Zibby chats with author Julia DeVillers about MEET ME AT WONDERLAND, a charming middle-grade rom-com set at an amusement park, inspired by Julia’s real-life teen job at Chuck E. Cheese and moose-suit meet-cute that changed everything. Julia describes how a life-threating cancer diagnosis in 2022 unexpectedly led to this book’s creation. She also discusses crafting authentic tween and teen voices, writing a dual POV, and the importance of showing strong, supportive relationships. Finally, she shares her personal connection to the On Being Jewish Now anthology and the joy of including a bonus chocolate mousse recipe (courtesy of Allie Rosen) in her novel.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Julia. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about Meet Me At Wonderland. Congratulations. 

Julia: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. 

Zibby: Oh, it's my pleasure. I feel like I have to start in on the moose jokes, like right away, like this is a moose read. How's that?

Julia: Perfect. Anyone who likes a good moose Pond might enjoy my book. 

Zibby: That's right. That's a big selling point. Okay. Tell listeners what your book is about. 

Julia: Sure meet me at Wonderland is a tween romcom and it's inspired by my high school job at Chuck E. Cheese at Chuck E. Cheese. So it's rivals to lovers, opposites attract.

It's got a, you've got male, um, theme and it's about 14-year-old Coco Cooper and she's got a summer job as Morty the Moose. Who is the sweaty, stinky mascot of her family's amusement park wonderland, and then in a moose cute meet cute. She is sweating. She's gross. She's disgusting. She goes to the employee break room to get some fresh air.

Trust me. You need when you're in one of those costumes and she knocks her antlers on the door and she stumbles into the break room, her moose head rolls off and that's when she sees the new hire, who is a very cute Henry Forest, a boy who is not happy about working at the MOOC Spark 

Zibby: And who promptly like takes his shirt off and flashes his abs.

To make even the most, like, look at her on the floor, like totally disheveled, half in costume and, and she's like, oh my gosh, I can't, 

Julia: Which, sorry. I was gonna say all of that actually did happen to me. That's based on a true life story of me and the Chuck E. Cheese. Oh yes. I went into the break room.

Sweltering, I, I started to take my hat off and I saw the cutest boy ever sitting in front of me tried to put the head back on, backed away, backed into the door, backed into my management, and basically that moose, cute me, KU picture it as me in a New Jersey, sewer rat costume. And, uh, you, you get the full picture.

However, he did not take off his shirt. Anyway. 

Zibby: In your real life, you mean? Okay. But you eventually got together with him? 

Julia: Yes, I did. So, wow. Yeah. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Julia: First impressions really count me as a sweaty moose.

Zibby: Oh my gosh. I felt like, but didn't chuck cheese, like, weren't they like stationary on the stage? I felt like they were like animatronic. 

Julia: So in my book, there also are those creepy animatronic animals. And it's so funny because I set the book in upstate New York and we, you know, we couldn't go too close to Chuck E. Cheese, so we've got a moose instead of a wrap. We've got, you know, different. Uh, upstate New York, Adirondack animals on stage and you know, their eyes get stuck. You know, they're blinking here, their heads fall off, the robotics fall apart. So creepy animatronics is definitely a player in this book too, but at Chuck E. Cheese, they also have people dressed up in costume. And when you start working there, everybody has to get in costume. If you fit the costume, you're in the costume. So not only was I Chuck E Cheese, but it was a character called Mr. Munch. And that's enough said. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Julia: But this book really, if you ever wanted to know what it was like to be in Chuck e Cheese costume, I describe it in full sensory detail.

I've never forgotten. 

Zibby: I actually was wondering as I read it, 'cause I was like, how on earth would she know all this? Like I'm thinking, did she interview lots of mascot people? How would she find them? Like how do you, how would you, I was like, then I was thinking, did she like go and like beg someone to just try it on?

But this is a way better story. That this was actually your life. 

Julia: It's actually real life. And you know, when people talk about, oh, what was your fir Like, what was your first job? 

Zibby: Uh, babysitting. 

Julia: Babysitting, yes. So I did babysit, but my first job where I had the paycheck, paycheck was Chuck E. Cheese. And actually it was a hotspot to work back in Albany, New York back in the day.

