AWE is a tiny word that holds the world between A and E.

AWE can be brought on by the mysteries of the cosmos, the sense of being in the presence of something you know very little about, something that contains an element of fear, something transcendant. And it can give you the frightening sense that you’re completely inconsequential, yet can simultaneously lift you up because you see how small your problems are in the grand scheme of the universe. But the infinitesimally small can also be awesomely mindblowing.

How can light be both a wave and particle?

How can 95% of the universe be made up dark matter and dark energy that we know so very little about?

95% of the universe is outside of our grasp??!! WOW!

AWE. I’m a fan of it. It gets me out of bed—the birdsong. Chirps and trills send me to a place of AWE….and wonder. How do those feather-throated minstrels of the morning actually sing?

Image: Rhododendrites (Wikimedia Commons, 4.0)

These questions and others help keep the horrors that are happening in our world from sending me into a spiral of despair. AWE becomes an act of defiance, one that lifts me up, keeps me moving forward and writing books for children.

But I also need AWE to enrich and sustain my sense of self. Who am I if I’m not experiencing the wonders of our world AND sharing them with others?

Making art is intrinsic to AWE. During school visits, I’m often asked “Where do you get your ideas?” And my answer is pretty much the standard “From everywhere.” But what I’d really like to say is:

Where do ideas really come from? What is the process in our mind that ends with the thought “I have an idea!”? What is consciousness? Where does consciousness go when we die?”Does it get dumped into an enormous consciousness stew that is then redistributed among newborns? Or does each consciousness remain distinct and then get passed along? Or does each consciousness remain distinct never to return in human form? Or….

You get the idea. Cue the impatient, tomato-throwing 2nd graders.

But this curiosity, this questioning, is the wonder that feeds into AWE. Wanting to explore the mysterious corners of the universe…that can be found in just about anything.

Wow! Are dust mites really that creepy?

Yes, they are!

AWE also keeps us from being BORED! What is boredom but the lack of curiosity?!

AWE gives us (including kids) something to fill our cup with besides angst and the wringing of hands about the state of our world that accomplishes nothing. HOPE flies in on the wings of AWE. And HOPE feeds the sense of agency. We can take action!

Oh, and one more thing. Ever notice how the word AWE is contained within the word AWARE? Awareness jumpstarts curiosity. Curiosity makes us seek knowledge. Knowledge gives us the names of things. We internalize those names and the very notion of the thing itself. With names and knowledge comes understanding and understanding builds empathy.

All this to say I write nonfiction picture books about our planet in hopes of setting off the AWE cascade:

• the wondering and questioning,

  • the knowledge-seeking,

    • the naming,

      • the understanding, and

        • the empathizing.

I also write books because I love how AWEsome it feels when I solve puzzles, ones that involve voice, plot, structure, and characters. Puzzles that also require drilling down to the word level. Who knows how my writer’s mind actually works? It’s thrilling when it does. It’s frustrating when it doesn’t.

But that’s okay, because I’ll figure things out—eventually. The effort is worth the struggle…which is why I’ll never use AI to write a single word.

AI can’t think. It can’t feel AWE. It can’t feel anything. It can’t replace my human heart. And it can’t replace yours.

Do you feel a sense of AWE when you create?

HeartLand has taken a long and winding path to publication.

It began life as a historical verse novel, one that Deirdre Jones, my editor at Little Brown, wanted to acquire in Fall of 2022 but was sidelined at the acquisitions meeting. They would only make an offer if it was contemporary. After several sleepless nights, I declined, so I could remain true to the reasons why I wrote the story in the first place.

Fast forward a few months, and my agent asked if I’d consider revising the story as a dual timeline, keeping the historical version and adding a contemporary thread.

Hmmmmm.

I did some research, and decided contemporary issues would dovetail nicely with the historical ones. And I thought it would be a straightforward revision to weave a second story in with the first.

Cue the eye roll.

Yes, I was delusional.

