Posts Tagged The Tragically True Adventures of Kit Donovan

Mixed-Up Member Spotlight: Patricia Bailey

By on February 16, 2026   /   Author Interviews   /   Leave a comment

It’s always a joy to shine a spotlight one of our Mixed-Up Files members – this time with accomplished author Patricia Bailey, whose contributions to the blog are much appreciated! Check out our interview below, pick up a copy of her stellar book, and browse Patricia’s Mixed-Up posts. Thank you, Patricia!

Patricia Bailey headshot

Welcome to the Member Spotlight, Patricia! Where did your interest in writing Middle Grade first take shape, and how did that lead you to being involved with From the Mixed-Up Files…?

I was a middle and high school teacher for years and wrote with students the entire time. I eventually realized that the pieces I wrote that had a young protagonist were the ones I had the most fun with. So, when I decided to see if I could write a novel, middle grade was it! I was a big fan of From the Mixed-Up Files when I was teaching, and was beyond thrilled when they accepted me as a member.

Your multiple award-winning novel, THE TRAGICALLY TRUE ADVENTURES OF KIT DONOVAN, blends action with deeper emotional elements like grief and self-identity. What drove you to write this story, and how did you weave these elements together to create such a compelling tale?

KIT came to me on a road trip that took me through Goldfield, Nevada, a small town on US Route 95 between Reno and Las Vegas. I ended up chatting with the owner of a rock/antique shop there. He filled me in on the history of the town and the interesting people who had lived there when it was booming. For some reason, I just couldn’t let the place go. Then the character of Kit came to me and I just started writing. Once I started writing, the idea of redemption through a child’s eyes really took hold of me. I think at some level we’re all still nine year’s old – trying to figure out how to love others and still love ourselves – and how to make up for the harms we cause along the way. Being human is tough work. Perhaps recognizing shades of our struggle in the lives of other people – even fictional ones – will help us all be a little bit more compassionate.

Book Cover:

The Tragically True Adventures of Kit Donovan

Your website lists a lot of the active things you do – from hiking to rafting to even having a black belt in aikido. Do these activities inspire your writing, or are they a respite from it (or somewhere in between)?

I think that everything you do somehow seeds the writing – even if you don’t recognize it at the time. Right now I am pretty deep in to caregiving the people I love. I imagine that is seeping in when I actually find time to write now, and I imagine it will influence the work I do in the future.

Some of the favorite books you list from your childhood include the catalogs of Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume, among others. How have those authors in particular inspired and influenced you as a writer?

I think for the most part the books you read as kids help you see yourself better. Judy Blume’s Tiger Eyes was the book that made me feel less alone when my dad died when I was nine. Though the circumstances were vastly different, Davey felt like a big sister, leading me through some of the grief and letting me know that some of my reactions weren’t as weird as I thought – because she did them (or something like them) too. Eventually, I realized that the writers that I admired were just ordinary people who wrote – not magical, mythical creatures – and that with hard work and persistence I might actually become one too.

What’s the most recent book you’ve read that gave you a similar feeling as reading those early books?

I adored The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary Schmidt and Kate DiCamillo’s The Beatryce Prophecy. I would have devoured them as a kid.

What are you working on now that’s keeping you creatively engaged?

I’ve been working on a new middle grade cotemporary for some time, now. I’m also writing some bad poetry – which helps with the writing, since it rattles my inner perfectionist a little bit.

Thank you for your time! Where can we find you and inquire about things like school visits and what’s coming next?

My website:  www.patriciabaileyauthor.com is probably the best place. I’m pretty hit and miss on socials, but you can find me at:  @patriciabailey_author on Instagram and @pbailey.bsky.social

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World Press Freedom Day

By on May 3, 2019   /   Articles, Book Lists, Curriculum Tie-in, Diversity, Fiction, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Nonfiction  

May 3 is World Press Freedom Day, which celebrates the importance of a free press in a functional society. First organized by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, it’s a day to commemorate journalists around the world who have fought with integrity for a free press.

Here at The Mixed-Up Files, we’d like to celebrate by shining a light on middle-grade books about real and fictional investigative journalists. If you have your own favorite middle-grade book about a star reporter, tell us about it in the comment section!

 

The News Crew, (Book 1: Originally The Cruisers) by Walter Dean Myers
The is the first in a series, which included: Checkmate, A Star is Born, and Oh, Snap! Zander and his crew are underdogs at DaVinci Academy, one of the best Gifted and Talented schools in Harlem. But even these kids who are known as losers can win by speaking up. When they start their own school newspaper, stuff happens. Big stuff. Loud stuff. Stuff nobody expects. Mr. Culpepper, the Assistant Principal and Chief Executioner, is ready to be rid of Zander, Kambui, LaShonda, and Bobbi – until they prove that their writing packs enough power to keep the peace and show what it means to stand up for a cause.

