A time to give thanks

AND give away some free books!

I’m thankful for a lot of things right now. I’m thankful for the love and support of my family. I’m thankful for my terrific friends. I’m thankful for my beautiful home. I’m thankful to all the great authors who wrote the books I’ve read and enjoyed this year. I’m thankful for all the good dogs I’ve meet on my walks. I’m thankful for a career where I get to write books that lots of kids read. I’m thankful for the amazing kidlit writing community. And I’m thankful for you, for reading my books and sharing them with the young people in your life.

I’m also very thankful to everyone who answered the Gratz family call to donate money to the Red Cross to help the people of Western North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene. My wife Wendi and I both asked our newsletter subscribers to give, and offered to match all donations up to $5,000. Within hours, our collective friends and followers blew past that number, ultimately raising $7,135—plus our $5,000 matching contribution—for a total of $12,135 in hurricane relief. Thank you. We’ve kept in touch with our friends there, and know that some of them just got drinkable water back in their taps. A full recovery will take time, but your donations went a long way toward helping those most in need right now.

Free Virtual School Visit in December

I’ve done three free, live, virtual school visits already this school year, and I have one more coming before the winter holiday break. Join me online Thursday, December 19th at 11am ET/10am CT/9am MT/8am PT for an hour-long event where I talk about my books, my background, and my writing process. I’ll speak for the first half hour, and then spend the next thirty minutes answering questions from attendees. Whether you’re watching from home, a classroom, or an auditorium, there’s no fee to attend, and no limit on how many people can watch.

Can’t make it? A recording of each month’s event is viewable until my next virtual school visit for anyone with the link. And watch this space for more live dates in January, February, March, and April 2025.

You can finally buy a copy of Resist in print!

In 2019, to help promote my novel ALLIES, I wrote a novella-length story about the further adventures of one of the main characters, Samira Zidane. That novella was called RESIST, and it was only available as a free giveaway for Scholastic Book Club subscribers. That print edition was never meant to be sold, and wasn’t officially on sale anywhere. But copies of the free novella started popping up in places where used books are sold—like Amazon—and sometimes, due to its rarity, at completely wild prices. That led to a lot of confusion and frustration.

Scholastic eventually made the novella available as both an ebook and audiobook, but it was never commercially available in print—until now! A hardcover print edition is in the works for March 4, 2025. You can preorder a copy from your favorite local indie, or by clicking any of the links below:

Preorders from Green Bean Books will come signed!

Speaking of signed copies of my books…

It’s holiday season, which means it’s time to order signed copies of my books for those Alan Gratz super-fans in your life! Green Bean Books in Portland, Oregon is the new home for my signed and personalized books. Order soon for timely holiday gift delivery!

Giveaway time

And, as promised, I have free books to give away!

In honor of RESIST, I’m giving away signed copies of the book that spawned the novella—ALLIES, my novel of D-Day!

Each entry will be assigned a number, and winners will be selected using a random number generator. So that everyone has an equal chance to win, please enter only once. Thanks! And sorry, due to the number of submissions I expect to get, only the giveaway winners will be notified of the results. But that means if you hear from me, it’ll be good news!

The last day to enter is Sunday, December 8, 2024. Thanks, and good luck!

What I’m jamming to

My daughter Jo and I have been rewatching our way through all three seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series, en route to eventually rewatching every Star Trek series and movie. (Listen, it rains a lot in Portland in the winter.)

Rewatching the series reminds me of two very entertaining YouTube videos of Star Trek clips edited to match the lyrics of pop songs. The OG Star Trek musical clip video is this amazing version of Ke$ha’s “TikTok.” Even better though is this video of Star Trek clips cut to match “Common People” by Ben Folds, featuring Joe Jackson and William Shatner. Watch both to boldly go where no one has gone before…

Did this email have enough buttons to click on?

I guess not. Here’s a couple more:

Thanks! Live long and prosper.