Exciting News!
Heart of a Shepherd has been optioned for a movie!
I’m very excited about this. I never even dreamed of the movie end of the writing business, so there is lots for me to learn about films and how they work. My production company is Tashtego Films and the screenwriter they’ve chosen in David Myers. Optioned is a long way from made, but I should know if the film will go forward some time in the summer of 2010.
HEART OF A SHEPHERD received its first starred review from Kirkus and a second starred review from Hornbook Magazine!
Kirkus, 1 December 2008
(STARRED) Parry, Rosanne HEART OF A SHEPHERD
Sixth-grader Ignatius—he goes by “Brother”—faces a hard year as his father is deployed to Iraq, and he, the youngest of five boys, is left with his aging grandparents to manage the family ranch in Oregon. The episodic presentation, with each chapter a vignette from one of the months his father is gone, effectively portrays the seasonal changes of farm life. The spare, evocative language of his first-person narration immediately captures readers’ interest and never falters in describing a year in the life of this eminently likable boy trying hard to be the man of the house, facing up to one believable challenge after another. From raising orphaned lambs he names after hobbits to delivering a calf to rescuing a farmhand and the stock from a raging prairie fire, each event moves Brother toward a new sense of his own emotional strength. At once a gripping coming-of-age novel and a celebration of rural life, quiet heroism and the strength that comes from spirituality, this first novel is an unassuming, transcendent joy. (Fiction. 10 & up)
Hornbook Magazine, May/June 2009
Parry, Rosanne
HEART OF A SHEPHERD
With his artist mother living in Italy, his four older brothers away at school or in the service, and now his Army-Reserve father off to serve an extended tour in Iraq, sixth-grader Ignatius (thankfully nicknamed Brother) is the only one left to help his grandparents run the family ranch. “I get to thinking about the long line of soldiers that have marched away from this table, which is great if you’re the patriotic type. But it’s not so great if you are the one waiting for your dad to come home.” Distinctively set in the cattle and sheep country of eastern Oregon, this first novel chronicles Brother’s year of hard work (lambing, calving), danger (a rattlesnake, a fire), worry about his father’s safety, and pondering what direction his own future will take. (The conclusion he comes to is surprising only because we haven’t seen anything like it in children’s books in quite a long time.) Brother’s honest voice conveys an emotional terrain as thoughtfully developed as Parry’s evocation of the Western landscape. r.s.
DADDY’S HOME
DADDY’S HOME is my first picture book. It’s a sweet bedtime rhyme about a daddy putting a child to bed. It will be available from Candy Cane Press on March 15, 2009, just in time for Father’s Day.
The Class of 2K9
I am delighted to be a member of the Class of 2K9. We are a group of 22 debut authors of middle grade and young adult fiction who have banded together to support each other in becoming both fresh and enduring voices in literature for young people. We are particularly excited about our Authors-To-Go program. If you are interested in a free author visit for your classroom, book club or library, check out our website for details.