 

 

Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter by Beth Fantaskey

It’s 1920s Chicago—the guns-and-gangster era of Al Capone—and it’s unusual for a girl to be selling the Tribune on the street corner. But ten-year-old Isabel Feeney is unusual . . . unusually obsessed with being a news reporter. She can’t believe her luck when she stumbles into a real-life murder scene and her hero, the famous journalist Maude Collier. The story of how Isabel fights to defend the honor of her accused friend and latches on to the murder case makes for a winning middle grade mystery.

 

 

 

The Tragically True Adventures of Kit Donovan by Patricia Bailey

Life in a Nevada mining town in 1905 is not easy for 13-year-old Kit Donovan, who is trying to do right by her deceased mother and become a proper lady. When Kit discovers Papa’s boss at the gold mine is profiting from unsafe working conditions, she realizes being a lady is tougher than it looks. With a man’s hat and a printing press, Kit puts her big mouth and all the life skills she’s learned from reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to work, defying threats of violence and finding that justice doesn’t always look like she imagined it would.

 

 

 

Adam Canfield of the Slash by Michael Winerip

Adam Canfield has to be the most overprogrammed middle-school student in America. So when super-organized Jennifer coaxes him to be coeditor of their school newspaper, THE SLASH, he wonders if he’s made a big mistake. But when a third-grader’s article leads to a big scoop, Adam and his fellow junior journalists rise to the challenge of receiving their principal’s wrath to uncover some scandalous secrets. From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and NEW YORK TIMES columnist comes a funny, inspiring debut that sneaks in some lessons on personal integrity — and captures the rush that’s connected to the breaking of a really great story.

 

 

 

The Truth About the Truman School by Dori Hillestad Butler

When Zebby and Amr create the website thetruthabouttruman.com, they want it to be honest. They want it to be about the real Truman Middle School, to say things that the school newspaper would never say, and to give everyone a chance to say what they want to say, too. But given the chance, some people will say anything—anything to hurt someone else. And when rumors about one popular student escalate to cruel new levels, it’s clear the truth about Truman School is more harrowing than anyone ever imagined.

 

 

 

Clara Voyant by Rachelle Delaney

Clara can’t believe her no-nonsense grandmother has just up and moved to Florida, leaving Clara and her mother on their own for the first time. This means her mother can finally “follow her bliss,” which involves moving to a tiny apartment in Kensington Market, working at an herbal remedy shop and trying to develop her so-called mystical powers. Clara tries to make the best of a bad situation by joining the newspaper staff at her new middle school, where she can sharpen her investigative journalistic skills and tell the kind of hard-news stories her grandmother appreciated. But the editor relegates her to boring news stories and worse . . . the horoscopes.

Worse yet, her horoscopes come true, and soon everyone at school is talking about Clara Voyant, the talented fortune-teller. Clara is horrified — horoscopes and clairvoyance aren’t real, she insists, just like her grandmother always told her. But when a mystery unfolds at school, she finds herself in a strange situation: having an opportunity to prove herself as an investigative journalist . . . with the help of her own mystical powers.

 

 

Ida B. Wells: Let the Truth Be Told by Walter Dean Myers, illus. Bonnie Christensen

This picture book biography introduces the extraordinary Ida B. Wells. Long before boycotts, sit-ins, and freedom rides, Ida B. Wells was hard at work to better the lives of African Americans.

An activist, educator, writer, journalist, suffragette, and pioneering voice against the horror of lynching, she used fierce determination and the power of the pen to educate the world about the unequal treatment of blacks in the United States.

In this picture book biography, award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers tells the story of this legendary figure, which blends harmoniously with the historically detailed watercolor paintings of illustrator Bonnie Christensen.

 

 

 

Nellie Bly and Investigative Journalism for Kids by Ellen Mahoney

In the late 1800s, the daring young reporter Elizabeth Cochrane—known by the pen name Nellie Bly—faked insanity so she could be committed to a mental institution and secretly report on the awful conditions there. This and other highly publicized investigative “stunts” laid the groundwork for a new kind of journalism in the early 1900s, called “muckraking,” dedicated to exposing social, political, and economic ills in the United States. In Nellie Bly and Investigative Journalism for Kids budding reporters learn about the major figures of the muckraking era: the bold and audacious Bly, one of the most famous women in the world in her day; social reformer and photojournalist Jacob Riis; monopoly buster Ida Tarbell; antilynching crusader Ida B. Wells; and Upton Sinclair, whose classic book The Jungle created a public outcry over the dangerous and unsanitary conditions of the early meatpacking industry. Young readers will also learn about more contemporary reporters, from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to Amy Goodman, who have carried on the muckraking tradition, and will get excited about the ever-changing world of journalism and the power of purposeful writing. Twenty-one creative activities encourage and engage a future generation of muckrakers. Kids can make and keep a reporter’s notebook; write a letter to the editor; craft a “great ideas” box; create a Jacob Riis–style photo essay; and much more.
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