DKW are extremely pleased to announce that Usborne are to publish Vanessa Curtis’ powerful and profoundly moving YA historical novel inspired by the true story of the Jews of Riga
Stephanie King, Commissioning Editor at Usborne, has acquired World English language rights from agent Ella Kahn, to The Earth is Singing by award-winning Young Adult author Vanessa Curtis.
Stephanie says of the acquisition: ‘Closely based on the relatively untold true story of the Jews of Riga, The Earth is Singing is a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, betrayal and survival. I found it impossible to put down and equally impossible to forget, with Hanna’s voice staying with me long after I’d turned the final page.’
Until recently, fifteen-year-old Hanna spent her days attending the ballet school in Riga and wondering whether her best friend Uldis was her true love. But Hanna’s life is turned upside down when her Papa is mysteriously taken away by Soviet forces…and her family’s torment is only just beginning. When the Nazis invade, enforcing bewildering and brutal new rules on the Jews of Riga, Hanna must fight to keep what is left of her family together as they are commanded to move into the ghetto with 30,000 others. Up against starvation, punishing forced labour, imprisonment, and the prospect of losing her mother and grandmother for ever, Hanna is pushed to her limits in a horrifying world where the smallest choices could mean life or death.
Vanessa Curtis is the award-winning author of contemporary YA novels including Zelah Green (winner of Manchester Children’s Book Award/shortlisted for Waterstones Children’s Book Prize) and The Haunting of Tabitha Grey. The Earth is Singing is her first historical novel, which Vanessa was inspired to write when she discovered her own Jewish Latvian heritage. Vanessa says: ‘The story of the Jews of Riga is not widely known. After finding out that my great-grandmother was born there, but came over to England at the turn of the twentieth century, I began to wonder what happened to the Jewish friends and relatives that she had left behind. I visited the Riga Ghetto Museum and saw photographs of many of the thousands of Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis in 1941. Their eyes seemed to be telling me to relate their story, so that is what I did. I am delighted that Usborne have given me the opportunity to bring this story to a wider audience.’
Ella Kahn says: ‘When I first read Vanessa Curtis’s brilliantly evocative new novel, I knew it was an incredibly powerful and important story that had to be told. Usborne are the perfect team to bring this book to readers, and I’m so pleased to have found such a passionate home for The Earth is Singing.’
The Earth is Singing is scheduled for publication on 27th January 2015 (Holocaust Memorial Day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz).
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/usborne-signs-vanessa-curtis-historical-novel.html
Previous Next