In this post, we feature author Linda Joan Smith. You can hear her speak about her debut novel for young people, The Peach Thief, and try her “invitation to imagine” activity. You’ll also find other resources to explore. Thanks for joining us, and let us know what you think in the comments below!
The Peach Thief
- Written by Linda Joan Smith
- Published by Candlewick Press
- Release date: March 4, 2025
The night that workhouse orphan Scilla Brown dares to climb the Earl of Havermore’s garden wall, she wants only to steal a peach—the best thing she’s ever tasted in her hard, hungry life. But when she’s caught by the earl’s head gardener and mistaken for a boy, she grabs on to something more: a temporary job scrubbing flowerpots. If she can just keep up her deception, she’ll have a soft bed and food beyond her wildest dreams, maybe even peaches. She soon falls in with Phin, a garden apprentice who sneaks her into the steamy, fruit-filled greenhouses, calls her “Brownie,” and makes her skin prickle. At the same time, the gruff head gardener himself is teaching lowly Scilla to make things grow, and she’s cultivating hope with every seed she plants. But as the seasons unfurl, her loyalties become divided, and her secret grows harder to keep. How far will she go to have a home at last? Beautifully crafted with classic middle-grade themes of fate and ambition, identity and personal responsibility, this stunning debut features brisk pacing, crackling dialogue, and deep insight into what makes a garden thrive—and a heart and mind flourish.
From The Peach Thief, written by Linda Joan Smith.
“Scilla stumbled in the rainy woods, her heart flopping like a snared bird.”
Click here to view a longer preview of The Peach Thief, written by Linda Joan Smith.
Explore The Peach Thief
Listen to Linda Joan Smith talking with TeachingBooks about creating The Peach Thief. You can click the player below or experience the recording on TeachingBooks, where you can read along as you listen, and also translate the text to another language.
- Listen to Linda Joan Smith pronounce her name.
- Sample the e-book of The Peach Thief on Overdrive.com.
- Explore TeachingBooks’ collection of activities and resources for The Peach Thief.
Invitation to Imagine
TeachingBooks asks each author or illustrator on our Virtual Book Tour to share a writing prompt, a drawing exercise, or just an interesting question to spark curiosity and creativity. Enjoy the following activity contributed by Linda Joan Smith.
Imagination Activity with Linda Joan Smith
I began writing The Peach Thief with only three things in mind: a setting (an earl’s walled kitchen garden in the 1850s), a character (a starving workhouse girl who would never be allowed through that garden’s gate), and an object that girl really, really wanted to get (a peach, ripening in that same off-limits garden). To brainstorm a story idea, you can try doing the same! Pick a setting (real or imaginary, in the past, present, or future), then think about what sort of character might find that setting most challenging or fascinating. Then pick something connected to that setting that your character is completely obsessed with getting or achieving. Almost any object or goal will do if your character wants it enough—and if they run into plenty of obstacles as they try to get it.
Finish This Sentence . . . with Linda Joan Smith
As part of our Virtual Book Tour, TeachingBooks asks authors and illustrators to complete short sentence prompts. Enjoy Linda Joan Smith’s response.
“A surprising thing that I learned while working on this book was…”
A surprising thing that helps me work is the pictures of my close friends and family that I have on the bulletin board above my desk. I consider them my support team, and can feel their encouragement just by looking up at their smiling faces! Another thing that has helped me is a saying I’ve adopted as my own. When my niece encounters something that’s really hard to do, and wants to complain or give up, she tells herself, “Yes, this is hard. But I can do hard things.” Along with many of life’s challenges, writing and revising is hard sometimes—it’s easy to feel stuck—so it’s good to remind myself that I can do hard things!
“A strange topic that I had to research for my book was…”
A weird topic that I had to research for my book was what kind of animal poop was used to make a fertilizer called liquid manure in the real garden that inspired the setting of The Peach Thief. The answer? Stable dung from horses and droppings collected from the earl’s deer herd. But it’s likely that the gardeners also used the droppings of other ungulates—hooved animals such as antelope, vicuna, and zebra—that the earl had imported to his English estate from all over the world.
“I hope that my book may encourage readers to think about…”
I hope that my book may encourage readers to think about what it’s like to try to succeed and grow in a place where people say you don’t belong. Most of us know, in some way, what being unfairly excluded feels like, and it doesn’t feel good! I hope we can draw on that experience to strengthen our empathy for others, and to learn not to build walls that keep people out, but to dismantle them, instead, whenever and however we can.
Thank you!
To wrap up this Virtual Book Tour, we thank Linda Joan Smith for signing a book for all of us.
More Connections to Linda Joan Smith and The Peach Thief
- Discover books like The Peach Thief on TeachingBooks.
- Candlewick’s page about The Peach Thief, written by Linda Joan Smith.
- Buy The Peach Thief, written by Linda Joan Smith.
All text and images are courtesy of Linda Joan Smith and Candlewick Press and may not be used without expressed written consent.
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