But, and, and it was truly fun. Think about it. You've got the, the ball pit, the arcade, the video games, creepy animatronics, creepy costumes you can run in and free, horrible tasting pizza. I mean, what else would a teenager need back then?

Zibby: I used to beg my grandmother to take me to Chuck E. Cheese anytime I visited her.

That was like the main thing. 'cause they like didn't have one in Manhattan as far as I knew, or if they did, my parents buried that fact deep somewhere, so I never learned of it. Yes, that was such a. My gosh, the joy of seeing the Chuck E Cheese sign. But anyway, back to Wonderland. So Coco is actually the daughter of the owner of Wonderland and her mother is having health issues.

She is dealing with a lot of stuff herself, talk a little bit about, and her sister is working there. I mean, it's like a whole family to do. Describe the family relationships and talk about the mother's, you know, illness and your own story and all of that. That was like 10 questions. So I'll just kick it.

I'll just kick it at this point and you talk. 

Julia: Pass it to me. Well, the mother was a character that was close to my heart originally when I wrote this book. Well, I'll tell you the inspiration, I'll give you a little bit of backstory. So the actual idea for this book came as dramatic as it sounds when I was in the ICU for five weeks.

Um, I had cancer and the treatment went really awry. And my body shut down. So I was brought into the ic. I mean, it really shut down like hospice was called. They gave me 48 hours. I told my husband and kids 48 hours and, and we'll know it could go either way. And when I was in the ho 

Zibby: Wait, wait, and when exactly was this?

Julia: This was in August of 2022. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Julia: So, um, I'm almost at my, this is, this is Wild. My book comes out on May 20th. And May 20th was when I got my cancer diagnosis. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Julia: So it's so wonderful because it's going to erase that sort of trauma of that date for me. And, you know, with a, with a new celebration. 

Zibby: So wait, wait.

Slow down with the story, if you don't mind. What, what type of cancer and what went so wrong? Like, what happened? 

Julia: So. It's, it's really interesting. When the doctor told me I had cancer, which I was really blindsided by, they had told me I had hemorrhoids. So there's a wide gap there, and I'd never had hemorrhoids before and I thought, wow, this is like a really, really dramatic situation now.

I feel bad for thinking anyone with hemorrhoids was, you know, over complaining. But it was, you know, scary and traumatic. And they told me it was anal cancer. And anal cancer is a really rare kind of cancer and you know, it's obviously not taking away the trauma of a cancer diagnosis at all, but as soon as people started asking me what kind of cancer it was, and forgive me, I'm Jewish, I'm a writer, you know, so humors of coping mechanism for me too.

And now that I'm out of the darkness and also hopefully giving hope to anyone who's going through that journey right now that you know, here I am with another book out after all of this. I had six weeks of chemo and radiation almost daily and everything, so it was intense. But I still had to tell people the word anal, which really wasn't a word that I said too much in daily conversation.

And there's sort of a stigma to it. And I remember one of the first people I told was our mutual friend Sarah Milowski, like all roads lead to Sarah in publishing world. And she said, oh, anal cancer, that's so rare. You need to write a memoir, you know about this. And then my other other writer friend called and I said, he said, what kind of cancer is it?

I said, oh no, this is gonna be the worst person to tell. I said, oh, it's anal. And he said. That's a body part. You know, the old sayings, you know, opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one. Yours just has cancer up it. Then he goes, oh, hey, if you Google it, oh wow. It pulls up, wow. Pulls up some really spicy things.

And then I, I just knew and I said, all right, just go for it. And he said, ha ha, you know, like a bees and butthead. And he said, she said anal. So. People really helped me through the process of, you know, processing the fact that I had cancer, anal cancer. So I had, like I said, um, five days a week of chemo and radiation and the goal was to do it in six weeks.

And anal cancer, I don't wanna scare anyone, is very treatable. Um, it's a curable form of cancer, but I did, my body did not react well to the treatment. And through about two weeks in. I was feeling great. Three weeks in I collapsed and it all kind of fell apart from there. So it was rough, rough, rough times.

Zibby: I'm so sorry. 

Julia: Oh, thank you. It's, you know, it was really traumatic. I. And, but again, I got the idea for this book because, excuse me, I got myself a little choked up here thinking about all of this. Aw. And my book's not out yet, so I'm not used to, you know, really talking about this quite yet. The doctors would a like ask me these basic daily questions because, you know, I was pretty medicated.

