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Author Interview: Julia DeVillers of Meet Me at Wonderland

By Andrea Pyros on May 22, 2025 / Articles, Author Interviews, Upper MG

A girl with a summer job at her family’s amusement park crushes on a coworker who’d rather be working anywhere else in this fun and flirty middle grade rom-com. Meet Me at Wonderland (Aladdin). For grades 5+

MUF: Welcome to MUF, Julia DeVillers! Thanks for dropping by to talk about your new middle-grade novel, Meet Me at Wonderland. Tell us what inspired you to write this story.

Cover of MEET ME AT WONDERLAND by Julia DeVillers

Julia DeVillers: Hi MUF! So the inspiration for my story came about when my fabulous editor, Alyson, and I were talking about embarrassing moments when I told her about the time at my high school job that I, dressed as Chuck E. Cheese (the New Jersey sewer rat),walked into the break room and saw a cute guy filling out a job application. I panicked, tried to sneak out, and bumped into my manager, who made me unmask. That mishap inspired Meet Me at Wonderland. While I swapped Chuck E. for a moose mascot, my real-life disaster became the book’s “moose-cute.” I LOVED writing this book so much, with its blend of rom and com.

MUF: Your protagonists are on the upper end of middle-grade characters. Can you talk about what made you choose to write MG instead of YA? What sorts of choices did you make to write a romance for the middle-grade readers?

JD: I’ve been writing middle grade for most of my career, only my nonfiction books are YA. Middle grades can range widely. What I’ve chosen to do for my upper middle grade romcom is focus on crushes–the ups and downs, the awkward, the excitement, the despair– and the (spoiler alert!) “ends with a kiss.’ In Meet Me at Wonderland, Coco and Henry are workplace rivals who start their relationship with banter with each other in a fun, funny way. Don’t get me wrong, the emotional stakes are still real. I think it makes the genre accessible to my readers who want to explore what it feels like to have a crush without diving into the more intense, complicated relationships you might find in older books.

MUF: There’s been plenty of talk about how it can be tricky for kids to find books when they’re not quite ready for YA but are aging out of younger middle grade. What age reader were you writing for when you wrote MMAW?

JD: Exactly, Meet Me at Wonderland fits right in between lower middle grade and YA space, as it’s for 10 and up. (And by up, I have to say I’m hearing from adult arc readers they’re loving the nostalgia read–first crushes! First jobs! – themselves!)

MUF: You have written quite a bit in the middle grade space. What is it about this age group that you’re drawn to?

JD: Personally, I started my middle grade years loving school, my friends, and life was good. Then friend drama and more serious issues hit, and I felt unrooted, emotional, and alone. I don’t want kids to have those feelings, so I write about them in the hopes that my books can help middle graders feel less alone. Plus that time is such an intense time of growth and discovery. Middle grade readers are developing a sense of independence but are still figuring out how to navigate relationships, whether it’s with friends, family, or those early romantic interests. I love capturing that excitement and awkwardness in my writing because it feels so relatable and real. Plus, there’s a wonderful balance of humor and heart in middle grade.

MUF: What was it like to write for the American Girl brand? How does that process work and is it quite different than other books you’ve worked on?

JD: It was SO FUN. I wrote the books for the 90s dolls with my twin sister, Jennifer Roy. I wrote as one twin character (Isabel) and she wrote as the other (Nicki). Along with books, we now have our “own” dolls. The process was different because AG chose the era, the names, and some of the backstory, which is to be expected since they’re developing iconic characters to fit their historical line. They were the experts and Jennifer and I brought their vision to life and put our own touches on it. That’s so special, knowing we contributed to this beloved line. Writing about the 90s was a vibe, and brought back so many memories we wanted to recreate for young readers.

MUF: Read any fun new or new-ish MG lately?

