The Quirks: Welcome to Normal - Softcover

From Children's Literature Network (a note about The Quirks from author Erin Soderberg):

As a kid, I was always a little--okay, a lot--quirky. I'm an only child, so I spent quite a bit of time alone creating fake friends to chat with, imagining funny situations to put myself in, and making faces at myself in the mirror (sometimes, I even did this when friends were over, which is something my friends still tease me about to this day...). I was and always will be a little odd, and I've never felt like I fit in exactly right. Lucky for me, my dad taught me from an early age that weird is a good thing, and it's the things that set us apart from the crowd that make us special. After I survived middle school, I began to realize that the people who always fit in and act like everyone else are, quite frankly, a little boring.

When I started working on the first book in The Quirks series, I knew I wanted to write a story that had two important things: a silly, quirky cast of characters who definitely don't fit into the folds of "normal" society, and a family that sticks together no matter what. Many of the books I've written for young adults and tweens have families filled with people who just don't get along. But my real-life family means everything to me, and when I began working on this series, I knew I needed to write a story that celebrates the love of a supportive family.

For some reason, characters always come to me first, and then I squeeze them into a story. The Quirks were no different--each member of the family began to develop in my imagination, and after a few months of thinking, I had a fun cast of characters and I was pretty sure I was ready to tell their story. So a little more than three years ago, I began to write, and soon I'd sold the first two books in the series based on a proposal and the first six chapters of the first book. Though the characters haven't changed much since then, their story certainly has! In fact, I wrote the second half of the book three times and I went through at least ten revisions! Now, after a lot of significant edits and fine-tuning, the first book is finally finished, and I'm ready to unleash my beloved Quirks on the world.

In a nutshell, The Quirks is a series of books for middle-grade readers about a charming family of magical misfits who are desperate to fit in. Each one of the Quirks have huge personalities, but they also all have a secret, magical power that makes them very unique--and highly unusual: Grandpa Quill can twist time, Mom can control minds, nine-year-old Penelope has a wild imagination that makes the secret thoughts in her head poof! to life, and five-year-old Finn is invisible (and super-naughty). But Penelope's twin sister Molly is the most unusual Quirk of all--because she's magic-less, a boring scoop of vanilla in a family full of wacky flavors.

The Quirks have lived in twenty-six towns in less than ten years, and Molly, especially, is desperate to settle down and find a place to call home. She wishes her family could figure out how to hide their magic and just fit in already. So the Quirks try, but as we all know, hiding our differences isn't always easy.

Of course, over the course of the book, the Quirks come to realize it's the things that make them so different that also make them truly special--something it's taken me years to realize. I hope kids (and fun adults!) will love the Quirks as much as I do. The first book will be in stores on June 4, 2013. The second is planned for February 2014, and I'm currently writing the third, which should be out in November 2014.

Erin Soderberg has written many books for children and young adults, but this is her first 7-9 series. Before turning to writing full time, Erin worked as a children's book editor and marketer, spent a few months as a biscuit inventor and also worked for Nickelodeon. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her delightfully quirky family. www.erindowning.com