Glee star Chris Colfer was so excited to hear that his debut book lands at #1 on the 8/4  NYT Children’s Chapter Books Best Seller list that he  leaked the news yesterday afternoon, via a tweet. The leak was picked up by the Hollywood Reporter, which noted that “Colfer first came up with the idea when he was in grade school but wrote the book between scenes on Glee.

Prepub reviews for The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (Hachette/LBYR; Hachette Audio) were not particularly strong, but most acknowledge, as Booklist puts it,  that the many Glee fans “will not be disappointed by the giddy earnestness of the writing.”

Last week’s debut, Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman, (Random House YR), arrived on the list at #8 with much better prepub attention; four starred reviews. Booklist says, “Hartman proves dragons are still fascinating in this impressive high fantasy.” The Washington Post agreed, “Nothing strikes dread in a reviewer’s heart like a dragon on a book cover. Can the author infuse this tired trope with fresh blood, or is it doomed to flame out in blatant cliche? Happily, Rachel Hartman, with her richly imagined reptile and human characters, proves more than equal to the task.” The book continues on the new list at #9. The debut began bullding librarian buzz on YA GalleyChat back in March.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2012 at 2:09 pm and is filed under 2012 -- Summer, Bestsellers, Childrens and YA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.