Today we are very excited to share an interview with author Joy McCullough!
Read on to learn more about the author, the book, and a giveaway!
Meet the Author: Joy McCullough
Joy McCullough writes books and plays from her home in the Seattle area, where she lives with her husband and two children. She is the author of the middle grade novels Across the Pond, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Not Starring Zadie Louise, Code Red, Kestrel Takes Flight, and Basil & Dahlia, as well as the middle grade series Team Awkward, and the picture books Harriet’s Ruffled Feathers, Champ and Major: First Dogs, and The Story of a Book. Her debut novel Blood Water Paint was longlisted for the National Book Award and was a William C. Morris Debut Award Finalist. Visit her at JoyMcCullough.com.
About the Book: Kestrel Takes Flight
A girl learns to stand up for herself and embrace the true meaning of home against the backdrop of the Montana wilderness in this heartfelt novel in verse by acclaimed author Joy McCullough.
A kestrel
is the smallest
bird of prey
in North America.
Kestrel doesn’t feel much like the fierce bird for which she is named. Not after being rushed away from her grandfather’s strict church community to the wilds of Montana. Her mother has gotten a job at a conservation institute, where she’ll work with a special breed of dog to help make interactions between humans and bears safer.
At first, Kes is terrified of the dogs and angry at her mother for ripping her from the only world she’s known. But with some distance from her grandfather, she starts to understand how badly his bark hurt. In this new terrain, can Kestrel discover a safe place to spread her wings and soar?
~Author Chat~
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
Kestrel Takes Flight began with unsold picture book about all the different kinds of penguins. While researching that book, I learned about fairy penguins, the smallest species of penguin, which live in Australia, where they are endangered by an invasive species of fox, but are protected from those foxes by enormous white livestock guardian dogs called Maremmas, who are trained specially for that purpose. Of course I immediately thought this had the makings of an excellent middle grade novel. But I wasn’t the only one.
Often when a book is announced with a very similar premise to what one is working on, an agent or editor will soothe the author, assuring them it’s all in the execution and of course their book will be different. But when a middle grade novel was announced with the exact same premise as the one I was working on – an American girl moving to Australia because her mom had gotten a job helping to train the Maremma dogs protecting the fairy penguins…I knew it was just too close. I took a step back and assessed what I loved about the book I’d been working on. And while fairy penguins and foxes and angelic bodyguard dogs were of course magical, the real heart of the story was the girl and her mother, escaping from an emotionally abusive home, and learning what love and family should really feel like.
So I did some research on other kinds of conservation dogs and I learned about Karelian bear dogs, originally used in Russia for bear hunting, and a woman in Montana who has developed a way of training these dogs to reduce human-bear encounters. And as it turned out, my mother-daughter story worked just as well in Montana!
YABC: What research did you do to write this book?
Well, initially I did a bunch of research about fairy penguins and invasive foxes and Maremma dogs in Australia! But then I pivoted and I got to learn all about Karelian bear dogs and human-bear encounters in Montana (and elsewhere). If you search “Wind River Bear Institute” and “public library” you can watch a wonderful library presentation done by the woman who trains the dogs on the work they do. One small tidbit – in the hundreds of encounters where Karelian bear dogs have been used to scare problem bears away from human-inhabited areas, not a single bear, dog, or human has ever been harmed!
In my quest to find the right type of conservation dog to fit my story, I also got to learn about all kinds of conservation dogs doing astonishing things.
YABC: What can readers expect to find in your books?
Messy, complex girls with agency; a lot of found families; overcoming trauma; hope.
YABC: If you could time travel, what would you want to see?
As someone who writes a fair bit of historical fiction, this is hard! But probably a play at Shakespeare’s Globe, in his day. (Assuming I could very quickly return to the personal hygiene and medical advancements of our current day.)
YABC: What other age group would you consider writing for?
Well, I am currently published in picture books, middle grade, young adult, and have my adult debut coming in August! So the only age group left is chapter books! And I would absolutely love to do chapter books – I actually subbed a chapter book as the first thing after my debut, but the acquiring editor had me age it up to middle grade. Then I subbed another chapter book series that didn’t sell. So I have written them, and hopefully one day will get to publish them too!
YABC: What daily thing do you see that brings you joy?
My dog, Batty. (Named for Batty, the youngest sister in The Penderwicks.) Any dog on the street. Any dog video. There’s a theme here.
YABC: What’s a book you’ve recently read and loved?
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.
YABC: Is there an organization or cause that is close to your heart?
WashMasks Mutual Aid is a Washington-based collective supporting migrant and indigenous farmworkers in Washington state. They began in the height of the pandemic, distributing PPE to farmworkers. I sewed hundreds of masks for them (this was before we knew that cloth masks weren’t ideal). They’ve since expanded to food drives, book drives, fund-raising auctions and concerts, etc. And a fun book tie-in tidbit – their founder is an incredible Seattle activist and actress who originated the role of Susanna in my play Blood Water Paint.
YABC: What’s up next for you?
This is a very big year for me! Kestrel Takes Flight is my first book release of the year, followed by Team Awkward #3 (MG) in June, How to Train Your Evil Robot (PB) in July, Suffer a Witch (adult) in August, and Team Awkward #4 (MG) in December! So I’ve got something coming for pretty much everyone this year! And I’m currently working on a co-authored middle grade with Hannah V. Sawyerr, which is coming in 2027.
Title: Kestrel Takes Flight
Author: Joy McCullough
Release Date: 05/26/2026
Publisher: Atheneum
ISBN-10: 1665972653
ISBN-13: 9781665972659
Genre: Middle Grade Novel-in-Verse
Age Range: 10+
~ Giveaway Details ~
Use the Rafflepress Form below to enter
*Be sure to include a complete mailing address for the second entry question to qualify to win*
Three (3) winners will receive a hardcover copy of Kestrel Takes Flight (Joy McCullough) ~US Only!
I loved, loved this new McCullough middle grades book when I was lucky enough to receive an arc copy! Great story about escaping an abusive, controlling family member and discovering new family. Plus Karelian bear dogs?! So good and a perfect, shorter length making it approachable for a wider range of readers.
I love this author’s books and can’t wait for this one.
I’d love to read this book, sounds really good. Love the gorgeous cover!
Soar, Kestrel!