The Country of Ice Cream Star

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First I’d like to thank my wonderful editors, Craig Pyette, Lee Boudreaux, Bella Pearson, Karen Maine and especially Juliet Brooke. All of them gave priceless feedback in the revision of the somewhat chaotic nine-hundred-page first draft. Juliet was there from the very first stages, did an amazing amount of work, and gave innumerable thoughtful and inspired suggestions. Special gratitude also goes to my always wonderful agent, Victoria Hobbs, who has been the book’s best friend from the time when it was only a dozen pages long, and a devoted and brilliant advocate for it. And additional thanks to the book’s U.S. agent, the charming and gifted Christy Fletcher.

I’m also grateful for the input of early readers of the book: Paul Bravmann, Matt de la Peña, Jessie Sholl, Michelle Herrera Mulligan, Ellen Tarlow and Gail Vachon.

And most of all, I’d like to thank Howard Mittelmark, who read every version of the book, and was my most trusted adviser at every stage. Howard is one of the greatest editors walking the face of the Earth, or burrowing beneath the Earth’s surface, or living at the bottom of the ocean. Plus, dreamy.