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ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: Weird Kid
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://writingandsnacks.com/
CITY: San Diego
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 353
http://us.macmillan.com/californiabones/GregvanEekhout
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Los Angeles, CA; married.
EDUCATION:University of California, Los Angeles, bachelor’s degree; Arizona State University, master’s degree.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author. Worked variously as an ice-cream scooper, telemarketer, bookstore clerk and assistant manager; teacher of college-level English and multimedia development. Presenter at schools and conferences.
AVOCATIONS:Drawing.
WRITINGS
Contributor of short fiction to periodicals, including Amazing Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Exquisite Corpse, Flytrap, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, New Skies, Polyphony, Realms of Fantasy, Scholastic Scope, and Strange Horizons. Work included in anthologies New Skies: An Anthology of Today’s Science Fiction, edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Tor (New York, NY), 2003; Year’s Best Fantasy 7, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, Tachyon, 2007; Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, edited by Ekaterina Sedia, Senses Five, 2008; and Other Words, DAW Books, 2009.
SIDELIGHTS
UPDATE SUBMITTED IN SGML FORMAT.Inspired by his love of comic books, Saturday-morning cartoons, and science-fiction stories by classic writers such as Ray Bradbury, Greg van Eekhout has crafted his own career as a writer. The California native first became known for his short fiction, which has been anthologized and included in several magazines. Van Eekhout’s first novel, Norse Code, spins a futuristic fantasy that merges Norse myths with the adventures of a rogue warrior and her efforts to stop the destruction of mankind, while his middle-grade novels Kid vs. Squid and The Boy at the End of the World treat readers to fast-moving, humorous stories that are designed to attract even reluctant readers. Van Eekhout is also the author of the “California Bones” young-adult fantasy novel series.
Van Eekhout grew up with the urge to tell stories, but he did not immediately gravitate to novel-writing. “I really wanted to be some kind of cartoonist or comic book artist,” he noted on his home page, “but I kind of got to a point where I could draw a very few things well and most things not well at all. If I’d worked harder at it, I might have gotten better, and maybe even good enough to do it professionally. That’s the approach I took with writing: I started out not being able to write well and kept at it until I got good enough that people were willing to pay for my stories.” “I think most kids start out as fantasy fans,” he noted in discussing his chosen genre with online interviewer Cynthia Leitich Smith on her Cynsations website. “Even if the fantasy they’re into isn’t necessarily Tolkien-style with swords and wizards and eating stew with elves. Dr. Seuss is fantasy. Toy Story is fantasy. Spider-Man is fantasy. Most entertainment for kids features an elevated reality in which people have abilities that we don’t have in real life or the laws of physics don’t resemble what goes on in the real world or animals talk. … A walking, talking sea sponge? Total fantasy. So basically, I’ve been a fantasy fan all my life.”
Van Eekhout shares his love of the fantasy genre with upper-elementary-grade readers in Kid vs. Squid, a “humorous fantasy that will rush over [readers] … like a tidal wave,” according to School Library Journal critic Walter Minkel. In the story, Thatcher Hill is spending the summer helping out at Uncle Griswald’s Museum of Curiosities, which caters to the tourist trade in their coastal California town. The teen’s worries that the summer will be long and uneventful end after a pretty young woman breaks into the museum and steals a shrunken witch’s head. Tracking her down, Thatcher winds up in a strange undersea world full of monsters and epic quests. Soon he has joined the young woman—actually an Atlantean princess named Shoal—in her effort to rescue her people from a diabolical curse that forces them to spend each summer working at the midway games and food concessions. “The internal logic of [van Eekhout’s] … story is joyfully convoluted and not even close to airtight,” quipped Booklist critic Ian Chipman, the critic going on to praise the fanciful humor in Kid vs. Squid.
