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WORK TITLE: Orphan Monster Spy
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.mattkilleen.co.uk/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: England
NATIONALITY: British
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2018042063
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Killeen, Matt
Located: England
Place of birth: Birmingham (England)
Field of activity: Young adult fiction Fantasy games Historical fiction
Advertising copy Journalism
Affiliation: LEGO koncernen (Denmark)
Profession or occupation:
Fantasy gamers Sportswriters Music journalists Copy writers
Authors
Found in: Orphan monster spy, 2018 : title page (Matt Killeen) back
flap (Matt killeen was born in Birmingham, in the UK;
several alternative careers beckoned, some involveing
laser guns and guitars, before he returned to words and
attempted to make a living as an advertising copywriter
and music and sports journalist.)
peters.co.uk, via WWW, 26 March 2018 : (Orphan monster spy
is Matt Killeen's debut novel though he he has been
writing for the LEGO Group for the last eight years.)
facebook.com, via WWW, 26 March 2018 : (Matt Killeen,
writer of young adult historical fiction and a gamer,
lives in the country near London.)
Associated language:
eng
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Library of Congress
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Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
PERSONAL
Born in Birmingham, England; married; children: two.
EDUCATION:Manchester Metropolitan University, M.A. (creative writing for children).
ADDRESS
CAREER
Advertising copywriter, sportswriter, music journalist, writer. LEGO Group, copywriter.
WRITINGS
Contributor of stories to anthologies, including Timelines, edited by Sherry Ashworth and N.M. Browne, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2013; and Crimelines: Reading Isn’t a Crime. Or is it?, edited by Suzanne Afford and Sherry Ashworth, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2014.
SIDELIGHTS
Born in Birmingham, England, Matt Killeen writes historical adventures for young adult readers. He spent his career in advertising, copywriting, and sports journalism, and he writes for LEGO Group. Growing up in a decade obsessed with World War II, which permeated comic books, television, and playground games, he incorporates that historical time into his writings. Killeen holds a master’s degree in creative writing for children from Manchester Metropolitan University.
In 2018 Killeen published his debut novel, Orphan Monster Spy, set in 1939 Germany during World War II. Fifteen-year-old Sarah is a blond haired, blue-eyed Jew who was traveling with her mother through a Nazi checkpoint when her mother was killed, but Sarah escaped. Wandering the streets as an orphan, she meets British spy Jeremy Floyd, posing as a Nazi captain. He offers Sarah a chance for revenge by infiltrating a posh girl’s boarding school for Nazi elite. Her mission is to befriend student Elsa Schafer, whose father is the scientist developing a nuclear bomb. Sarah must gain Elsa’s confidence, be invited to her home, and steal her father’s blueprints for the bomb. But first Sarah must confront her ruthless and anti-Semitic classmates. A writer in Publishers Weekly had a mixed review. While the adult characters were complex and flawed, the mean girls at the school were caricatures, and “The book starts strong and ends with a bang, but the muddy middle highlights the paucity of plot,” said the writer.
In this mix of suspense story and historical fiction spy novel, Dianna Geers declared in Voice of Youth Advocates: “Historical information and settings are accurate, and the fictional portion of the novel is filled with tension, deceit, and murder.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that the coming-of-age story and psychological crisis were so well done, “the plot’s flaws are forgivable. A powerful, bleak, and penetrating portrait of an isolated young woman excelling in unimaginable danger.” This promising debut with plot twists around every corner is “Fast-paced, cleverly constructed, and with references to real-life heroes, heroines, and villains,” according to Booklist reviewer Debbie Carton. Online at Book Reporter, a contributor claiming to be a fan of historical fiction and who was obsessed with both the characters and plot, commented: “Overall Killeen did a great job of transferring the readers into the environment which really made me feel like I was in the late ‘30s, making the read all the more exciting.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 2018, Debbie Carton, review of Orphan Monster Spy, p. 92.
Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2018, review of Orphan Monster Spy.
Publishers Weekly, January 1, 2018, review of Orphan Monster Spy, p. 55.
Voice of Youth Advocates, February, 2018, Dianna Geers, review of Orphan Monster Spy, p. 57.
ONLINE
Book Reporter, https://www.bookreporter.com/ (March 28, 2018), review of Orphan Monster Spy.
Matt Killeen Website, https://www.mattkilleen.co.uk/ (July 9, 2018).
