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Dashka
Award Winning JournalistChildren’s, Middle & YA Author
Travels from: Oakland, CA

“Amusing scenes balance weightier ones in this appealing chapter book, the first of two volumes planned for the Feylawn Chronicles series.” —Booklist

New York Times bestselling author Dashka Slater has been telling stories since she could talk. An award-winning journalist, she is also the author of eleven books of fiction and non-fiction for children and adults. Her children’s picture books include: Escargot, winner of the Wanda Gag Read-Aloud Award; A Book for Escargot, an Indie bestseller; Dangerously Ever After, which is currently being made into an animated film by Fantasiation Studios; and The Antlered Ship, a Junior Library Guild selection and a Parents Choice Recommended book that received four starred reviews and was named Best Picture Book of the year by both Amazon and the Northern California Independent Bookseller’s Association. Her middle grade Feylawn Chronicles series begins with The Book of Fatal Errors, which BookPage calls “A seamless combination of fantasy and mystery wrapped around a classical coming-of-age narrative,” and will continue in 2022 with The Book of Stolen Time.

Dashka’s best-selling true crime narrative, The 57 Bus, has received numerous accolades, including the Stonewall Book Award from the American Library Association, the Beatty Award from the California Library Association, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor. The recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Slater grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts but has spent most of her adult life in Oakland, California, where she is always working on far too many writing projects.

Dashka's Featured Titles

Love, Escargot

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) |
Children’s

Bonjour! Escargot is back, with a magnifique beret and a special invitation.

From New York Times-bestselling author Dashka Slater, Love, Escargot is the third hilarious book in the award-winning Escargot picture book series; perfect for—but not limited to—Valentine’s Day!

Today is Snailentine’s Day, and Escargot is on his way to a party. Will his Snailentine be there? Maybe he will find another snail who also likes to read books and eat salad with a light vinaigrette.

But when he arrives at the party, Escargot is greeted not by a snail, but by a vole. Mon dieu! This is not a Snailentine’s Day party at all. It is at a Volentine’s Day party! At first, Escargot wants to hide in his shell, but in the end, he finds a surprising new friend.

The Book of Stolen Time: Second Book in the Feylawn Chronicles

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) |
Middle Grade

From New York Times–bestselling author Dashka Slater comes the whimsical and witty sequel to The Book of Fatal Errors!

Rufus may have successfully sent the feylings home to the Green World, but he still has one pesky feyling under his wing: Nettle, his sometimes enemy, now mentor. Nettle is in charge of helping Rufus and his cousin Abigail protect Feylawn, their grandfather’s magical and mysterious homestead.

But this difficult task becomes even more dangerous when a leopard appears in the woods without warning; strange, waterlogged women arrive to warn of impending doom; and a goblin begins digging his way back to Earth, hungry for revenge. Meanwhile, Rufus’s father is intent on selling Feylawn to the highest bidder. Can Rufus and Abigail save Feylawn and its magic? Or will they have to say goodbye to the feylings forever?

In The Book of Stolen Time, our favorite heroes are back! And magic, mischief, and adventure abound.

The Book of Fatal Errors: First Book in the Feylawn Chronicles

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) |
Middle Grade

Award-winning author Dashka Slater spins a tale of friendship, magic, and eternal life in The Book of Fatal Errors, an evocative and witty middle-grade fantasy.

Rufus doesn’t just make mistakes – he makes fatal errors. Clumsy and awkward, he feels entrapped by his teasing classmates and their constant laughter. But now it is summer. Rufus is free. He roams the wildlands of his grandfather’s mysterious homestead, blissfully unaware of the danger up ahead.

And there is much danger. Rufus and his snooty cousin Abigail soon become entangled in the tantalizing world of the feylings, mischievous fairly-like creatures desperate to find their way home. In helping the feylings, Rufus tumbles down a dark path rich with age-old secrets and difficult truths. Any move he makes might be his final fatal error.

Or perhaps, his most spectacular beginning.

A Book for Escargot

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) |
Children’s

*An Amazon Best Book of the Year and Indie Bestseller!*

In A Book for Escargot, the standalone sequel to Escargot–written by award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author Dashka Slater and illustrated by Sydney Hanson–we follow a funny and charming French snail through a library to find the book of his dreams.

Bonjour!
It is moi, Escargot, your favorite French snail.
Today I am going on a trip to the library, where there are so many stories to choose from!
Stories about dog superheroes…
guinea pig detectives….
and flamingo astronauts.

But sadly, none of these books is about a daring snail hero who saves the day. What is that you say? Perhaps this is the book about the snail hero? Ooh-la-la!