In The Boy at the End of the World, Fischer awakens from a sleep in an underground pod and reaches Earth’s surface only to discover that he is the only human remaining on the planet. With the help of Click, a robot, and a shaggy young mammoth, the boy learns to survive the planet’s harsh, jungle-like environment. In his search for others of his kind, he wanders throughout what was once North American. In addition to locating other arks, Fischer discovers that the seeds of destruction that mankind once sewed have now reseeded, prompting what Booklist critic John Peters described as a “quirky, high-stakes adventure hung about with oddball ideas and life-threatening hazards.” Describing The Boy at the End of the World as a mix between speculative science fiction and a wilderness adventure, a Kirkus Reviews writer added that van Eekhout’s “diverting tale” benefits from “a brisk pace and clever and snappy dialogue.”
California Bones is the first novel in a series of the same name. In it, van Eekhout introduces Daniel Blackland, an orphan who takes a gig for a crime lord named Otis, which involves stealing back a weapon that Daniel’s father made. Daniel, an osteomancer, gathers others with special abilities to help him with the heist. Regarding the book’s protagonist, van Eekhout told a writer on the My Bookish Ways website: “Daniel is a good guy forced to do nasty things because of the circumstances he was born into and the decisions he makes. What I like about Daniel is he lives in a world in which you can’t really trust anyone, but the way he chooses to confront this world is by trusting his friends. For Daniel, friendship is almost a subversive act.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer suggested: “The story will excite readers who love magical showdowns.” David Pitt, critic in Booklist, remarked: “Fans of stories about heists will enjoy it, but its fantastical elements make it an absolute must for urban-fantasy readers, too.”
Daniel returns in Pacific Fire. This volume finds him incapacitated, as Otis and two other powerful and dangerous entities join together to rule Los Angeles. Two golems, Sam and Em, work to overthrow the evil triumvirate. A contributor to Publishers Weekly remarked on the volume’s “rich and amazing setting.”
In Dragon Coast, the final volume in the “California Bones” series, Daniel enlists Moth and Cassandra, his friends, to help him free Sam, the golem, who has been trapped by a dragon. Meanwhile, Daniel jockeys to become the High Grand Osteomancer. “This installment features strong writing,” noted a Publishers Weekly critic.
Voyage of the Dogs is a standalone middle-grade novel by van Eekhout. It tells the story of four dogs who must save their damaged spaceship and navigate the craft to a planet called Stepping Stone. Lopside, Daisy, Champion, and Bug, called the Barkonauts, face various mechanical problems and a dwindling food supply. They must rely on each other to find a way to survive. In an interview with Denise Davidson, a contributor to the San Diego Union-Tribune website, van Eekhout discussed his reasons for writing a book about dogs. He explained that the death of his parents and the conclusion of his “California Bones” series were factors in his decision: “I wanted to spend the months it takes to write a book in a happier head space. A children’s novel about dogs left alone on a spaceship and working to complete their mission presented itself as the only thing I wanted to write about.” A writer in Kirkus Reviews described the volume as “fast-moving, funny, and suspenseful.” J.B. Petty, reviewer in Booklist, suggested: “Dog-lovers and space enthusiasts will gravitate to Van Eekhout’s riveting book.”
A robot who appears to be a twelve-year-old boy is the protagonist of van Eekhout’s 2019 novel, Cog. Cog is developed by scientists at the evil organization uniMIND. He is trained by a scientist named Gina to give and receive knowledge. When Gina is removed as Cog’s trainer, Cog enlists other robots to help him find her. A Publishers Weekly contributor commented: “Beneath the entertaining, madcap shenanigans, van Eekhout’s story raises intriguing questions about free will, fulfilling one’s life purpose, and hard-won judgment.” A critic in Kirkus Reviews described the book as “a thought-provoking tale for younger readers about hubris and what it means to be human.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2010, Ian Chipman, review of Kid vs. Squid, p. 53; May 15, 2011, John Peters, review of The Boy at the End of the World, p. 56; May 15, 2014, David Pitt, review of California Bones, p. 26; August 1, 2018, J.B. Petty, review of Voyage of the Dogs, p. 92.
Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2011, review of The Boy at the End of the World; July 1, 2018, review of Voyage of the Dogs; August 15, 2019, review of Cog.
Publishers Weekly, April 20, 2009, review of Norse Code, p. 38; April 7, 2014, review of California Bones, p. 48; December 22, 2014, review of Pacific Fire, p. 59; July 13, 2015, review of Dragon Coast, p. 48; August 12, 2019, review of Cog, p. 61.
School Library Journal, July, 2010, Walter Minkel, review of Kid vs. Squid, p. 98.
ONLINE
Cynsations, http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/ (December 30, 2010), Cynthia Leitich Smith, interview with van Eekhout.
Greg van Eekhout website, http://writingandsnacks.com (October 8, 2019).
My Bookish Ways, http://www.mybookishways.com/ (July 1, 2014), author interview.
San Diego Union-Tribune, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/ (August 26, 2018), Denise Davidson, author interview.
Uncanny, https://uncannymagazine.com/ (October 8, 2019), author profile; (October 8, 2019), Caroline M. Yoachim, author interview.*
about
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, in neighborhoods with hippies, criminals, working people, and movie studios.
Like many writers (and many people who aren’t writers, for that matter), I’ve done a number of things to put food on the table and keep a roof over my head. I’ve worked as an ice cream scooper (or dipper, as people who sell ice cream are sometimes called), a political fundraiser (or telemarketer), a comic book store clerk, a bookseller, a bookstore assistant manager, an educational multimedia developer, and a college teacher (of English and of multimedia development). Among other things.
I’ve lived my entire life in the Western half of the United States. I prefer beaches to deserts. I currently live in San Diego.
My parents were Dutch-Indonesian. If you know of a good Indonesian restaurant in San Diego, let me know, eh?
My name last name is pronounced like this: Van, as in the kind of thing you drive, eek, as in, “Eek, killer robots are stomping the rutabagas!” and hout, like “out” with an h in front of it. The emphasis is on the Eek. Say it with me: van EEKhout.
I’m represented by literary agent Holly Root of Root Literary.
When did you start writing?
When I was a kid I did a lot of what I call proto-writing, by which I mean making up stories about my favorite comic book and TV and movie characters, and making up stories about my own worlds and characters. I would write lists of entire multi-hundred-person crews of star ships and design uniforms or make up my own super-hero teams. But I didn’t really write out stories in sentence and paragraph form until junior high school. And it wasn’t until I was in college that I decided I wanted to be a writer, and that’s when I started getting some discipline and began to write and finish stories and submit them for publication. It took many years until editors began buying those stories.
Did you always want to be a writer?
No, I really wanted to be some kind of cartoonist or comic book artist, but I kind of got to a point where I could draw a very few things well and most things not well at all. If I’d worked harder at it, I might have gotten better, and maybe even good enough to do it professionally. That’s the approach I took with writing: I started out not being able to write well and kept at it until I got good enough that people were willing to pay for my stories. I still enjoy drawing, but mostly for my own amusement. And there were a few other jobs that I wanted to do at one time or another: astronomer, marine biologist, English teacher, X-Wing pilot …
What were your favorite things to read, growing up?
I loved stories about adventure and heroism, that transported me to strange and interesting places, and preferably that did it with a sense of humor. But I’d pretty much read anything, from books that were written for adults to Mad magazine and comic books and Star Trek novelizations.
What advice would you give someone who wants to be a writer?
It’s perfectly fine to want to be a writer but not want to write professionally. Hobbies are great. But if you want to write professionally, develop some good work habits. Try to write at least a little bit every day. (I know some very successful writers who only write when they feel inspired, but they’re the kind of people who feel inspired most of the time.) Understand that, when you’re starting out, your work probably won’t be very good. It’s okay to write badly. It’s part of the process of learning to write well. Be open to criticism. When you’re starting out, don’t get obsessed with re-writing the same thing over and over and over. Move on to the next project. Read, read, read and write, write, write. And if it’s making you miserable, quit. There’re lots of worthwhile things to do with a life that pay better than writing.
