We chose music from Russian composers for “The Golden Sail” and from the French impressionistic movement for “Justin Jones.” In both cases the music shaped and inspired the text. The performances themselves were absolutely exhilarating. What more could a writer want than to be able to read his own work in a large symphonic hall while a superb seventy-piece orchestra plays some of the world’s greatest music behind him to enhance the emotional impact? Even so, since I did not really know if the stories were going to work until I had them on their feet in front of an audience, the actual performances were white-knuckle inducing.

They were also sheer bliss.

“The Golden Sail” is one of three stories seeing print for the first time in this book. The other two, “The Giant’s Tooth” and “The Stinky Princess,” both grew in what is the closest thing I have to a “usual” way: I wrote down the basic ideas when they first occurred to me, stuffed them in my Idea Folder, then pulled them out when the time seemed right. I worked on the stories simultaneously, often doing something on both tales in a single day. So I was somewhat surprised, when I finished them, to realize that the lead characters had made diametrically opposed choices—one sacrificing love for community, the other abandoning community for love. Which, if nothing else, probably goes to show that you shouldn’t assume you know what a writer believes from any single piece of work. Heck, some days even I can’t figure out what I believe!

Anyway, given their relative strangeness, both tales seemed appropriate for a book called Odder Than Ever.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably fairly odd, too.

That’s fine with me.

Odds are good.

About the Author

BRUCE COVILLE is the author of over 100 books for children and young adults, including the international bestseller My Teacher is an Alien, the Unicorn Chronicles series, and the much-beloved Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. His work has appeared in a dozen languages and won children’s choice awards in a dozen states.

Before becoming a full time writer Bruce was a teacher, a toymaker, a magazine editor, a gravedigger, and a cookware salesman. He is also the creator of Full Cast Audio, an audiobook company devoted to producing full cast, unabridged recordings of material for family listening and has produced over a hundred audiobooks, directing and/or acting in most of them.

Bruce lives in Syracuse, New York, with his wife, illustrator and author Katherine Coville.