Matt Killeen was born in Birmingham, in the UK, back when trousers were wide and everything was brown. Early instruction in his craft included being told that a drawing of a Cylon exploding isn’t writing and copying-out your mother’s payslip isn’t an essay “about my family.” Several alternative careers beckoned, some involving laser guns and guitars, before he finally returned to words and attempted to make a living as an advertising copywriter and largely ignored music and sports journalist. He now writes for the world’s best loved toy company, as it wasn’t possible to be an X-wing pilot. Married to his Nuyorican soul mate, he is parent to both an unfeasibly clever teenager and a toddler who is challenging his father’s anti-establishment credentials by repeatedly writing on the walls. He accidently moved to the countryside in 2016. Follow him @by_Matt_Killeen.
Matt Killeen earned an MA in Creative Writing for Children from Manchester Metropolitan University and spent a decade as an advertising copywriter, sportswriter and music journalist. He lives in Surrey, England, and his debut novel, ORPHAN, MONSTER, SPY, is published in 2018 by Viking Children’s Books in the US and Usborne in the UK.
matt's words
Orphan Monster Spy is a book born on a bus, but also deeply interwoven with my childhood.
I grew up in a decade obsessed with the Second World War. It seemed to dominate the books, comics, TV, playground games…everything. However, my mother’s best friend was German and after many sparkly, golden summers with her wonderful, warm and rabidly pacifist family, I found myself unable to swallow the idea that Germans were the war-mad, evil monsters depicted. Yet the more I learned of the Holocaust, the less sense any of this made, as I increasingly identified with its victims. I was an endlessly bullied child, in an era when bullying was considered the fault of the victim by the adults who were supposedly there to protect me. Thus began a lifelong appalled and horrified fascination with the Third Reich, its crimes and the war fought to defeat it.
That childhood also created a fierce, committed, if not always well-informed, feminist. My father might have been considered a good role model in a bygone age, but his raging patriarchal brand of masculinity left me with no illusions about men. Some strong and fearless sister-figures in early adolescence, plus a General Leia here and a Simone de Beauvoir there, set the tone for my creative life. I embraced the feminine, fell in love with Anne Shirley and the girls of Malory Towers, sought out my own role models and set out to write something worthy of them.
Living in south London for over a decade, I passed the mural dedicated to local girl and SOE heroine Violette Szabo in Stockwell countless times. I knew her story and that of “Churchill’s Secret Army”, but I hadn’t realised just how young she had been on volunteering. At 21, I had been a mess, barely more mature than I had been at 18…or 15. With that thought, Orphan Monster Spy’s young protagonist, a Jewish orphan working as a British spy, was born. It turned out the war was full of teenage agents, couriers, partisans and resistors, some barely more than children. Would the Allies have used a 15 year old? In the name of defeating Hitler, they did far worse things...
When I started Orphan Monster Spy my concerns were about creeping fascism and institutional racism. I was preoccupied by how genocide had haunted the recent past in Rwanda, Darfur and the former Yugoslavia, while everyone assumed that this time it would never happen again. I saw how nations were using the threat of terrorism to frighten their citizens with propaganda and restrict their freedoms. In passing Szabo’s mural in Stockwell, I was also visiting the memorial of Jean Charles de Menezes, a potent symbol of what fear and unchecked “security” can get you.
By the time I finished the final edits, narrow-minded and spiteful nationalism had been normalised, allowing racism and sexism to flourish online, on our streets, in our media and in our politics. We are, right now, looking at the conditions that created the Third Reich and all it will take, to paraphrase Burke, is for good people to do nothing.
As my nephews and eldest son grew up, I was surprised to learn how little they understood the Second World War. They had actually been taught the subject in school, but without those exciting tales of the dauntless so beloved of the 1970s, they hadn’t engaged with it. The nineteenth century historian Lord Macauley said, “History has to be burned into the imagination before it can be received by the reason.” This was one of the reasons to write this book.
Through Sarah’s fictional adventures I want to illuminate this time and make it real for the reader. I want them to understand that history, to interrogate it and then question the events of today. Nobody should ever say ‘this couldn’t happen now’ because it can and it does. As the philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Right now, history is repeating. The very things for which the teenagers who confronted the Third Reich sacrificed so much are under threat. Resistance has never been so important. I hope that the readers of Orphan Monster Spy will part of that.
Matt Killeen, 2018
biography
Matt Killeen was born in Birmingham, in the UK, back when trousers were wide and everything was brown. Early instruction in his craft included being told that a drawing of a Cylon exploding isn’t writing and copying-out your mother’s payslip isn’t an essay “about my family.” Several alternative careers beckoned, some involving laser guns and guitars, before he finally returned to words and attempted to make a living as an advertising copywriter and largely ignored music and sports journalist. He fulfilled a childhood ambition and became a writer for the world’s best-loved toy company in 2010, as it wasn’t possible to be an X-wing pilot. Married to his Nuyorican soul mate, he is parent to both an unfeasibly clever teenager and a toddler who is challenging his father’s anti-establishment credentials by repeatedly writing on the walls. He accidently moved to the countryside in 2016.
