Scholastic Acquires P.B. Kerr's New Children's Trilogy

Posted on January 2, 2004

Scholastic US and Scholastic UK have announced that the company has acquired the worldwide English language publishing rights for the first three novels of P.B. Kerr's planned book series, Children of the Lamp, in a seven-figure deal. The negotiations were conducted separately by Kerr's agent, Caradoc King of A.P. Watt.

A two-week UK auction between five publishers ended recently with a winning bid from Richard Scrivener, Publisher of Scholastic UK, after meetings between the author, Scholastic and the two other publishers in the final round of the auction. A pre-emptive offer from Jean Feiwel, Publisher of Scholastic US, before the manuscript had been formally submitted in the States, secured the books for Scholastic worldwide. The hardcover books are scheduled to be published fall '04, '05 and '06.

Although this is P.B. Kerr's first children's novel, he is well known as the thriller-writer Philip Kerr, author of the Berlin Noir trilogy, A Philosophical Investigation, Gridiron, The Shot and several other thrillers.

Film rights for The Children of the Lamp have been acquired by DreamWorks' producer team, Lorrie MacDonald and Walter Parkes, whose recent credits include Catch Me If You Can, Men in Black and Road to Perdition. They bought the rights after an exclusive submission from Robert Bookman of CAA, several meetings with P.B. Kerr and before the manuscript had been shown to publishers.

The first novel in the series is The Akhenaten Adventure. John and Philippa Gaunt are the twelve-year-old twins of an affluent New York couple. Only when their wisdom teeth appear do they develop an extraordinary gift for making other people's wishes magically come true.

In the imaginative and hilarious adventure story, John and Philippa come to London to meet their wildly eccentric genie-uncle, Nimrod. Before you can say 'Akhenaten,' the twins are pitting their fledgling Djinn skills against Iblis, the most wicked Djinn of all, which takes them to Egypt, the British Museum and finally to the North Pole.

The second novel will be The Blue Djinn of Babylon. The third will probably be set in Casablanca.