In Conversation with The Horn Book is a sponsored supplement to our free monthly e-newsletter, Horn Book Herald. This interview originally appeared in the August 2025 Horn Book Herald. To receive the Herald, sign up here.

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Horn Book Editor in Chief Elissa Gershowitz: How are you enjoying the children’s lit world?

T.Z. Layton: To be honest, I never saw myself as a children’s author, but now that I am one, I love it! First off, it’s a great honor to bring even one child into the world of reading. But I also love the range of possibilities in children’s lit. Children don’t care about genre restrictions; they just want a great story.

EG: You’re a sports parent. (Me too.) Were you also a sports kid? (I wasn’t.)

TZL: I was a sports kid. I grew up playing baseball and soccer and pretty much every other sport that was available. I also grew up reading sports books (among many others), especially baseball books by Matt Christopher. 

EG: While writing the series, how did you balance the sports action with plot/pacing/character development, or was everything so enmeshed it wasn’t an issue?

TZL: I just wrote the best novel I could. I’ve studied the art of writing extensively, but at this point in my career, I let my storytelling instincts take over. As an adult mystery and thriller writer, I think my experience with action scenes and the balancing act of plot and character development intrinsic to those genres helped with the Academy series.

EG: In sports and life: what does it mean to be a good teammate?

TZL: Having empathy and treating others as you would like to be treated.

T.Z. Layton: https://www.tzlaytonbooks.com/
Sourcebooks: https://www.sourcebooks.com/librarians-and-educators

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