And they'd say like, where was I? Who was president? Why was I here? And my husband told me later that I would say things like, you know. Obama's president, Ronald Reagan is president. I'm a JCC day camp. I'm here for a cold. And I answered every single question wrong. And then after I'd yell, wait, wait, bring them back.

You know, I know the answer. Now the president is you just somebody else. But one time they told me that I said I was at Chuckie Cheese. My husband said everything was dire and the room was somber, but people burst into laughter. They couldn't help. I said like, who are you? I'm like, I'm Chucky Cheese. Hello.

So flash forward to the next year. You know, I visited my editor at Simon and Schuster. We were talking about some embarrassing teen moments, and I kind of told her that story. So Chuck E. Cheese was on my mind. And then I told her about my high school, my own meat, cute at Chuck E. Cheese, and that was the genesis of the book.

So you know the saying, this pain, you know, can be useful to you someday. I really, really tried to channel that. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh, Julia. Well tell everybody about your writing career before this. Like what had been going on. I know obviously more about it because I know you, but explain how you got into writing and the whole American girl thing and all of it.

Julia: Sure, sure. So, um, I went to college for communications, which was as vague as it gets, and that was intentional. I thought, am I, I, shall I be in broadcasting? Um, I knew I liked to write, what should I do advertising. Graduated with that and thought what do you do with the communications degree? So I went to grad school, of course I did like school.

Um, I was always the kid in elementary school and middle school who, you know, I was one of the writers. I have an identical twin sister, Jennifer, Jennifer, Roy, and Jennifer and I were kind of always battling it out for who would win the summer reading challenge, you know, who would read the most books or who would get picked for, you know, kind of a, to get the writing in the school paper.

So we were a little bit of the readers and writers. I was always a book person. I went to grad school for journalism and I went to Ohio State. I was, I'm from upstate New York, but I moved out here to Columbus and I signed up for magazine journalism because I thought my goal was to write for teen people.

I thought I would be great. I'd be interviewing celebrities, you know, I'd work with teens, and I started the program and the day we walked in, there was really sad news. The professor of the program had passed away. I. So they folded us into the hard hitting journalism program where you, you had to, you couldn't even apply if you didn't have five years at the Wall Street Journal or were on the crime beat.

Very intense. And I was tossed into that world, so I thought, um, I don't know if, if I'm completely, um, in place here. I tried. So I started taking classes in children's literature in the graduate department through the Department of Education and honestly, the professors weren't thrilled. They were looking down on it.

And I ended up doing my thesis in conjunction with the children's literature department because once I went in, my professors would talk about a book and I would answer back, and they said, well, I haven't assigned it yet. And I thought, didn't everyone read that? I grew up as such a reader. So that's where I've really found my place in children's literature and took it from there.

And let's see. The first, I wrote a nonfiction book called Grow Wise, and that was advice book for teens. And that kicked me off. And then my first novel was called How My Private Personal Journal became a bestseller, which was bought out by Disney Channel and became a Disney channel movie called Rita and Weep.

Which was a, a highlight of my career. That was wonderful. And then I kept writing for this age group all the way through. And most recently, um, before the whole cancer situation, um, my twin and I wrote the books for the American girl Historical Twins. And when American Girl called us and said, oh, we, you know, we're writing about twins and your identical twin authors.

Would you write for a historical line? We said, great, you know, I'm thinking, is it gonna be Felicity from the 17 hundreds or Addie from the 18 hundreds who, you know, who is it going to be? And they said it was the 1990s doll. And that caused kind of Yeah. Mind when it came out. And people said, American girl says you're old.

The nineties is now has historical, but that was super fun. We wrote, um, books and we have dolls and I have a doll that looks like me. So, you know, it's, it's, it's been a good career. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. That is just amazing. So what made you go back to writing this book? Like when you said you even went in and met with your editor, how did you get to that point?

How did you get from telling your family that you had 48 hours left to being in a big deal publisher meeting in New York City. 

Julia: Hopefully that gives people hope and inspiration. There was a little step in between that that I think is really, really meaningful and I'm getting a little teary eyed about to tell you this, but um, when I came out of the hospital, and again, I was there for six weeks, you know, I was still a mess.

