy of keeping. The original materials are hard to come by so you have to use a blend of imagination and logic to fill in the gaps that the research leaves.”

In addition to these novels, she also started an Instagram campaign called Shift the Lens. For Winston Churchill, if the reader shifts the lens on any of his famous photographs, they’ll see that Clementine is either physically present in the focus that intended on exclusively being him or was such a part of making the moment captured on film that she might as well be in the picture.

“If you shift the lens in terms of your understanding of how that picture created how that important key moment actually was formed, then you would see she's been in the picture all along,” she said.

Shifting the lens works on the present, as well. Benedict explains that if the historical narrative isn’t rewritten to include women and their contributions, then history risks carrying on with the preconception that allowed the past to marginalize them.

“In order to shift our understanding about what women have done and what women are capable of doing, I think we need to understand what they've already accomplished,” she said.

Marie Benedict’s dedication to sharing the history of important women while giving it her own fictionalized spin creates a world that women of any age can dive into and come out wanting to know even more. These are the types of novels that start a conversation and keep that conversation going in hopes of history refusing to repeat past mistakes.