Killeen, Matt. Orphan Monster Spy
Dianna Geers
Voice of Youth Advocates. 40.6 (Feb. 2018): p57.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
Killeen, Matt. Orphan Monster Spy. Viking/ Penguin Random House, March 2018. 432p. $18.99. 978-0-451-47873-3.
4Q * 3P * S
Sarah is Jewish and her mother was just shot to death by Nazi soldiers. Her blond hair and blue eyes help to disguise her as she tries to survive on her own. Dodging the soldiers searching for her, Sarah takes cover in abandoned buildings and travels at night. While hiding, Sarah encounters a mysterious man named Captain Flynn who convinces Sarah to become a spy and enrolls her in a boarding school as his niece. There, she is immersed in the world of the daughters of Nazi elites and attempts to learn the secrets of their fathers. Sarah must be very careful to keep her cover. Her survival depends on it and, if she can get the right secrets, so does the fall of the Nazis.
Killeen's debut novel is a suspense story within an historical fiction spy novel. Historical information and settings are accurate, and the fictional portion of the novel is filled with tension, deceit, and murder. By using third-person point of view, the author allows readers to understand the strength of the young female protagonist who remains confident and strong in the most dangerous of situations. Flashbacks demonstrate how life had been for Jewish citizens while also providing insight into Sarah's backstory. Occasionally, the back and forth in the narrative slows the pace. The vocabulary is extensive. Orphan Monster Spy would be a great addition to young adult historical fiction collections, as well as collections in need of strong female protagonists.--Dianna Geers.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Geers, Dianna. "Killeen, Matt. Orphan Monster Spy." Voice of Youth Advocates, Feb. 2018, p. 57. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A529357125/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0c46dd36. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A529357125
Orphan Monster Spy
Debbie Carton
Booklist. 114.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2018): p92.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Orphan Monster Spy.
By Matt Killeen.
Mar. 2018. 368p. Viking, $18.99 (9780451478733). Gr. 9-12.
In 1939 Germany, 15-year-old Sarah and her mother try to escape to Switzerland, but her mother is killed at a checkpoint. Blonde, blue-eyed, and a talented gymnast, Sarah has been trained by her actress mother to assume whatever identity she needs to protect herself, because she is a Jew. Then Sarah meets a mysterious man at the train station who turns out to be a British spy. Captain Floyd takes Sarah under his protection, but he sends her on a mission: infiltrate a boarding school for daughters of top Nazi officers, befriend the daughter of a scientist, and steal the blueprints for a bomb. There's a plot twist around every corner, slow reveals of Sarah's past, and multiple cinematic moments, including a harrowing race through the forest. German phrases (translated and well-placed in context) add verisimilitude to the narrative. Fast-paced, cleverly constructed, and with references to real-life heroes, heroines, and villains, this promising debut will appeal to fans of historical fiction and spy stories. --Debbie Carton
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Carton, Debbie. "Orphan Monster Spy." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 92. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525185752/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=53531a08. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525185752
Orphan Monster Spy
Publishers Weekly. 265.1 (Jan. 1, 2018): p55+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Orphan Monster Spy
Matt Killeen. Viking, $18.99 (432p) ISBN 9780-451-47873-3
Killeen's harrowing debut opens in August 1939, just after a 15-year-old Jewish girl named Sarah and her mother drive through a Nazi checkpoint in a German town. Sarah's mother dies in the crash, but Sarah evades capture thanks to Helmut Haller, aka Captain Jeremy Floyd, a British spy. Jeremy is attempting to prevent one of Hitler's scientists, Hans Schafer, from building a nuclear bomb. He offers to help Sarah escape Germany, but she insists on joining his campaign. Posing as Haller's niece Ursula, Sarah enrolls at Rothenstadt, a Nazi boarding school. Her mission--befriending Schafer's daughter, Elsa--proves more dangerous than either she or Jeremy imagined. Despite a dynamite premise, dizzyingly high stakes, and some devastating moments, Killeen's tale falls short of its potential. While the story's adult characters are complex and realistically flawed, Rothenstadt's residents read like mean-girl caricatures, and the frequency with which the intelligent, empathetic Sarah refers to herself as a dumme Schlampe ("stupid bitch") is off-putting and out of character. The book starts strong and ends with a bang, but the muddy middle highlights the paucity of plot. Ages 12-up. Agent: Molly Ker Hawn, Bent Agency. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Orphan Monster Spy." Publishers Weekly, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 55+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A522125039/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=8de668a6. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A522125039
Killeen, Matt: ORPHAN MONSTER SPY
Kirkus Reviews. (Jan. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Killeen, Matt ORPHAN MONSTER SPY Viking (Children's Fiction) $18.99 3, 20 ISBN: 978-0-451-47873-3
A half-Jewish girl in Nazi Germany passes up a chance to escape in favor of the opportunity to screw with Nazis.