And honestly I had no emotions. And I was really worried. I didn't feel joy, I wasn't laughing, I didn't feel, um, sadness. It was, I was really flat and I remembered what Sarah Romanowski said, that you should write a memoir. So I looked online and I thought, you know, writing's supposed to be cathartic and it's always been my job and it's always been a joy.

But I don't wanna write anymore. You know, I, what, what do I have to give? I was really, you know, down in having some PTSD, well, I actually took a class, it was the first time I've ever taken a class like this. It was called Personal Essays and memoir, and it was offered by Zibby workshops, the Zibby classes. Oh my gosh.

I've never written a personalist. I don't write about myself. Like obviously my, I come through in my fictional characters, but I've never really written. Anything from my own point of view. And I sat in class, it was, I think it was six A, it was six weeks for five weeks. And I offered support and encouragement advice to everyone else reading.

And I thought, my brain, I have chemo brain, I'm not there yet. And then week five, the instructor said, you know, if anyone else still wants to go, and the good student in me said, oh gosh, I have to step up here. I gotta do my homework. I wrote an essay and it poured out of me in two days, and I wrote this essay.

I read it to the class and it was about my experience, everything from the stigma of having anal cancer to, you know, being on my deathbed and how, you know, I got through it and the, uh, James Cancer Hospital got me through it and I just poured it all on the page and I said, okay, that's out. And the instructor said, which, you know, you should submit this.

I have a friend who's an editor at Newsweek. So I said, sure, send it over. Not thinking it would go anywhere the next week it was published. I had no time to process. I hadn't had time to think is this TMI? Because when you have anal cancer, you know, there's a lot of bodily, bodily fluids and bodily parts you talk about, um, with the symptoms and the treatment.

And newsfeed published it. And it, it was really meaningful, but it really made me realize, okay, I'm back. My brain is back, my emotions are back. I can write again. So when I went to New York, I live in, um, in Ohio, when I went to visit New York, I, you know, said to my old editors, and, you know, my agent and people, I'm back, I'm here, you know, I'm, I'm back traveling, I'm back at it.

And my editor said, come in. She said, I think we have a space for you in upper middle grade romcom. And all of the joy that I've been missing for the past, you know, eight months or so since all of this happened to me, just came flooding back and I thought, yep, this is what I wanna do. So what a gift. 

Zibby: Aw, my gosh.

And you can feel this sense of joy, this sense of humor in your writing. Your voice is so amazing. Like. Just, I, I, I'm trying to think of like good writerly examples, but like when you have a sentence and like between each word you put a period like what is going on? Or, it wasn't that, but it was something like that.

And just the way with you use italics for emphasis and like you're just, it just feels like you can absolutely hear. Someone telling you the story and the someone is actually this young girl who I don't know, and all of a sudden I'm like transported back in time. So how, how do you nail this voice?

Because you just really do. 

Julia: Thank you for saying that. I'm smiling ear to ear again. The book's not out, so, you know, a lot of people haven't read it yet and there's that nerve of, oh, I hope people respond to it. 

Zibby: So it's good. It's good. You don't have to worry. 

Julia: So I love to, I know I'm finding from, um, the people who blurbed it, that there, it's a, it's a nostalgia read for adults too, like it's fun.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Julia: Teens, but it really brings you back to those emotions of, you know, your first crush and your first job and all of those, and it ends, and it's a very sweet romance. Not to give too many spoilers, but it may end in a kiss. So that's the space that we wrote for. Um, an authentic voice is always really, really important for this age group, and I love that.

I do, I don't, I, I feel like I can tap into that voice and the joy, but also, you know, the trauma and the drama of being a tween and teen, um, it was my editor's idea to do a dual point of view, which I've done with my twin sister before taking turns. But I've never written a boy character from a boy perspective, and I thought, oh boy, I have to get into, you know, a teen boy's head.

I had the best teen focus group. You can imagine my author friends whose kids were Coco and Henry's age, other people volunteered, um, from my childhood through friends I have now. And the boys really, really brought it. They shared their, their secrets. They shared they're, you know, everything from what their favorite sneaker is today to, or they'd say, oh no, we wouldn't say this.

They would read, you know, parts of my book. So I think that really helped with the Authe authenticity too, you know, talking to these, these teenagers, and they're all thanked in the back of my book because I'm really grateful to them. 