Baby Shoes (padded board book)

Bloomsbury Children’s Books |
Children’s

Rediscover acclaimed author Dashka Slater’s joyful picture book about a baby on the go–now in a padded book form!

Baby loves his brand-new white shoes, taking them all over the neighborhood while his frantic mom chases behind him. But he just can’t resist stomping through puddles, squishing fallen plums, and dancing in fresh paint. It isn’t long before those white, high-jumping, fast-running shoes are speckled and spotted with every color of the rainbow.

Dashka Slater’s delightful, rhythmic text and Hiroe Nakata’s sweet, jaunty illustrations are the perfect match for this playful tale of fun, sun, and fabulous shoes!

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) |
Young Adult

Dashka Slater’s The 57 Bus, a riveting nonfiction book for teens about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment, tells the true story of an agender teen who was set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California.

A New York Times Bestseller
Stonewall Book Award Winner—Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist

One teenager in a skirt.
One teenager with a lighter.
One moment that changes both of their lives forever.

If it weren’t for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one.

Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight.

The Antlered Ship

Beach Lane Books |
Children’s
Parents’ Choice Recommended

An inquisitive fox sets off on a seafaring voyage with a crew of deer and pigeons in this enchanting tale of friendship and adventure.

Marco the fox has a lot of questions, like: how deep does the sun go when it sinks into the sea? And why do birds have such lizardy feet? But none of the other foxes share his curiosity. So when a magnificent ship adorned with antlers and with a deer for a captain arrives at the dock looking for a crew, Marco volunteers, hoping to find foxes who are as inquisitive as he is that can answer his questions. The crew finds adventure and intrigue on their journey. And, at last, Marco finds the answer to his most important question of all: What’s the best way to find a friend you can talk to?

Dangerously Ever After

Dial Books |
Children’s

Not all princesses are made of sugar and spice–some are made of funnier, fiercer stuff

Princess Amanita laughs in the face of danger. Brakeless bicycles, pet scorpions, spiky plants–that’s her thing. So when quiet Prince Florian gives her roses, Amanita is unimpressed . . . until she sees their glorious thorns! Now she must have rose seeds of her own. But when huge, honking noses grow instead, what is a princess with a taste for danger to do?

For readers seeking a princess with pluck comes an independent heroine who tackles obstacles with a bouquet of sniffling noses. At once lovely and delightfully absurd, here’s a story to show how elastic ideas of beauty and princesses can be.

The Wishing Box

Chronicle Books |
Fiction

A sometimes funny, sometimes magical first novel, The Wishing Box explores the surprising and unintended consequences of getting what you ask for. Julia, an almost-30 single mom whose life is mostly together, lives in Oakland with her seven-year-old son. Never suspecting it will actually work, she and her sister create a wishing box and half-seriously hold a ceremony for the return of the father who abandoned them as children. Astonishingly, he comes back but Julia’s life has already moved abruptly in a new direction, and she has taken off in much the same way her father had many years before. Julia and her unusual family are at the heart of this novel about appearances and disappearances, the desire to control the future and explain the past, and the legacies passed on from one generation to another.

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Presentations for Grades K-5

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The 57 Bus

The true story of two teenagers and the crime that changed their lives.

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Dashka’s Resources & Press

Dashka’s News

Honors, Awards & Recognition

NYT Bestseller
Winner of the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Award
YALSA-ALA Excellence for Nonfiction Award Finalist
Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book Award for Nonfiction
Winner of the California Library Association’s Beatty Award
Winner of the California Book Award Gold Medal
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award
Northern California Independent Booksellers Best Young Adult Book
A Junior Library Guild Selection
A TAYSAs Top Ten Book
A Washington Post Best Children’s Book of the Year
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Best Teen Nonfiction Book
A Shelf Awareness Best Children’s & Teen Book
A 2018 American Library Association Rainbow Reads Top Ten Book
A 2018 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers
A Children’s Book Review Best Young Adult Book
A New York Public Library Notable Book for Teens
A Denver Public Library Best & Brightest Teen Book
A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Teen Book
A Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year
A Bustle Best True Crime Book
A Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List Book
An International Literacy Association Notable Book for a Global Society
A Capitol Choices Noteworthy Book for Children & Teens
Nerdy Book Club Award for Long Form Nonfiction
On the CCBC Choices list from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center
A NCSS-CBC Notable Social Science Trade Book for Young People
Oklahoma Library Association Sequoyah Book Award Nominee
Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards Program Master List
Winner Green Mountain Book Award
Rhode Island Teen Book Award Nominee
North Carolina Young Adult Book Award Nominee
A Florida Teen Read
A Grand Canyon Reader Award Nominee
A Project Lit Book Club Selection

Media Kit

By clicking the link below you will be directed to a Google Docs Folder
where you can download author photos and cover images.

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