S. A. Bodeen

S.A. Bodeen grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. She graduated from UW-River Falls with a degree in Secondary Ed., then joined the Peace Corps with her husband and went to Tanzania, East Africa. Her first picture book, Elizabeti's Doll (written as Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen) was published in 1998, followed by six other picture books. Her first YA novel written as S.A. Bodeen, the award-winning The Compound, came out from Feiwel and Friends in 2008. Bodeen's new novel, her eighth, is Trapped.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

A recent book I loved was A Hundred Thousand Worlds by Bob Proehl. I picked it up at the library and the jacket copy was enough to make me check it out:

Valerie Torrey took her son, Alex, and fled Los Angeles six years ago—leaving both her role on a cult sci-fi TV show and her costar husband after a tragedy blew their small family apart. Now Val must reunite nine-year-old Alex with his estranged father, so they set out on a road trip from New York, Val making appearances at comic book conventions along the way.

I mean come on, cult sci-fi show? Comic cons? What’s not to love? As it turned out, there was so much more to love about the book. Valerie’s story intersected with others in the industry, including a writer and a comic book artist, all trying to answer their own questions about their lives and professions, amidst the backdrop of conventions rife with insider politics. The story is told not only through the eyes of Val and Alex, but also the others, and although Val is closed off because of a slowly revealed tragedy in her past with Alex’s father, who happened to be her co-star, her eyes open to the possibility of letting others in to her and Alex’s life. I loved the backstory of the publishing world, as well as how quickly I came to care for the main characters. Definitely a great read.

Visit S.A. Bodeen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue