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In the Boston Globe: Young adult novelist Erin Entrada Kelly isn’t afraid of the dark

LAURENCE KESTERSON

For her newest novel, “Lalani of the Distant Sea,” Erin Entrada Kelly turned to her Filipino ancestry to craft a mythic tale of a young girl on an epic journey. The best-selling author won the Newbery Medal for “Hello Universe,” which is being adapted by Netflix for a movie. She will speak at noon Sunday, Oct. 20 at the Dewitt Center Gym as part of the annual Boston Book Festival.

BOOKS: What are you reading currently?

KELLY: I have been going through a historical true crime phase. I was just on a plane and listened to “An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank” by Elaine Marie Alphin. He was a Jewish man who ran a pencil factory in Atlanta and was accused of a murdering a 13-year-old who worked for him. Before that I was listening to “The Trial of Lizzie Borden” by Cara Robertson. For some reason my audio books are very, very dark, and I fall asleep listening to them.

BOOKS: Do they ever give you bad dreams?



KELLY: For a while I was into the Russian Revolution so was lulled to sleep by sounds of that. One night I had the worst nightmare. So I decided to change gears. I started listening to Michelle Obama’s “Becoming.” Then I fell asleep and dreamt that she and I were great friends.

BOOKS: Do you have a favorite from your Russian Revolution reading phase?

KELLY: “The Family Romanov,” by Candace Fleming. I didn’t realize it at the time but it’s intended as YA. It was so accessible. What turns a lot of people away from historical nonfiction is that it can be so dense. I will learn more if I read books with specific angles into history. A book on World War II would be difficult for me to get through, but I just read “Blitzed” by Norman Ohler, which is about drug abuse in the Nazi regime. Through that one slice I learned about the war overall.

Read the entire interview as it originally appeared in The Boston Globe here.

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