Laura Anne Bird, middle-grade writer and author of Crossing the Pressure Line, will be releasing her second novel, Marvelous Jackson on Sept. 10. Marvelous Jackson, a follow-up to Crossing the Pressure Line, follows Jack Wilson, a 13-year-old boy in northern Wisconsin who struggles to find his way after his mother’s death. Wilson, a side character in the first novel, learns to rebuild his relationship with his father through his rediscovered love of baking, which ends up taking him to a large-scale baking competition in Chicago.
A Milwaukee native, Bird lives in Madison with her husband, three children and dog. Through this novel, Bird hopes to inspire children around the country with the common message of finding hope and staying afloat during challenging times, while maybe even finding joy along the way.
Bird is throwing a release party on Sept. 10 at Mystery to Me Books in Madison, and will be speaking at Wauwatosa Public Library about the book on Sept. 21. You can preorder Marvelous Jackson here.
We spoke to Bird about her new novel, her career and more.
Could you tell us a bit about your background?
I majored in English at the University of Notre Dame, and when I graduated from college, I spent my entire career working in the nonprofit sector, in communications and fund development. I was able to write, but it was for a much different purpose. I always wanted to write a children’s book, but in the meantime I got married and had three kids, so it really fell by the wayside until my three kids were suddenly teenagers. So I finally sat down and wrote my debut novel, [Crossing the Pressure Line], which came out in March of 2022.
What was the inspiration behind Marvelous Jackson? Why did you choose to give Jack Wilson from Crossing the Pressure Line his own novel?
In Crossing the Pressure Line, Jack is a really unlikable character. He always followed my main character Claire around the whole summer on his ratty old dirt bike. He just gives everyone a headache, and I think we all knew someone like that growing up. But I know that behind every bully, there’s a story. There’s someone who’s hurt, there’s some angst, and so I knew that Jack had more to him than just this one dimensional side of being a troublemaker. I wanted to peel back the layers of what people were seeing and get to the heart of what made him tick, what was bringing him sorrow and why he was so misguided. In doing that, I completely fell in love with Jack, and I hope the readers do, too.
What would you say is the theme of the novel?
It’s an ode to taking risks and making mistakes, and it celebrates the power of humor, friendship and sweet treats to make any situation better, even a broken heart. But it’s even more than that: it’s about the power of showing up for the people in your life, and all the characters in Marvelous Jackson do that in various ways. Eventually, Jack learns to as well: he learns to show up for the people who care about him, and the people he cares about.
I think that Jack’s mom was really the glue holding his little family of three together, and so when you take someone that important out of the family, it throws off all the dynamics. … He has been getting in trouble at school and at home, and he’s sort of hit a rock bottom because of his mom’s passing, and he knows it’s time to make a really big change in his life. In getting himself on a different path, he’s also able to reconnect and honor her in a way.
Jack really learns to understand that his father is also struggling, and that he has the power and skills to fix this broken relationship with his father. At the end of the day, Jack just wants his dad back, and they just have to take these tiny steps towards each other.
Why did you decide to set your novel in northern Wisconsin?
I was born and raised in Wisconsin, and I love our state. I love the Midwest, and it’s really important to me to have books that are centered in this area, because a lot of authors treat the Midwest as flyover country, and we’re so much more than that. As for Marvelous Jackson being based in the Northwoods, it’s pretty much the opposite of my first book. Crossing the Pressure Line is about a girl who lives in Chicago and leaves the city for an entire summer up north. Marvelous Jackson is the opposite of that: it’s about a boy from the Northwoods who wants to get to Chicago to audition for this world-famous baking show. So they’re just interesting parallels to each other.
I think this book will resonate with children no matter where they live because the struggles that Jack goes through, feeling like he doesn’t fit in. Kids from anywhere have felt the same things. It’s not about the geography of where Jack lives, it’s about the geography of his human heart, and I think that is something anyone can relate to.
