Rundell hits 25 for RCW

Katherine Rundell has been sold into 25 languages, with agency RCW chalking up six new territories for the Costa Children’s Book Award-winner in the run-up to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

Rundell’s agent, Claire Wilson, said deals have been struck to sign the author’s novels The Explorer, The Wolf Wilder, Rooftoppers and Girl Savage in Albania, Denmark, Greece, Holland, Russia and Taiwan.

Meanwhile, Venetia Gosling, 6+ publisher at Macmillan Children’s Books, acquired world rights for Rundell’s Into the Jungle, a collection of "origin stories", illustrated by Kristjana S Williams, about Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book characters. It will be published in the UK on 20th September. North American rights were sold to Susan Van Metre at Walker Books US.

Rundell said: "What makes The Jungle Book such an exceptional piece of work for the period is that Mowgli, despite his extremely unusual upbringing, is true to what the best children are: stubborn, boastful, loving, egotistical, loyal, brave and wild. You can’t ignore how intensely alive he is."