Middle Grade Ninja Episode 114: Literary Agent Holly McGhee

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Holly McGhee and I talk about her childhood in the country and how she went from selling corn out of a pickup truck to founding Pippin Properties Inc, an agency that has profoundly shaped the face of modern children’s literature. We chat about her relationship with author Kate DiCamillo both as a client and as a friend, and how it led to the creation of Holly McGhee’s new picture book, WHAT THE WORLD COULD MAKE. We also discuss ghosts, discovering hints of the mystery of the universe, a bird’s eye view of a literary agency, writing for art rather than money, the importance of focusing on your next book, the qualities of a successful author, and so much more.

Click here to read Holly McGhee's original 7 Question interview.

For more information about the WHAT THE WORLD COULD MAKE on May 4, 2021 at 5pm EST, go to: https://www.schulerbooks.com/event/what-world-could-make-virtual-conversation-and-launch-event

Holly McGhee still carried MADELINE around in 3rd grade — until Mrs. Carrier, her school librarian, tricked her into reading longer books by giving her one with her name on it, HOLLY IN THE SNOW. After college, Holly headed straight into the book world of New York City, where she has enjoyed being a secretary, an advertising manager, a sales rep (for one month), and in the six years prior to opening the doors at Pippin, an executive editor at HarperCollins.

Now, as the President and Creative Director of Pippin she is dedicated to shepherding books that make a difference into the world. Someone once told her, “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life,” and that has proven true for her.

From the bestselling creative team behind Come with Me and Listen, comes a story of hope, abundance, and the unfailing possibilities the world holds.

Bunny and Rabbit are kindred spirits who celebrate the gifts of the seasons together, both of their friendship and of the earth—from the smell of lilacs to the wonder of gingko leaves, from the taste of sea pickles to the silent beauty of the first snowflakes . . . What the World Could Make is a joyous reminder that if we pay attention, hope can always be found in our friendships, in nature, and in generosity toward each other.

“[And] Autumn unfolds with a carpet of ginkgo leaves heaped into a pile perfect for play. The two good pals joyfully exult in yet another bounty of the world in this gentle tale of sharing and seasonal splendor. The delicate pen-and-ink illustrations complement the spare text with delicate settings . . . the expressive cants of their ears deftly communicate emotions. . . Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Lemaitre and McGhee lift up gifts ‘the world could make’ . . . [Rabbit and Bunny] rejoice in the beauty of the seasons, enjoying each moment’s gifts.”

—Publishers Weekly

HollyMcGhee.com

PippinProperties.com

Book of the Week: MITCHELL'S LICENSE by Hallie Durand

The book is the wonderful Mitchell’s License by Hallie Durand. I’d tell you Ms. Durand will be here on Thursday to face the 7 Questions, but she’s already been here! Hallie Durand is the pen name for literary agent Holly McGhee of Pippen Properties, who we interviewed back in January. This means you can read Hallie Durand/Holly McGhee facing the 7 Questions right now (or directly after this review). Technically, this counts as both our weekly writer interview and our weekly literary agent interview. But don’t you worry, Esteemed Reader. Though the blog will be quiet on Tuesday, I’ll have a fresh interview with a big time literary agent for you on Saturday as always, so make sure you find yourself here then.

The story of Mitchell’s License is thus: (spoiler ahead) our hero Mitchell is obsessed with cars, but hates going to bed. His father gives him a license that allows him to drive to bed and Mitchell’s car is his father. Mitchell drives his father around the house, stops for fuel at the cookie jar, but his father (most practical for an automobile) will not allow Mitchell any cookies before bed. Finally, his car takes control and drives Mitchell to the bedroom. His father promises Mitchell they can drive to bed again the next night. Mitchell goes to sleep and dreams about driving a real car to a real cookie gas station.

I love this book! Of course I do. Mitchell’s father is very white and his mother is darker skinned and Mitchell himself appears to be biracial, and they are presented as a happy, loving family. Mitchell’s License had me at hello and I’m going to keep it on my sacred shelf of Book of the Week books until Mrs. Ninja and I have little biracial ninjas I can read it to. More, the focus of this book is of a father’s love for his son and vice versa. That’s the sort of story I’m always happy to read and a perfect bed time tale for munchkins.