Author Julia DeVillers

JD: This year so far: Isle of Ever by Jen Calonita, As You Wish by Nashae Jones, The Misfits series by Lisa Yee and Dan Santat, Secrets of Lovelace Academy by Marie Benedict and Courtney Sheinmel, The Liars Society by Alyson Gerber, On Thin Ice by Jessica Kim, J vs. K by Kwame Alexander and Jerry Craft, the Penny series by Sara Shephard, Bree Boyd is a Legend by Leah Johnson. My favorite of last year was Not Nothing by Gayle Forman.

MUF: Have we forgotten to ask you something important?

JD: This is my first book since getting through cancer! The reason Chuck E Cheese was on my mind at always because when I was sick I was very nostalgic and remembering happy times (not that being in a rat costume is a happy time, ha!) So…it feels very special to be celebrating with you!

Find Julia at @juliadevillers on Instagram and TikTok and at juliadevillers.com. (Where you may find pictures of her dressed as Morty the Moose.)

Crafting Purpose: Why Writers Need Mission and Vision Statements

By Susan Koehler on May 9, 2025 / Articles, For Writers, Writing

Writer sits at a desk writing with pen in hand beneath a desk lamp

Successful businesses often refer to their companies’ mission and vision statements as foundational to their success. These statements help companies define purpose, stay focused, and set goals. If you’re a writer, you probably realize that purpose, focus, and goals are important to your writing life. But have you considered defining them with your own mission and vision statements?

The Mission Statement

A mission statement defines your creative purpose. There are a lot of distractions in the writing world, and it’s easy to find ourselves with multiple unfinished projects or on a path we did not intend to travel. A mission statement will narrow the focus of your work to only that which you have identified as important and will help you establish your “author brand.”

When defining your mission, it’s important to ask yourself a couple of questions. These questions will guide the development of your mission statement and help you maintain focus.

What do I most like to write?

Identify the genre and style you gravitate toward. Finding joy in the creative process will yield a more authentic voice and produce stronger motivation. Your passion will sustain you through the tough times and will shine through to your readers.

What is my creative purpose?

Maybe your creative purpose is very personal, like writing stories that record your family’s history. Maybe your purpose is larger, and you want to make a positive impact on the social and emotional development of young children. Or perhaps you are driven to bring science to life in ways that draw kids into STEM. Articulate your greater purpose and allow that purpose to guide you.

Once you’ve answered both of these questions, you’re ready to craft a mission statement that defines your creative focus. Identify that focus and be very selective with the action verb(s) you use. Here are a few examples of possible mission statements:

My creative works will shine a light on the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ youth.

I write to preserve the stories and personalities that shaped our family.

My books will engage young adult readers in imaginative worlds where diversity is celebrated and good triumphs over evil.

Two images -- one with an a person sitting at a desk writing on a laptop and the other of a woman sitting in a casual chair with her feet on an ottoman and a laptop in her lap

The Vision Statement

A vision statement gives you a trajectory toward an ultimate destination. It’s less about what you will do and more about who you will be.

To craft a vision statement, picture what success looks like for you. This isn’t a wish or a dream; it’s a realistic image of your future self that will help you generate specific goals. Ask yourself these questions:

What impact do I hope to make with my writing?

Your impact is about the effect you want to have on your readers. Some writers want to bring humor and joy to childhood. Others want to reveal untold stories from the past or make sure kids from marginalized groups find themselves represented in books.

What do I hope to achieve?

You might define success in a personal way, like presenting your family with bound copies of family history, complete with photographs, descriptions, and meaningful stories that shaped generations. Or, maybe you aspire to see your books on the shelves of bookstores and in the hands of readers.

Your vision statement declares your aspirations. It’s about your creative legacy and the long-term impact of your work. As the name suggests, this is something visual, so many writers find it helpful to create a vision board. Whether you create a visual display or not, articulating your vision is a powerful step. Here are a few examples of possible vision statements:

To create thought-provoking poetry that addresses social justice and creates change in my community

To bring history to life for elementary-age children through engaging reading material published in educational resources.