I told my agent “yes,” and in a couple of weeks devised a second story, wrote a new synopsis, asked critique partners to review it, made revisions, and sent it to my agent who then hurled this “Hail Mary” over the publishing wall to Deirdre.

This was September of 2023. It had been nearly a year since I’d declined Little Brown’s offer, so we had no idea if Deirdre would still be interested.

She responded IMMEDIATELY, and in short order, I had a deal! I can’t tell you how excited I was….and then terrified. Because now I had to WRITE THE BOOK.

Which I did over the next four months (roughly one month to write, 6 weeks to ignore while doing other things, and about a month to revise).

When I received the first round of editorial notes, I knew I needed to go deeper. I had only lived with these new characters for a few months, so I needed to get to know them as well as I knew the characters in the historical story. I revised over the summer of 2024, and sent it back.

In late Fall 2024, Deirdre’s second set of editorial notes indicated I still needed to go deeper. I revised, and sent it back in Jan. 2025. This time I waited a LONG time for her response, because Deirdre was suggesting line edits (on 90,000 words!)…and requesting I make substantial cuts in addition to the cuts she’d highlighted. I had already cut 20,000 words before sending it to her, LOL.

I knew that THE LOST YEAR by Katherine Marsh ran 73,444 words. THE BLACKBIRD GIRLS by Anne Blankman was 83,362 words. Both were dual timelines and needed that high word count to tell their stories. But neither contained any sections in verse, a factor that affects PAGE count.

Deirdre wanted me to get word count below 75,000 because….

they had done a trial pour into a middle grade format, and the story ran longer than 500 pages!!! CUE THE PANIC PARTY!

It didn’t matter that the prose sections of my book were filled with short, snappy chapters, and the verse sections contained lots of white space and concrete poems or poems that felt like they were illustrated. We couldn’t publish a middle grade novel with that many pages. Soooooo….

Deirdre suggested experimenting with a larger trim size….But I knew what I had to do…CUT CUT CUT. Over the course of about 10 weeks of 12-hr days at my desk, that’s what I did. Title this phase: “How I spent the summer of 2025.”

• I cut lines in prose chapters that ran over onto a short last page.

• I cut entertaining, but unnecessary, digressions.

• I cut a few resonating threads.

• I combined a few chapters.

• I cut words from paragraphs that ended in short lines.

• I ran many poems together without page breaks, as long as it didn’t interfere with formatting.

• I cut poems that I loved but weren’t necessary for the story.

• I cut lines within poems.

• I consolidated poems.

• I turned one poem into a single line in another poem.

And I had to avoid creating continuity errors in the process.

PLUS I had to hold onto the

I focused on compression. Was there a word or phrase that did the work of many?

(During this time, I was also involved in marketing prep and jacket design. They brought in a fantastic cover illustrator, James Firnhaber, who also created the maps from my terrible sketches and a spot illustration for the jacket.)

I also did the UNTHINKABLE! I adjusted the verse line length for many of the poems. The narrator in the verse story is a drummer. Now, instead of feeling the beat of her lines drumming down the vertical length of the page, I rewrote many of her poems to feel like she was drumming across the page. This nearly killed me. Maybe not as dramatically bloody as Macbeth…but you get the idea.

And right after my editor started a monthlong sabbatical in mid-July of 2025, I realized that:

1. if I didn’t know how long the verse lines could be before running over, and

2. if I didn’t know how many lines were allowed on the page,

3. how would I know if a poem would fit on a single page or two?

Cue the NAUSEA! I sent a frantic note to Jessica Levine, my assistant editor.

“What is the trim size? How long can lines be before they run over? How many lines to a page?”

Jessica talked me down off the ledge. She sent me a spread from one of the prose chapters as an example, but said things may still change. Not to worry. She was confident that I could make significant cuts. I had the skills to do so.

I breathed. I continued on…I feared going bald…and then…

I sent Deirdre my 71,000 word revision.

And took a week off in Maine to regain my sense of the world outside of my novel.

I sat on the deck of the cabin, looking out over Muscongus Bay, every molecule of my being drained of adrenaline. I did nothing and talked to few people, not even to my husband who waited patiently for me to recover.

