10. SEE YOU THEN, JOSHUA JACOBS – Middle Grade Contemporary

Mentor Name: Lisa Lewis Tyre

Mentee Name: Peggy J. Sheridan

Title: SEE YOU THEN, JOSHUA JACOBS

Category: Middle Grade

Genre: Contemporary

Word Count: 40,000

Pitch:

When Suzie Martin meets her brainy new neighbor, Joshua, it looks like her year as the Incredible Friendless Wonder is over. But she gets more than she bargained for. Time travel experiments, talking with the dead, a mysterious illness—it’s too much! In one short year, she’ll learn more about fear, friendship and the space-time continuum than she ever thought possible.

Excerpt:

Two items caught my eye as the movers carried them into the brick house across the street: a lab table and a box marked Caution – Flammable. Weird. I blinked into the sun. Maybe I was seeing things. From behind the blinds of our living room, I watched for more clues about the people who would now live in old Mrs. Harper’s house.

It was impossible to tell but they had to be from somewhere more interesting than Summerville, South Carolina. Our big claim to fame was being the birthplace of sweet tea. Not that I don’t like sweet tea, but it’s not exactly life changing.

The men in gray coveralls pulled more out of the back of the long truck. Couches. Chairs. Boxes. None of them told me what I really wanted to know. Did this family have a daughter my age? Half of me hoped they did. The other half wasn’t so sure. The last time someone moved in to the neighborhood, it didn’t work out so hot for me.