Asterwood is her first novel for children.
Stolos holds an MFA in fiction from NYU, where she was a Writers in the Public School Fellow. Her short fiction has appeared in Joyland and No Tokens. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.
Here Stolos shares her choice for the director of an adaptation of Asterwood:
Asterwood, my first middle grade novel and first foray into fantasy, follows Madelyn, a ten-year-old who discovers an enchanted world through a shimmering rift in the forest behind her New Hampshire home. After learning that she might not be who she's been raised to think she is, Madelyn joins up with The New Hopefuls, a group of rag-tag child activists resisting the social, economic, and downright evil adult forces harming this enchanted forest. While honing the tone of the novel, it was important for me to balance my respect for young readers and their desire and ability to engage with some serious themes with the way a child's perspective sprinkles an iridescent dust of magic and wonder on everything, especially interactions with the natural world. Hayao Miyazaki is the master of this duality, and so, for Asterwood, the movie, I would want to call this animation great out of retirement to direct.Visit Jacquelyn Stolos's website.
My favorite film moment of all time is the climax of Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro, when Satsuki sprints through the rice paddies around their home at golden hour searching for her missing sister Mei, who has run away after an argument between the girls precipitated by panic about their hospitalized mom's mortality. This is some heavy stuff and, out of respect for the hearts and minds of his young audience, Miyazaki shows these real fears plainly. Still, even in its most heart-wrenching moments, Miyazaki's world radiates beauty and wonder. This golden hour is transcendent. The trees and clouds and sky glow. In Asterwood, Madelyn and her environmentalist friends come up against greed, apathy, defeatism, and self-serving, twisted morality in the adults who are destroying the forest. They must reckon with the complicity of their parents and guardians, the very people who are supposed to care for them, in the decimation of their future. Yikes. Still, magic glimmers through every plant, tree, and fungi in Asterwood. Still, there is friendship and love. There is hope, forgiveness, silliness, and adventure. There are swims in cool woodland streams and campfires under glittering night skies.
And there should be no visual representation of Asterwood without Izzy Burton, who drew the book's fantastic, ethereal cover. I don't know if any author has ever felt more seen upon receiving her cover design--Izzy was able to illustrate the inside of my brain, nailing the Asterwood's unsettling mix of heart and horror with her eerie but twinkly color palette and mastery of light and shadow.
Writers Read: Jacquelyn Stolos.
The Page 69 Test: Asterwood.
--Marshal Zeringue
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