Amanda Foody: Hi, my name is Amanda Foody and I'm the author of The Accidental Apprentice, which is the first book in the Wilderlore series.

I actually got my start professionally writing YA novels, but I've been a voracious reader ever since I was a little kid, and so middle grade was really my first true love, but I was really, despite all that, I was really nervous about actually writing one. Finally, I was thinking one day, and I said to myself, "Look, you want to try this but you don't even have an idea." So I started thinking about the sort of things that I was absolutely obsessed with as a kid but that I'm still obsessed with as a grownup. Right away, the first thing that came to my mind was Pokémon. I was such a Pokémon geek when I was little. I played all the games; I watched the show, went to the movies. I realized that lots of books have magical animal companions in it. That isn't necessarily anything new, but I couldn't think of a series that really did that to the nth degree and how, I just thought of how fun it would be to do that myself.

I'm a big fan of the type of fantasy worlds that are extremely sprawling. Even though the main character Barclay goes on his very specific adventure, and he picks his very specific path and his beast, I wanted the kind of world that was so big that a reader could kind of imagine themselves in it as well, but they could say, you know, Barclay did this, but I want to choose this path for myself. This is the type of beast that I would bond with. That was really the other kind of launching point of my inspiration was I wanted it to be magical animal companions, but then I also wanted it to be so big to kind of accommodate this idea.

I do have a cat of my own. His name is Jelly Bean, and he actually inspired a lot of the character and the mischievous antics of one of the beasts in the story who is Mitzi. She is Viola's baby dragon, very much inspired by Jelly Bean.

Over the course of the story, Barclay realizes that the most important thing is really staying true to himself. At the beginning, he was so sure about what he wanted and he was so against this adventure that the world was kind of forcing him on. Then he comes to realize that maybe that thing that he had been so afraid of or that he had been bracing himself for was actually where he really belonged this whole time. I would love a reader to walk away with that same feeling, that adventure is waiting on their doorstep and it might come in the way that they least expect it.

I'm about to read an excerpt from the book. It is from the very first chapter.

As soon as Barclay crossed into the trees, the daylight the daylight dimmed, swallowed by the knotted branches overhead. The already cold weather went colder, a fine, icy mist prickling against his skin.

Barclay was small for an 11-year-old, which made him an easy target for older kids looking for trouble. They tore pages out of his library books or stole the coins he saved for apple pastries.

If they could catch him.

Because when Barclay ran, even the sheepdogs struggled to keep up. And so he barreled down the forest hills and soon caught up to Selby, who ducked between the gray trees. The wind blew, and leaves tumbled farther into the woods, as if dragged by a riptide. The trees bent low, as though pointing Selby deeper, deeper.

"Selby!" Barclay screamed.

His long hair whipped across his face as he ran, quickly growing wild and tangled. The wind seemed to push him forward, like it was trying to carry him off as well.

"Selby, stop!"

Behind him, Barclay had lost sight of the edge. There were only trees and mist in every direction.

"We've broken the rules, and now we're going to die," Barclay thought with panic. Even if they escaped the woods without being eaten by a beast, what would they tell everyone? Selby and Barclay were both terrible liars.

Then Selby suddenly stopped running. Barclay skidded to a halt and slammed into him, knocking both boys down a thorn-covered hill. They rolled in a tangle of leaves and legs and branches, mushrooms spilling out of their baskets and bouncing down after them. They each screamed until they collided with the base of a fallen tree.

"What were you thinking?" Barclay shouted, shoving Selby off him. "We could've broken our necks! And ..."

Selby let out a strangled sound and scampered back up the hill.

"What ... ?" Barclay turned around to see what had scared Selby off, and froze.

On the fallen trunk of a massive tree, there stood a girl.

And on her shoulder, there sat a dragon.