Deirdre was pleased. I breathed some more.

And then we spent the next few months going back and forth with myriad small changes, focusing largely on poem formatting.

Soooooooo…….after all of that work, I’m THRILLED with the reviews that have come in so far…

School Library Journal ⭐️ : “Hoffmann beautifully blends the stories of Xyla, a character readers will fall in love with, and her mother’s diary…VERDICT: Highly recommended for all middle grade collections.”

Booklist: HeartLand is “A nuanced portrait of a tween aspiring to find herself in a deeply complex world.”

Publishers Weekly: HEARTLAND is “an evocative story” and “an illuminating exploration of the enduring impact of past decisions on future generations.”

Blurb: Out of the Dust meets Me and Marvin Gardens in this coming-of-age novel about a young misfit searching for the truth of her family’s past, set against the backdrop of an environment coverup.

AND Little Brown is doing a Goodreads giveaway! Apologies for it being U.S. only!

Goodreads Giveaway!!!

Please share in my joy and enter the giveaway (even if you may have already preordered🥰). You can pass the book along to another reader!

THANK YOU!

And to those of you scribbling or typing away in your garret (or in the car or at the kitchen table, like me), know that I’m with you in spirit! Your YES is coming, but only if you finish and risk sending your work out into the world! Go for it! ❤️

About animals in the ocean that most people know little about, and an ecosystem that’s in danger from trawling, overfishing, and deep sea mining. It’s about creatures that deserve our consideration and respect. That’s reason enough to write the book. Yes?

Well, I’m a Sagittarian, a fire sign, so there’s always more to it than that.

The ocean is not just a scientific curiosity. It’s an otherworldly experience. For land dwellers and ocean dwellers, alike, the ocean’s depths can be a fearsome.

I wanted kids to feel the fear, the sense of urgency that spurs tiny animals called zooplankton on their harrowing journey. An urgency born of hunger and survival.

BUT their luminescence and strange shapes add something else. These creatures resembling “kinetic glass” also make the journey spectacularly beautiful.

Years ago, when I was earning my MFA, I wrote a seminar paper on the sublime.

“Say what?” you might ask.

The sublime is a blend of beauty, grandeur, and awe intertwined with our own sense of smallness and fear, but fear experienced through enough distance to welcome delight, pleasure, and wonder.

When my life feels out of control. When I’m feeling blue. When I’m wondering how some people in this world can be so cruel, I turn toward the natural world for an uplift. And it arrives in the form of awe.

I feel it when I look at these marvelous, delicate ocean creatures…

or at an ant carrying a flower.

I feel it when I listen to music (especially if the music is live), and yes, that music can also be the sound of creek chuckling, the call of an owl I can’t see in the dark, or the yips and response of coyotes across the ridge.

Or I feel it in the art of the sunset across the bay. How small and insignificant am I against the backdrop of the ocean? the planet? the universe?

So I hope that THE OCEAN’S HEART embodies the sublimity of the deep ocean and shares a frisson of fear mixed with wonder. When kids think of the ocean, I want them to think of the mysteries of the deep and the beauty it contains.

And I want them to be inspired to care and learn more.

In celebration of the upcoming release of THE OCEAN’S HEART and my fabulous publisher, Lerner/Millbrook, I’m doing a preorder prize raffle!!!

(Yes, I just found out that Amazon is shipping early, but I will still honor any order before March 3 as a preorder!!!)

Preorder THE OCEAN’S HEART before March 3 and win some fabulous ocean-themed prizes, including:

In addition to prize entries, preorders through Noe Valley Bookstore will receive a signed copy of THE OCEAN’S HEART, bookmarks, and stickers.

But everyone who preorders from ANY shopping site (including Noe Valley Books) and then emails me or DMs me on IG, BlueSky, or Facebook will receive three tickets toward a raffle. Please let me know where you’d like to use your tickets. Example, if you’d really like to win THE RADIANT SEA, specify that you’d like all three of your tickets to be used toward that prize. Or you could spread them out over three different prizes.