To build a body of work that helps young readers from marginalized populations feel seen, valued, and empowered

Setting Goals

Once you have your mission and vision established, your writing has a focus and a destination. Now you are able to set measurable goals that will get you to that destination.

One goal might focus on your work habits. Many writers like to set a specific number of words, pages, or minutes they will write each day. Another goal might focus on building your craft, like attending three craft workshops within the calendar year. If you seek publication, you probably want to set some goals involving your connection to writing communities, submissions to literary agents, and the establishment of your online presence.

Be sure to avoid setting goals that rely on the responses of others, like securing a literary agent within six months or winning a Pulitzer prize. These are great aspirations to work toward, but your goals should focus on what you can control.

Once your purpose, focus, and goals are established, you can weed out the activities that don’t serve you and make a plan for achieving your goals. Now there’s only one thing left to do….Write!

May is National Foster Care Month

By Weezie Prescott on May 5, 2025 / Articles

May is National Foster Care Month, a time to reflect on how important it is to support children and families in our communities. Just as the flowers are blossoming in May, all children should have a home where they can blossom. Here is a list of novels that feature either a foster child as a prominent character or a foster home as a prominent setting. Enjoy!

All the Impossible Things by Lindsay Lackey. 384 pp. (2022)

Red’s inexplicable power over the wind comes from her mother. Whenever Ruby “Red” Byrd is scared or angry, the wind picks up. And being placed in foster care, moving from family to family, tends to keep her skies stormy. Red knows she has to learn to control it but can’t figure out how.

This time, the wind blows Red into the home of the Grooves, a quirky couple who run a petting zoo, complete with a dancing donkey and a giant tortoise. With their own curious gifts, Celine and Jackson Groove seem to fit like a puzzle piece into Red’s heart.

But just when Red starts to settle into her new life, a fresh storm rolls in, one she knows all too well: her mother. For so long, Red has longed to have her mom back in her life, and she’s quickly swept up in the vortex of her mother’s chaos. Now Red must discover the possible in the impossible if she wants to overcome her own tornadoes and find the family she needs.

Anna Casey’s Place in the World by Adrian Fogelin. 207 pp. (2021)

May Foster Care Month How do you face life without a place to call home?

Anna Casey is learning to deal with the loss of her family and adjust to living in a foster home with Miss Dupree. Feeling abandoned and alone, Anna turns to her closest companion, her explorer journal filled with drawn maps of her earlier neighborhoods and all the places that she has called home.

Anna is determined to become part of a real family, and with the help of a scrawny new friend named Eb, an unconventional biology teacher in cowboy boots, a homeless Vietnam vet, and a motley crew of kids from the neighborhood, Anna discovers a sense of belonging … and her own place in the world.

Boy 2.0 by Tracey Baptiste. 304 pp. (2024)

Win “Coal” Keegan has just landed in his latest foster home, with a big, noisy, slightly nosy family named the McKays. They seem eager to welcome Coal, but he’s wary of trusting them. So, he doesn’t tell them that he went for a walk with chalk in his pocket to cover a nearby street with his art. He doesn’t tell them that a neighbor found Coal drawing, pulled a gun on him, and fired it. He doesn’t tell them the police chased him. And he definitely doesn’t tell them that when everything went down, Coal somehow turned invisible.

But he did.

Now he has to figure out how. Is he a superhero? Some kind of mutant? A science experiment? Is that why he has no family of his own? As Coal searches for answers and slowly learns to control his invisibility, he turns to the McKay kids and friends both new and old for help. But they soon discover they’re not the only ones looking for a Black boy with superpowers, and the situation is far stranger—and more dangerous—than they ever could have expected.

If you like this book, click here to read an interview with Tracey Baptiste.

Extraordinary Birds by Sandy Stark-McGinnis. 240 pp. (2020)

May Foster Care Month December believes she is a bird. The scar on her back is where her wings will sprout, and one day soon, she will soar away. It will not matter that she has no permanent home. Her destiny is in the sky.

