Book Adventures: Children's Tuesday: The Flint Heart

(Amazon link)

     Katherine Paterson has done it again.
     She and her husband John co-wrote the new children's book The Flint Heart, based on Eden Phillpotts' 1910 fantasy (see previous quote post). The Flint Heart came out September 27th from Candlewick Press. It's magical, fantastical, and has fairies and animals! And get this -their son, David, is making it into a movie! It's set to come out in 2012 (David also produced and wrote the screenplay for the Bridge to Terabithia movie, also based on one of Katherine Paterson's books [which was actually dedicated to him and inspired by an event in his childhood]).
     How cool is it that The Flint Heart is such a family affair? Husband, wife, and son all involved. That just makes me feel good inside and makes me want to support their labors by buying the book and seeing the movie (No, I really do want to buy the book and see the movie -it's exactly the kind of story that I love).

     Something else awesome about this book? It's illustrated by John Rocco (here's his blog). He's done all of Rick Riordan's covers (Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, and the Kane Chronicles). John has also done artwork for several other books -both children's and young adult- including The Hunter Chronicles by LDS author E. J. Patten and the recent covers for Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Movie Castle, Castle in the Air, and House of Many Ways. He has even written and illustrated three picture books of his own; Fu Finds the Way, Wolf! Wolf! and Moon Powder. Here is a great John Rocco interview post I found on Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

(From Goodreads)
     A robust and wildly entertaining fairy tale, freely abridged from Eden Phillpotts’s 1910 fantasy and wryly retold by Katherine and John Paterson.

     An ambitious Stone Age man demands a talisman that will harden his heart, allowing him to take control of his tribe. Against his better judgment, the tribe’s magic man creates the Flint Heart, but the cruelty of it causes the destruction of the tribe. Thousands of years later, the talisman reemerges to corrupt a kindly farmer, an innocent fairy creature, and a familial badger. Can Charles and his sister Unity, who have consulted with fairies such as the mysterious Zagabog, wisest creature in the universe, find a way to rescue humans, fairies, and animals alike from the dark influence of the Flint Heart? This humorous, hearty, utterly delightful fairy tale is the sort for an entire family to savor together or an adventurous youngster to devour.