And that’s my review. As for craft points, I don’t really have any. I’ve never been brave enough to attempt to write a picture book because economy of language, as you’ve no doubt noticed by now, is not really my thing. But I do have some observations I’ll share with you.

The first is that page one tells us the story of the book entire in three sentences: Mitchell never ever EVER wanted to go to bed. Until his dad finally said he could drive there. Mitchell was three years, nine months, and five days old when he got his license.

Notice the first two sentences could easily have been combined to form one, but instead, Durrand has wisely broken them into two easier to digest bites of information for very young readers. This is a handy tip we middle grade writers might employ in our writing. But also notice that Durrand has told parents right off the bat of the story they are about to read. She has established Mitchell as a character and told of the book’s entire conflict before we turn to the next page. Right away, parents and children can decide if this is a book they want to read together or not, and they’ve been promised a worthy conflict should they choose to read on (I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to read on).

Was there ever a parent anywhere who did not have trouble getting their child to bed at bedtime? The great thing about Durrand’s conflict is that it will interest both parents and children. Children will want to read about a child their age that gets a driver’s license and parents will want to read about the techniques Mitchell’s father employs to get him to bed. There’s something for everyone and I’m certain that after reading this book more than one parent-child coupling will be trying out “driving” to bed.

My next observation, which I’ve already sort of made, is how sparse Durrand’s prose is. She reminds me of Hemmingway, but without all the booze and war and bull fighting and misogyny. Hemmingway famously wrote the lines: “He went to the mountain. It was there.” No frills, no fancy description, just right to it. And that is how Durrand has written Mitchell’s License: He also learned how to beep the horn. He liked the way it sounded… a lot!

My final observation is to note just how trusting of her illustrator Durrand is. This is a book that is in some ways completely dependent upon its pictures. I don’t know if Durrand had conversations with illustrator Tony Fucile as she wrote or if she wrote out long descriptions for him ahead of time. Fucile is also an author and illustrator and has animated for Disney, so he’s up to the challenge. Still, one of the reasons I’ve never considered writing a picture book is because I’m no artist and I’m not sure I can be as brave as Durrand in leaving so much of her story dependent on the work of a collaborator.

On a two page spread, Durrand has simply written the word “Ruh-roh.” The rest of the spread is an illustration of Mitchell on his father’s back “driving” him into a wall. If this picture isn’t funny (it is) or charming (it is), this part of the story does not work. In another scene Durrand writes only: The next night, even before his bedtime, Mitchell went to get his car. “You need some oil,” he said. And he poured in some oil. The car was sputtering a little, but Mitchell didn’t mind. “You’re OK,” he said as he closed the hood.

The only way this sequence works is if the illustrations show us Mitchell pouring juice into his unsuspecting father’s mouth and his father coughing (or sputtering) before Mitchell closes his mouth. Tony Fucile’s illustrations are wonderful and tell the story perfectly. The whole book works this way. In Mitchell’s mind, his father is a car, and so Durrand writes about the father character only as a car until the end of the book. She depends on the illustrator to show us what is really happening. He does and theirs is a fantastic collaboration, but you have to admire Durrand’s leap of faith.

And that’s it for another week, Esteemed Reader. Be sure to come back Saturday when we’ll have a big time literary agent here to face the 7 Questions. And come back next week when we’ll be discussing Susan Runholt’s newest Lucas + Kari mystery. I’d leave you with some of my favorite passages from Mitchell’s License, but if I did I would have almost reproduced the entire book here and I’m pretty sure that could get me in trouble. Instead, I’ll simply reiterate that Mitchell’s License is a wonderful book and highly recommended for the little driver in your life.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.

7 Questions For: Literary Agent Holly McGhee

Pippin Properties, Inc. is an agency devoted primarily to picture books, middle-grade, and young adult novels, but we also represent adult projects on occasion. They are always on the lookout for writers and illustrators who take the challenge of creating books seriously and are willing to give the publishing world nothing less than their very best.