But then she’s placed with foster mom Eleanor, a kind woman who volunteers at an animal rescue and has secrets of her own. December begins to see that her story could end a different way – but could she ever be happy down on the ground?

Forever or a Long, Long Time by Caela Carter. 320 pp. (2017)

Flora and her brother, Julian, don’t believe they were born. They’ve lived in so many foster homes, they can’t remember where they came from. And even now that they’ve been adopted, Flora still struggles to believe that they’ve found their forever home. Though Flora is trying her best to trust two new people, when she finds out that there will be a new baby, she’s worried there won’t be enough love for everyone.

So along with their new mother, Flora and Julian begin a journey to go back and discover their past—for only then can they really begin to build their future.

Give and Take by Elly Swartz. 320 pp. (2019)

May Foster Care Month Family has always been important to twelve-year-old Maggie: a trapshooter, she is coached by her dad and cheered on by her mom. But her grandmother’s recent death leaves a giant hole in Maggie’s life, one which she begins to fill with an assortment of things: candy wrappers, pieces of tassel from Nana’s favorite scarf, milk cartons, sticks . . . all stuffed in cardboard boxes under her bed.

Then her parents decide to take in a foster infant. But anxiety over the new baby’s departure only worsens Maggie’s hoarding, and soon she finds herself taking and taking until she spirals out of control. Ultimately, with some help from family, friends, and experts, Maggie learns that sometimes love means letting go.

The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson. 256 pp. (1978)

A classic and one of my favorites.

Eleven-year-old Gilly has been stuck in more foster families than she can remember, and she’s hated them all. She has a reputation for being brash, brilliant, and completely unmanageable, and that’s the way she likes it. So when she’s sent to live with the Trotters—by far the strangest family yet—she knows it’s only a temporary problem.

Gilly decides to put her sharp mind to work and get out of there fast. She’s determined to no longer be a foster kid. Before long she’s devised an elaborate scheme to get her real mother to come rescue her. Unfortunately, the plan doesn’t work out quite as she hoped it would …

One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. 256 pp. (2013)

May Foster Care Month Carley uses humor and street smarts to keep her emotional walls high and thick. But the day she becomes a foster child, and moves in with the Murphys, she’s blindsided. This loving, bustling family shows Carley the stable family life she never thought existed, and she feels like an alien in their cookie-cutter-perfect household. Despite her resistance, the Murphys eventually show her what it feels like to belong — until her mother wants her back and Carley has to decide where and how to live. She’s not really a Murphy, but the gifts they’ve given her have opened up a new future.

Pavi Sharma’s Guide to Going Home by Bridget Farr. 272 pp. (2020)

Twelve-year-old Pavi Sharma is an expert at the Front Door Face: the perfect mix of puppy dog eyes and a lemonade smile, the exact combination to put foster parents at ease as they open their front door to welcome you in. After being bounced around between foster families and shelter stays, Pavi is a foster care expert, and she runs a “business” teaching other foster kids all she has learned. With a wonderful foster family in mom Marjorie and brother Hamilton, things are looking up for Pavi.

Then Pavi meets Meridee: a new five-year-old foster kid, who gets placed at Pavi’s first horrendous foster home. Pavi knows no one will trust a kid about what happened on Lovely Lane, even one as mature as she is, so it’s up to her to save Meridee.

Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff. 176 pp. (2004)

May Foster Care Month When Hollis is sent to Josie, an elderly artist who is quirky and affectionate, she wants to stay. But Josie is growing more forgetful every day. If Social Services finds out, they’ll take Hollis away and move Josie into a home. Well, Hollis Woods won’t let anyone separate them. She escaped the system before and this time, she’s taking Josie with her. Still, even as she plans her future with Josie, Hollis dreams of the past summer with the Regans, fixing each special moment of her days with them in pictures she’ll never forget.

The Pinballs by Betsy Byars. 144 pp. (2004)

You can’t always decide where life will take you—especially when you’re a kid.