Greg van Eekhout
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Greg van Eekhout
Greg van Eekhout is a science fiction and fantasy writer. His "In the Late December" (2003) was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story, and his middle-grade fantasy novel The Boy at the End of the World was nominated for the 2012 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Contents
1 Biography and career
2 Bibliography
2.1 Novels
2.2 Short fiction
3 References
4 External links
Biography and career
Van Eekhout's parents are of Indo (Dutch-Indonesian) extraction. His last name (meaning "of Oakwood") is pronounced "like this: Van, as in the kind of thing you drive, eek, as in, 'Eek, killer robots are stomping the rutabagas!' and hout, like 'out' with an h in front of it. The emphasis is on the Eek."[1]
He grew up in Los Angeles and attended UCLA, where he received a Bachelor's in English. He earned a Master's in Educational Media and Computers at Arizona State, and worked for a time at ASU designing multimedia.[2]
He attended the writing workshop Viable Paradise in 1999. His first professionally published story, "Wolves Till the World Goes Down," (2001) appeared in the anthology Starlight 3 and was later reprinted in Fantasy: The Best of 2001. His story "In the Late December" (2003) was nominated for Nebula Award for Best Short Story. His work has also appeared in a number of other places, including Asimov's Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons.
His first novel, Norse Code, an adult urban fantasy, was published by Bantam Books in May 2009. His second novel, a middle-grade fantasy titled Kid Vs. Squid, was released by Bloomsbury Children's USA on May 11, 2010. The Boy at the End of the World, also a middle-grade fantasy, was released in June 2011 by Bloomsbury Children's USA.[3]
His fourth novel, California Bones, was published by Tor Books on June 10, 2014. It is the first in a planned trilogy based on his 2006 short story "The Osteomancer’s Son", anthologized in Year’s Best Fantasy 7 and Best Fantasy of the Year: 2007.[4] The second in the series, Pacific Fire, was published on January 27, 2015.
He currently lives in San Diego, California.
Bibliography
Novels
Norse Code (Bantam Books, May 2009)
Kid Vs. Squid (Bloomsbury Children's USA, May 2010)
The Boy at the End of the World (Bloomsbury Children's USA, June 2011)
California Bones (Tor Books, June 2014)
Pacific Fire (Tor Books, 2015)
Dragon Coast (Tor Books, 2015)
Voyage of the Dogs (HarperCollins Childrens, September 2018)
COG (HarperCollins Childrens, October 2019)
Weird Kid (HarperCollins Childrens, July 2021)
Short fiction
"Wolves Till the World Goes Down", Starlight 3 (2001); included in Fantasy: The Best of 2001
"Show and Tell", Strange Horizons (June 2002)
"Will You Be an Astronaut?", Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (September 2002)
"In the Late December", Strange Horizons (online) (Dec 2003)
"Robots and Falling Hearts" (with Tim Pratt), Realms of Fantasy (April 2005); Year’s Best Fantasy 6
"Anywhere There’s a Game", Realms of Fantasy (April 2006)
"The Osteomancer’s Son", Asimov’s Science Fiction' (April/May 2006); Year’s Best Fantasy 7, Best Fantasy of the Year: 2007
"The Holy City and Em’s Reptile Farm", Other Earths (DAW BOOKS, April 2009)
"Last Son of Tomorrow", Tor.com (online) (May 2009)
"On the Fringes of the Fractal", 2113: Stories Inspired by the Music of Rush (2016); The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2017
"The Wolf and the Manticore", The Book of Magic (2018)
"Polly Wanna Cracker", Wastelands: the New Apocalypse (2019)
"Big Box", Uncanny Magazine (July 2019)
"Spaceship October", Escape Pod (2020)
You Are Officially in Weird Kid Territory: A Greg van Eekhout Interview
JULY 27, 2021 BY ELIZABETH BIRD
The hot trend in middle grade novels of 2021? Shapeshifting, baby. It’s all the rage. Whether you’re shapeshifting in the stars or right down here on Earth, there’s a lot of drama to be had out of changing your physical form. And really, aren’t all kids shapeshifters at heart? They aren’t the same size from one day to the next and, like Jake in WEIRD KID by Greg van Eekhout, they can’t control their bodies a jot.