Sarah's mother is shot as they try to flee, but a stranger in a dark warehouse gives the bleeding, grieving Sarah good advice to avoid detection. When Sarah later sees the stranger being harassed by the police, she interrupts her own planned escape to save him. Her new ally, she learns, is a British spy, and she defies his attempt to help her to freedom. Wouldn't it be better to stay and hurt the Nazis? Fifteen-year-old blonde Sarah looks not only Aryan but young: she's as small as an 11-year-old. Home-schooled by her mother (who was an actress before the Nuremberg Laws left her unemployed, alcoholic, and abusive), Sarah's skilled at playacting and languages. She's even turned her gymnastics experience into a kind of parkour to avoid anti-Semitic violence and steal food. In other words, she's a perfect spy. Disguised as the 13-year-old daughter of a Nazi official, she infiltrates an elite school. If she can befriend one of her classmates, the daughter of a nuclear physicist, she might save the Allies. Killeen's thriller is cold, exciting, and well-paced, but its major plot point--the physicist's independent development of a superweapon--is so James Bond it undercuts the real-world horror that was the Holocaust. Sarah's coming-of-age and psychological crisis are so well-drawn, however, that the plot's flaws are forgivable.
A powerful, bleak, and penetrating portrait of an isolated young woman excelling in unimaginable danger. (Historical thriller. 13-16)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Killeen, Matt: ORPHAN MONSTER SPY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A520735764/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a0d34654. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A520735764
Orphan Monster Spy
by Matt Killeen
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Matt Killeen’s debut novel, ORPHAN MONSTER SPY, takes place in Europe amidst World War II and follows a Jewish 15-year-old girl named Sarah. After her mom is shot and killed at a checkpoint, Sarah is forced onto the streets alone and has no clue what the rest of her life holds. She then meets Captain Floyd, a British spy who offers her a mission: infiltrate an elite Nazi boarding school and befriend the daughter of a scientist who created a bomb that could wipe out an entire population. Sarah goes through with the plan and is then swept into a society that hates her own, trying to get past the evil teachers, cutthroat students and challenges she never would have expected having to go through before.
"A fast-paced journey that will leave anyone wanting more. Topped with witty writing and a boatload of action, this book leaves me extremely ecstatic for more work from Matt Killeen..."
I was so excited to start this book because I am a complete sucker for anything historical fiction especially WWII since I think that time is so interesting --- the added feature of spies doesn’t hurt either! Usually when I read books I find myself more interested with the characters instead of the plot and vice versa but, in this case, I was obsessed with both aspects. It made it so much fun to get through since I couldn’t help but be obsessed with many of the characters we were introduced to as well as all the plot twists along the way.
Speaking of characters, Sarah was definitely one of my favorites. She was headstrong and intelligent and it was so wonderful reading from her perspective. She wasn’t afraid to stand up for her friends and even herself which was something I really admired. She had amazing character development from the beginning of the novel and by the end, she morphed into this confident heroine who could take on anything thrown at her.
I also really loved her relationship with Captain Floyd. They have this really sweet and caring father/daughter connection that reminded me a lot of Hopper and Eleven from season two of “Stranger Things” (aka my all-time FAVORITE show). He also really became this super supportive figure in Sarah’s life and I really just want more scenes from the pair!
The action in this book was also incredibly wild since it really felt like I was watching everything unfold from the big screen. It did get a little gory after some of the situations but I think those scenes added to the dire setting Sarah was in. Nothing felt too unrealistic since --- while I was reading --- I kept realizing that Sarah was only 15, which sometimes baffled me since I couldn’t imagine being that strong at that age. It just goes to show how desperate those times were and how you really needed to protect yourself to survive. I think that overall Killeen did a great job of transferring the readers into the environment which really made me feel like I was in the late ‘30s, making the read all the more exciting.
Perfect for fans of the film The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or even novels that take place during WWII, ORPHAN MONSTER SPY is a fast-paced journey that will leave anyone wanting more. Topped with witty writing and a boatload of action, this book leaves me extremely ecstatic for more work from Matt Killeen in the future.
Reviewed by Taylor F., Teen Board Member on March 28, 2018