Carlie knows she’s got no say in what happens to her. Stuck in a foster home with two other kids, Harvey and Thomas J, she’s just a pinball being bounced from bumper to bumper. As soon as you get settled, somebody puts another coin in the machine and off you go again.

But against her will and her better judgment, Carlie and the boys become friends. And all three of them start to see that they can take control of their own lives.

Planet Earth is Blue by Nicole Panteleakos. 240 pp. (2020)

May Foster Care Month Twelve-year-old Nova is eagerly awaiting the launch of the space shuttle Challenger — it’s the first time a teacher is going into space, and kids across America will watch the event on live TV in their classrooms. Nova and her big sister, Bridget, share a love of astronomy and the space program. They planned to watch the launch together. But Bridget has disappeared, and Nova is in a new foster home.

While foster families and teachers dismiss Nova as severely autistic and nonverbal, Bridget understands how intelligent and special Nova is, and all that she can’t express. As the liftoff draws closer, Nova’s new foster family and teachers begin to see her potential, and for the first time, she is making friends without Bridget. But every day, she’s counting down to the launch, and to the moment when she’ll see Bridget again. Because as Bridget said, “No matter what, I’ll be there. I promise.”

The Road to Paris by Nikki Grimes. 160 pp. (2008)

Paris just moved in with the Lincoln family, and she isn’t thrilled to be in yet another foster home. It’s tough for her to trust people, and she misses her brother, who’s been sent to a boys’ home. Over time, the Lincolns grow on Paris. But no matter how hard she tries to fit in, she can’t ignore the feeling that she never will, especially in a town that’s mostly white while she is half black. It isn’t long before Paris has a big decision to make about where she truly belongs.

Check out this link to Diversty in Middle-Grade for more books by Nikki Grimes.

Three Pennies by Melanie Crowder. 208 pp. (2018)

May Foster Care Month For a kid bouncing from foster home to foster home, The Book of Changes is the perfect companion. That’s why Marin carries three pennies and a pocket-sized I Ching with her everywhere she goes. Yet when everything in her life suddenly starts changing—like landing in a foster home that feels like somewhere she could stay, maybe forever—the pennies don’t have any answers for her.

Marin is positive that all the wrongs in her life will be made right if only she can find her birth mother and convince her that they belong together. Marin is close, oh so close—until she gets some unwelcome news and her resolve, like the uneasy earth far beneath the city of San Francisco, is shaken.

Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord. 192 pp. (2012)

The state of Maine plans to shut down her island’s schoolhouse, which would force Tess’s family to move to the mainland — and Tess to leave the only home she has ever known. Fortunately, the islanders have a plan too: increase the numbers of students by having several families take in foster children. Tess and her family take a chance on Aaron, a thirteen-year-old trumpet player who has been bounced from home to home. And Tess needs a plan of her own — and all the luck she can muster. Will Tess’s wish come true or will her luck run out?

What I Call Life by Jill Wolfson. 288 pp. (2008)

May Foster Care Month Saddled with an unfortunately long name by her eccentric mom, Carolina Agnes London Indiana Florence Ohio Renee Naomi Ida Alabama Lavender just goes by Cal to keep things simple. Cal Lavender is perfectly happy living her anonymous life, even if she does have to play mother to her own mother a whole lot more than an eleven-year-old should. But when Cal’s mom has one of her “unfortunate episodes” in the middle of the public library, authorities whisk her off and escort Cal to a seat in the back of a police car.

On “just a short, temporary detour from what I call life,” Cal finds herself in a group home with four other girls, watched over by a strange old woman everyone refers to as the Knitting Lady. At first Cal can think of nothing but how to get out of this nuthouse. She knows she doesn’t belong there. But it turns out that all the girls, and even the Knitting Lady, may have a lot more in common than they could have imagined.

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Author Interview: Julia DeVillers of Meet Me at Wonderland

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