Here’s a description of that book I just referenced, by the way:
From the author of Cog and Voyage of the Dogs, Weird Kid is a hilarious and heartfelt homage to everyone who feels like they don’t belong. Perfect for fans of Gordon Korman and Stuart Gibb.
Jake Wind is trying to stay under the radar. Whose radar? Anyone who might be too interested in the fact that he has shapeshifting abilities he can’t control. Or that his parents found him as a ball of goo when he was a baby.
Keeping his powers in check is crucial, though, if he wants to live a normal life and go to middle school instead of being homeschooled (and if he wants to avoid being kidnapped and experimented on, of course).
Things feel like they’re going his way when he survives his first day of school without transforming and makes a new friend. But when mysterious sinkholes start popping up around town (sinkholes filled with the same extraterrestrial substance as Jake) and his neighbors, classmates, and even his family start acting a little, well, weird, Jake will have to learn to use his powers in order to save his town.
Intrigued? Well, as luck would have it, I had a chance to throw a couple questions Greg’s way. Because when it comes to shapeshifting, there’s a lot to know…
Betsy Bird: Greg! Thanks so much for coming on my blog! I love me a good shapeshifter novel, and you seem to be able to provide. How did you come to write WEIRD KID?
Greg van Eekhout
Greg van Eekhout: Thank you for having me here and giving me a chance to talk about my weird book! I think of writing a book like carrying around a basket of stuff you’ve been collecting for years and then you finally lay it out in a highly choreographed show and tell. In the case of WEIRD KID, the biggest thing in my basket was my own middle-school experience, during which I felt weird, conspicuous, uncomfortable, misunderstood, and out of control. My main character is an alien shape changer who loses control over his abilities when he starts middle school, and I have a feeling a lot of people might relate to his situation.
BB: Utterly and completely. You know, I’m a huge fan of science fiction books for kids, but there’s this weird prejudice against them on the part of the publishing industry, believing that kids don’t read it. Were you always a fan of the genre? Is there any reason you keep returning to it in your books?
GVE: I was a science fiction and fantasy fan before I even knew there was such a thing as genre. I came to it from comic books, which are full of aliens and androids and mutants and cosmic epics. And then Star Wars cemented it for me. From a writer’s perspective, SF gives me so many tools to tell stories about the human condition — different lenses, literalized metaphors, ways to approach fraught subjects like toxic capitalism, climate emergency, neglectful parents, anything. Also, SF is just ridiculously fun. If you can have zombies or aliens or robots in a story, why wouldn’t you?
BB: So is there any kind of science fiction that you are not interested in writing?
GVE: I can’t really think of anything that’s off the table, but my goals are always to offer hope and show readers that they have agency in their lives and their world. So I can see myself writing dystopia, but not incessant pessimism.
BB: I know that your wife is an astronomy/physics professor. Have you ever made use of her talents when writing a book?
GVE: She’s almost always my first reader, just because I need someone to tell me the writing’s not as bad as I think it is. And when it comes to anything space-related or anything involving numbers in any way, she’s my go-to. She was really helpful when I was writing Voyage of the Dogs, because there’s a spaceship and velocities and distances between stars and I’m bad at math.
BB: Both WEIRD KID and the Sarah Prineas book TROUBLE IN THE STARS feature shape shifters. Did you come up with your own set of shape shifting rules? For example, is there any shape that your character, Jake, cannot inhabit? Is there a price he pays for shifting?