After a twelve-year career in book publishing, with positions ranging from assistant to advertising-and-promotion director to executive editor, Holly M. McGhee founded Pippin Properties, Inc., an agency devoted to the management and representation of the finest authors and artists at work today. Her fascination with making books began in 1991, when she was appointed Associate Publisher for Michael di Capua's imprint at HarperCollins.

She is also the author of Dessert First, Just Desserts, and the upcoming Mitchell's License and No Room for Dessert under the pen name Hallie Durand. 

Click here to read my review of Mitchell's License.

Holly McGhee has said, "My vision for Pippin is captured best by the cultivation of the bonsai tree—intense devotion to detail and beauty, with elegance and mystery taking precedence over size. And with fastidious care, the bonsai lives on through generation after generation. Someone I respect enormously once said to me, 'you can go large, or you can focus.' To this day Pippin remains focused on representing unparalleled work by the finest authors and artists writing and drawing today, be it picture books, middle-grade, young adult, or adult literature."

Holly McGhee's clients include: Kathi Appelt, Harry Bliss, Doreen Cronin, Kate Dicamillo, Tony Fucile, Jenny Han, Pascal Lemaitre, Alison McGhee, James McMullan, Kate McMullan, Jandy Nelson, Peter H. Reynolds, David Small, William Steig, among others.

As always, for more information about Holly McGhee and other literary agents, I highly recommend my friend Casey McCormick's wonderful blog, Literary Rambles.

And now Holly McGhee faces the 7 Questions:

Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

I can’t say my three absolute favorites, but here are three books that have been on my favorite list for a very long time: The Juniper Tree by Lore Segal and Maurice Sendak, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (her only book!), and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig.

Question Six: What are your top three favorite movies and television shows?

I can’t answer for television because I hardly watch any (except baseball), but for movies, among my favorites are Harold and Maude (really stuck with me), Waiting for Guffman, and The Man Who Came to Dinner. More recently, I loved Secretariat (saw it with my husband and three kids—we all loved it).

Question Five: What are the qualities of your ideal client?

~Talent: It all starts with talent. From there, I look for:

~Trust: We’re the experts you’re the boss. But you’ve got to trust us and we have to be able to trust you.

~Heart: A must.

~Humility / Gratitude: I think it’s important to remain humble, for there are always writers greater and lesser than yourself. And I think it’s important to remain grateful, too, for being able to do what you do every day.

~Work Ethic: This goes hand in hand with our company philosophy: The world owes you nothing; you owe the world your best work; in other words, Don’t settle. We won’t, either. We’re ruthless when it comes to making the most extraordinary books possible.

~Humor: We like to laugh!!

Question Four: What sort of project(s) would you most like to receive a query for?

A story that breaks my heart and then glues it back together again, even if the glue job isn’t perfect, or a story that gives me those great big belly laughs that make me snort and make my eyes run.

Question Three: What is your favorite thing about being an agent? What is your least favorite thing?

My favorite thing is changing people’s lives by helping usher stories that mean something into the world. My least favorite is telling my authors to “shelve” it. But I do it anyway because they rely on me to be the gatekeeper, and to tell the truth about the work as I see it.

Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

~Be discriminating but don’t be precious about your work.

~The only way out is through. (from Julia Gillian, by Alison McGhee)

~Don’t. Rush. Ever.

~Keep your head down and your hands busy.

~The truth is forever changing. (from The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo)

~There are a thousand people right in line behind you, ready and willing to take your place.

~Remember these things. Work with all your intelligence and love. Work freely and rollickingly as though they were talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers, critics, doubters. (Brenda Ueland, from If You Want to Write )

Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

I would have one more lunch with Fred Marcellino, who died way, way too early. He was a client of Pippin and we only had a few years together, and he was one of the most amazing artists and human beings I’ve ever met. What I would give to have him call me right now and say “Can I come over and get some advice?’

www.pippinproperties.com