Minisode: An Interview with "Winterhouse" Author Ben Guterson

The Currently Reading Podcast

Meredith Schwartz

Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2019

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's #middlegradeMarch and so, of course, Meredith is excited to be talking to Ben Guterson, the author of the Winterhouse Trilogy of middle-grade novels. These are some of our favorite books of the year.

In this bonus mini episode, or "minisode", Ben talks about his inspiration for the novels, what's coming up in the third book, as well as a bit about his own life as a reader.

And, he gives us a book he wants to "press" into every reader's hands, too.

Here are the books we mention in this episode:

Winterhouse by Ben Guterson

The Secrets of Winterhouse by Ben Guterson

Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson

T he House with the Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Winterhouse Mysteries by Ben Guterson (no link yet! Coming in December!)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey readers, welcome to the currently reading podcast, a mini edition. I'm Meredith
0:16.1	Monday Schwartz and I wanted to jump into your feed today for a special interview with
0:20.5	one of my favorite new authors. You guys know that it's March, right?
0:24.8	Which means it's middle grade March, which is one of my very favorite months of the entire
0:30.0	reading year. I love middle grade fiction. For me it is comfort reading at its best so
0:36.2	I was so excited when listener and friend Abby Lyle Taylor recommended a book called Winter House to me.
0:44.5	It's by the Fantastic Ben Gutterson,
0:46.8	and as soon as I picked it up, I was entranced.
0:51.0	Winter House is wonderful. It follows the story of Elizabeth Summers, an 11-year-old girl who lives
0:57.4	with a perfectly malevolent aunt and uncle. All of a sudden she is told that she is going to be spending three weeks of her Christmas break at the Winter House Hotel.
1:06.0	She is basically put on a train and sent on her way and she has no idea where she's going,
1:12.9	what Winter House is, what it will be like,
1:15.3	and what adventures it will hold for her.
1:18.0	This book is classic middle grade at its best.
1:21.8	It's got fantastic characters. It's got a setting that you will want to
1:25.7	jump into and live in. And I loved it from start to finish. And by the way, some of the most beautiful
1:32.1	illustrations you've ever seen just perfectly
1:35.2	magical.
1:36.6	The second book, The Secrets of Winter House, you guys know I'm always a little trepidacious
1:41.9	about second books. This one is just as good. I was so, so happy because I love the world of Winter House.
1:50.0	And I'm so grateful that author Ben Guuterson took some time to talk with me today
1:54.4	about his inspiration for writing the books.
	...

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