Character Interview with Lark + Giveaway: Skylark Swag Pack

Hi everyone! This Friday, I have Lark from one of my most anticipated reads for 2012, Skylark by Meagan Spooner! Today's giveaway treat is for swag lovers. Name it, we have it. ;) From bookmarks to tattoos to buttons. Stick around for the giveaway at the end of the post.

Can you tell us about yourself?

There's not much to tell! My name is Lark Ainsley and I've got two older brothers, though one of them went missing years ago and the other's an adult with his own apartment. So it's just me and my parents. I'm supposed to have my power harvested and become an adult any day now, but until then I just have to keep to myself. All the other kids are younger than me, and everyone thinks I'm a freak. All I want is to fit in the way I'm supposed to, but I can't help feeling like maybe everyone might be right.

What do you think of the present world?

This place? It's incredible! I wish I knew how this "electricity" worked so I could bring it home. If we had more ways to power the Wall, to power everything, maybe it wouldn't be so important for kids to be harvested. There's so much here that I wish I could bring home to the Institute.

What was the first thing you did when you got here?

Stuffed myself full of junk food! Did you know you can just buy food here? There's no ration chits, no lines to wait for your daily allotment of nutrients. Everything here is sweet and salty and spicy, and delicious! I'm going to get as fat as the Architects if I stay here too long.

If you lived in our time, who would you be? What would you do?

I guess I would be a student. There's no such thing as a "teenager" in my world--you're a child right up until the point where you're harvested, and given your work assignment. But here, it seems like you become this in-between thing, this teen thing, where you're kind of an adult but not really? You still live with your family and you still go to school but you can date and work and make decisions about your life. I think choosing a college would be amazing. If I could stay here, I'd go to college and study history. I'm fascinated by history in my own world, and I'd love to compare the two and see how we're different. Us with magic, you with electricity... and yet, despite that, we're not so different.

What is your favorite thing about 2012? Why?

Books. There are books EVERYWHERE. Aside from the few ratty copies of encyclopedias and dictionaries at school, I've never seen books before. The Institute has our only books, the last remnants of the society before the wars, before the Wall. They keep them safe for us, and they study them, so that all that information stays where it should be. But here, you can walk into these things called libraries, and get any book you could ever want. Books on nature, on science, history, philosophy. There are books arguing against government, for government, every possible argument there is. And beyond that, there are books of stories. I think I could spend every day I'm here in a library. If only they allowed food in there.

If you could have three wishes, what would you wish for? Why?

I don't need three wishes. I only need one. I would wish my brother Basil was here--I would wish he was home with me.

About the Author:

Meagan Spooner grew up reading and writing every spare moment of the day, while dreaming about life as an archaeologist, a marine biologist, an astronaut. She graduated from Hamilton College in New York with a degree in playwriting, and has spent several years since then living in Australia. She's traveled with her family all over the world to places like Egypt, South Africa, the Arctic, Greece, Antarctica, and the Galapagos, and there's a bit of every trip in every story she writes.

She currently lives and writes in Northern Virginia, but the siren call of travel is hard to resist, and there's no telling how long she'll stay there.

In her spare time she plays guitar, plays video games, plays with her cat, and reads.

She is the author of SKYLARK, coming out August 1 from Carolrhoda Lab/Lerner Books. She is also the co-author of THESE BROKEN STARS, forthcoming from Disney-Hyperion in Fall 2013. 

Follow Meg: Site | Twitter

About Skylark:

Vis in magia, in vita vi. In magic there is power, and in power, life.

For fifteen years, Lark Ainsley waited for the day when her Resource would be harvested and she would finally be an adult. After the harvest she expected a small role in the regular, orderly operation of the City within the Wall. She expected to do her part to maintain the refuge for the last survivors of the Wars. She expected to be a tiny cog in the larger clockwork of the city.

Lark did not expect to become the City's power supply.
For fifteen years, Lark Ainsley believed in a lie. Now she must escape the only world she's ever known...or face a fate more unimaginable than death. 

Giveaway: Skylark Swag

The Skylark swag pack will include postcards, bookmarks, temporary tattoos, buttons and bookplates. (The postcards, bookmarks and bookplates will be signed.) It will look something like this: 

Rules:

Follow Fragments of Life

You must be at least 13 years old

Open internationally

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