PRIZE 1: A signed copy of THE RADIANT SEA!! See more of the book’s interior on this blog post. It was co-authored by Steven Haddock, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute marine biologist who reviewed every aspect of THE OCEAN’S HEART. His book is an engaging, fascinating, and exquisitely beautiful look at what lights up the sea. And the photos (many of them his) are stunning! It turns out that most sea creatures make or refract different kinds of light in their efforts to find a mate, evade predators, or capture prey. You don’t have to read a word to appreciate the beauty of this book, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you found yourself immersed in its pages for hours. Its retail price is $55.

PRIZE 2: Although octopus larvae are considered zooplankton, once they reach adulthood, they become bottom dwellers. And this psychedelic bottom dweller is GORGEOUS! The laser cut wooden pieces include a variety of sea creatures and other unusual shapes. The colors are rich, and the quality of the cuts well done. It comes in a lovely wooden box with a laser cut octopus image in full color on top. I assembled this puzzle just as I was finishing the final proofread of THE OCEAN’S HEART. For me, it was the most difficult, but also the most rewarding to assemble, of the three higher-count puzzles shown here. Its retail price is $45.

PRIZE 3: Like octopuses, anemones start life as zooplankton, before settling on the ocean floor. Many of you have seen them in tide pools, but the variety of anemones in this puzzle is astonishing! My photo doesn’t do them justice. I assembled this puzzle while waiting to see the final cover of THE OCEAN’S HEART. Its retail price is $29.

PRIZE 4: Finally, jellyfish!!! The critters that remain zooplankton throughout their lives. This puzzle was the one that set me off on finding others with ocean themes, but once again, my photo doesn’t do it justice. The colors are quite rich but a little more earth-toned than the octopus or anemone puzzles. This one is also a bit easier to assemble than the previous two, because it has a white-margined border and a nametag for each jellyfish shown. It comes in a cylindrical container, and its retail price is $25.

PRIZES 5+6: Mudpuppy’s Ocean Life puzzles are specifically designed for kids, but great for the whole family. I am giving away two of these puzzles. A vibrantly-colored assortment of sea creatures, this puzzle’s unusual whale shape adds to the fun! Its retail price is $18.

PRIZE 7: A 30 minute AMA, or virtual school visit, including Q+A, bookmarks, and stickers. I would love to chat with you or with you and your students! Anyone who wins this prize can gift it to a teacher or librarian, if they’d like.

So there you have it, folks! I’m sorry that I can only ship to U.S. destinations, but I can ZOOM anywhere!!! Looking forward to sending these prizes out into the world, like newly born zooplankton, along with THE OCEAN’S HEART!!!

Let me know if you have any questions!

It might be strange to say this, but as I read each sentence of the review, I felt seen. My purpose in writing the book, the care that my editors and the amazing illustrator, Khoa Le, took with all of the details, the enthusiastic and careful vetting of the text and illustrations by Stephen Haddock, a marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute….all of the work that went into this book was being acknowledged by a reader who really “got” what we were trying to do. So tears of joy! I can’t wait to share this book with kids!

I’ll be giving sneak peeks of this book during World Read Aloud Day on Feb. 4, 2026. Please email me to sign up for a virtual school visit!

Thanks to Carol Hinz, Leila Sales, Khoa Le (such a phenomenal artist!) and the entire team at Millbrook/Lerner for having a vision of what this book could be and then making it so. Thanks, also, to my fabulous agent who knows I need a little self control when it comes to back matter. I ❤️ you all!

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jilanne-hoffmann/the-oceans-heart/

https://www.270reasons.com/

Please vote!

Subscribe now

Welcome to my house. I hope to be invited over to yours.

Looking for the Kidlit community in the Substack space. Love discussing all things kidlit, ranging from the quirks of the industry to the creative process. I post weekly on my Wordpress blog, reviewing picture books and middle grade that I love or find unusual. Perhaps those posts will show up here, or whatever else is on my mind. You can find my books and more about me through my Linktree.

Subscribe now