COURAGE FOR BEGINNERS release day/giveaway

Hello friends,

I'm so happy to celebrate the release of my new book, COURAGE FOR BEGINNERS, today along with the Nerdy Book Club. Click on over to read my blog post and enter the giveaway. Two, signed hardback copies are up for grabs!

And if you'll be in the Plano, Texas, area this Saturday, stop by my first signing and say hello!

Great love,

kh

Goodreads giveaway!

Hi friends,

My publisher, Little, Brown, is hosting a Goodreads giveaway for my forthcoming novel, COURAGE FOR BEGINNERS. 20 copies available! Giveaway runs through June 23, 2014. Enter today!



https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/96742

Early praise for COURAGE FOR BEGINNERS

Like Sarah Nelson in Harrington’s Sure Signs of Crazy (Little, Brown, 2013/VOYA December 2013), Mysti Murphy must navigate a treacherous home situation. Mysti’s mother did not try to drown her, but her mother’s agoraphobia wields despotic control over the family’s life. Then, Mysti’s father tumbles headfirst from a tree and spends the next five months hospitalized, leaving Mysti to take care of her mother and younger sister, Laura. Mysti finds strength and comfort in her ability to make up stories for Laura and come up with daily jokes to connect with her homebound mother. Her seventh-grade school days are as troubling as her family situation, now that her longtime male friend, Anibal Gomez, spent his summer losing weight, bought a beret, and is working on becoming a hipster. He is determined to connect with cheerleader Sandy Showalter, earning his props by humiliating Mysti again and again in front of her peers. In addition to escaping through her stories and jokes, she finds consolation with two occupants of the cafeteria’s “loser island”—brainiac Wayne Kovok, who reminds everyone that his last name is an acronym and spouts “did you know” factoids; and Rama Khan, whose rainbow hijabs and loyalty gradually make her the one-word super-heroine Ramakhan to Mysti.

At age twelve, Mysti may be too wise for her years, but her wickedly good schemes to get even with Anibal and her courageous solutions to family crises will make her a compelling protagonist for sophisticated young readers. -VOYA, starred review (June 1, 2014) 

A wrenching and rewarding read. - Booklist, starred review

Booklist Starred Review for COURAGE FOR BEGINNERS

"A wrenching and rewarding read." - Booklist, starred review

My editor just sent me this news and review! I'm over the moon. It's ironic because, for a book about courage, I had a lot of fears and trepidation writing this story. In many ways, this is a very personal tale as my own mother struggled with agoraphobia. 

Today, I'm grateful for these kind words. Thank you, Booklist! 

★ Courage For Beginners

By Karen Harrington

August/ Ages 8 – 12/ $17.00

ISBN: 978-0-316-21047-8

For Mysti Murphy, being in seventh grade takes enormous courage. Her agoraphobic mother never leaves the house; her father falls from a tree and is hospitalized in a comatose state; and her best and only friend is conducting a social experiment,” ignoring and even making fun of her at school. In this moving follow up to Sure Signs of Crazy (2013), Harrington returns to similar themes and introduces another appealing protagonist, the red-haired, joke-telling Mysti. From her father, Mysti has learned to deflect difficulties with humor, but from her mother, she’s learned fears—for instance, it takes Mysti over a month to think of solving the family’s food problem by walking to a nearby store. Mysti often sees herself as a character in a book, and such thoughts are italicized to create a scene-setting narration: “Here is a girl who may have more hidden genius than she realized.” The heat of the Texas setting and the inevitable bullying and jockeying for social position in her middle school add to the oppressive atmosphere. Scarf-wearing Rama Khan, a neighbor and new friend, provides welcome support, as does her teacher of Texas history. A wrenching and rewarding read. Booklist issue, June 1, 2014. 

New book news

I'm so happy to announce news about my third book with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Here's the announcement from today's Publishers Marketplace.

Author of Sure Signs of Crazy, which received four starred reviews, and the forthcoming Courage For Beginners, Karen Harrington's MAYDAY, about a seventh-grade plane crash survivor's quest to recover two things lost in the crash: his voice, and the American flag honoring the death of his soldier uncle, all while trying to find his place between an absentee dad and his super patriotic military grandfather, again toBethany Strout at Little, Brown Children's, for publication in Spring 2016, by Julia Kenny at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner (World).