I’ve got my goggles and I’m ready for star gazing. At least I would be if it weren’t so cloudy in Chicago this week (I’ll spare you the pics of me wearing the goggles!). Instead, I set my sights on lunch with fellow book lovers and the team responsible for The Star Shepherd, Dan Haring and MarcyKate Connolly.

In their upcoming middle-grade fantasy, Kyro dreams of becoming a star shepherd like his father and rescuing stars that have fallen to earth. But when the stars start falling en masse, their village turns against them, and his father disappears Kyro is suddenly thrust into the job. With the help of friends new and old, big and small, he will journey to save the stars and his father.

Fortunately for us, the stars aligned to bring Dan Haring and MarcyKate Connelly together on this project. Haring initially created the story as an animated short, which his agent suggested would be a perfect novel for middle-grade readers. And Connelly’s agent knew just the star-loving writer to help develop the story into a novel format. The two collaborated through the cosmos (ok, mostly through email) to develop the story that we’ll see this fall.

Many thanks to Sourcebooks for the opportunity to meet the creative team behind the book and learn more about their partnership. You can stop by the Butler Children’s Literature Center for a sneak peek at the ARC and keep your eyes open (and goggles on) for publication in September.