Colin Meloy's Wildwood

Colin Meloy is the lead singer and songwriter for The Decemberists and has completed the second of his books in the planned Wildwood Chronicles trilogy of children’s novels - which are both wonderfully illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis.

Under Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book Two (2012) follows last year's Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book 1 (2011) and tells the tale of Prue McKeel and her adventures in the Impassable Wilderness, full of animals, mystics, bandits and more.


Meloy answered some questions of NPR this week, including:

On writing dark material for young readers

"I feel like I tailored it all along, and I knew I wanted to kind of push that and make it as dark as I could, just from the books that I loved growing up — John Bellairs and Roald Dahl, who I think really pushed the envelope of what — not necessarily what dark material kids could handle, but mostly what publishers would publish, because I think kids can handle really dark material and in fact I think they really love it and long for it. So, I think I was aware of that and wanted that to be a real part of the tone of the books."