GVE: Sarah’s one of my very best friends and it was super cool that we both happened to be writing about shape-changers at the same time. I didn’t want to give my character, Jake, knowable rules, because for the majority of the book, Jake doesn’t have control over his abilities and doesn’t know what he can and can’t do, so it didn’t make sense that the reader would know. The price he pays is embarrassment, mortification, and fear of people finding out he’s an alien. So when he involuntarily shifts into a seal in a crowded mall, it’s pretty much all price.
BB: Did you always see WEIRD KID as a standalone or is it part of a greater series?
GVE: I was contracted to write a stand-alone, so I think the story works whether or not there’re more volumes, but I always like to leave open the possibility of more. It’s sort of dependent on commercial response, which is just the reality of publishing.
BB: Final question: What are you working on next?
GVE: I just finished edits on FENRIS & MOTT, the story of a girl and the apocalyptic wolf from Norse mythology romping through Los Angeles, and it’ll be out in summer 2022. So now I have a few weeks off while people consider my pitches for the next few books and hopefully I’ll be head-down and typing away soon!
It’s like me old maw always said: End all your interviews with apocalyptic Norse wolves and you can’t go wrong.
Many thanks to Greg and to Mitch Thorpe at Harper Collins for the interview. WEIRD KID is out as of today (TODAY!) in bookstores and libraries everywhere.
VAN EEKHOUT, Greg. Weird Kid. 208p. Harper Collins/Harper. Jul. 2021. Tr$16.99. ISBN 9780062970602.
Gr 3-7-Jake, a sixth grader, navigates middle school and his seemingly uncontrollable shape-shifting. Jake is an alien who "fell to earth in a flaming blob of goo." Now, that same goo is back, infiltrating his town and creating "imblobsters" out of the residents. It's up to Jake, along with his savvy new best friend Agnes, to solve the mystery of the goo and get everything back to normal. This has all the makings of a great middle grade sci-fi novel: an evil scientist, mysterious goo, an alien preteen, and more than one butt joke. Graphic novel fans will relate to Jake and Agnes's bond over their shared love of the comic Night Kite. Music also plays a large role in the story and Jake's life. At its heart, this is a tale about accepting who you are, taking control of your talents and abilities, and fighting for what is right. The ending wraps up neatly but hints at the opportunity for a sequel. Jake's (adoptive) parents are Dutch Indonesian, and Agnes is white. VERDICT The short page count, humor, and action make this a good choice for reluctant readers. A solid purchase for school and public libraries.--Katharine Gatcomb, Portsmouth P.L., NH
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
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Gatcomb, Katharine. "VAN EEKHOUT, Greg. Weird Kid." School Library Journal, vol. 67, no. 6, June 2021, p. 61. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A663599653/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=36de71aa. Accessed 16 Oct. 2021.
Weird Kid
Greg van Eekhout. HarperCollins, $16.99
(208p) ISBN 978-0-06-297060-2
A shape-shifting alien faces middle school and strange local events in Van Eekhout's (Cog) funny, riveting novel. Raised as a human since falling to Earth "in a flaming blob of goo," narrator Jake Wind has spent the summer avoiding his best friend, practicing guitar in his Arizona suburb, and struggling to hold his human form as the child of Dutch Indonesian parents. If he shifts in public, everyone will know that he's not "a totally boring absolutely non-weird and completely solid individual." When school starts and large sinkholes filled with goo begin opening up all over town, Jake joins forces with new schoolmate and fellow comic enthusiast Agnes Oakes, who is white, to discover what the goo is, why it's turning people into "imblopsters," and whether it's related to the hum that accompanies his unwanted shifts. Impeccably toned middle school humor ("Those holes are really becoming a problem," Jake's proctologist father says of the sinkholes), paired with action-packed hijinks and a poignant extended metaphor about finding one's identity, results in a heartfelt, pitch-perfect middle grade novel. Ages 8-12. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary. (July)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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"Weird Kid." Publishers Weekly, vol. 268, no. 22, 31 May 2021, p. 66. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A664617309/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d953bd68. Accessed 16 Oct. 2021.