Zibby: Uh oh, I love that. Well. You know what's, Henry is pictured on the cover with the soccer ball, but he shows up at the place because he is actually has an injury and like can't play soccer anymore, and it's like worried about disappointing his father.

Like you have so many different themes in the story and he doesn't even like rollercoasters and yet, I mean, not to give things away, but he just might be on a rollercoaster at the end. So whatever. I'm not saying anything, but we all have growth experiences over our summers. What should we learn from how the two of them in particular kind of grew over this one summer?

Julia: I wanted them both to come in with, you know, they have some family angst going on. They have, you know, this new experience of a job, which is stressful. And you know, when we look back and, you know, your teen years, adolescents are not always idyllic at all. I wanted them both to come in, in that uncomfortable space.

Coco doesn't feel like she fits in. She had friend drama in school and she's putting a lot of pressure on herself that this is going to be the best summer of her life because it's her family's amusement park. And then she finds out the amusement park is in trouble. We bring in Henry, who was planning to go to Europe with his boarding school, um, soccer team, and that's how he was gonna spend his summer and suddenly he's.

Got an ankle injury that may or may not been a bit of his own doing, and he's gotta work at a Moose Park. So they come in with that. But by my, one of my main goals of the book was to show a healthy relationship. I didn't want it to be a toxic relationship, you know, for the. These two characters, they banter their rivals at first, but they're workplace rivals.

You know, they're both trying to one up each other and the the banter is strong. And I have to say they're coworkers who become friends and family to them. You know, start seeing the vibes between 'em before, maybe they see them themselves, that themselves. So they've established a strong friendship, a bantering, fun, smart relationship.

You know, that blossoms into more, say romcom. I don't think that's a spoiler. Mm-hmm. And the, it never veers into anything too toxic. So I wanted my readers to read what I think is a pretty healthy and aspirational relationship. Henry's a little aspirational, I have to say. He may or may not have been based on, you know, some of the boys I dated that.

Zibby: Oh my, oh, not all. I just remember, I mean, it, it doesn't feel like that long ago when all this happened. Like the fact that my kids are going through it now. I'm like, wait, how? How is that? As a generation passed essentially, I don't even know. My gosh. And Julia, you were so kind to contribute to, I'm being Jewish now, the anthology and so it's been so fun getting to know you in that context and everything.

Uh, do you wanna share why you decided to say yes and anything about that? 

Julia: That book is, it's such a blessing as you know, as you well know, it's been on the USA today bestselling list for an extraordinary length of time because it's really resonating with people. My dad was a Holocaust survivor as a child, and he didn't, he came over when he was 13.

His father was taken away in the middle of the night, and we. Have no idea what happened to him. So I grew up surrounded by a lot of Holocaust survivors, you know, and the trauma that comes with that, but also the joy, you know, of survival and, you know, that community can bring. And when the opportunity to join the group Artists Against Antisemitism came, I thought, yes, of course.

Um, I'll do that. And then when. We heard that you were writing, you know you were gonna work on this book on being Jewish now. I thought, wow, I wish I could be a part of that. When I heard that you were turning it around in record time, that has basically never been seen in much of publishing, still a high quality book.

I was really shocked and I said, I must be a part of this. So I was very, very honored to be, um, to be included in the anthology and it's beautiful. And we're going to have our first on being Jewish now event coming up in Columbus soon. And we've really been, become close and I've met so many of the other collaborators and contributors.

It's, I mean, what a, what a thing. I don't even know what other, I'm a writer. I'm a loss for words. It's been, did I make up that you have a recipe from Ali Rosen? Did I get that wrong? I. I have a, so, and I met Allie Rosen at, um, one of your events that I attended in, in New York, and Allie contributed a recipe to meet me at Wonderland.

Isn't that a bonus in a middle grade book? So if you're on the fence of whether you wanna, you know, get it from the library or buy it, you, you're getting a recipe for chocolate. Moose. Moose. 

Zibby: That is so great. When I saw that in the back, I like smiled. I was like, I bet they met through the book, but who knows?

Julia: And that is how I met. It's all through all roads. Point to Ziv. Oh, stop. It's true. I, I give facts or facts. 

Zibby: Anyway. Well, Julia, I'm so excited for you. This book is great. I read parts of it out loud to my son, and now I'm gonna give it to my daughter, and he loved it. So congrats. He's a tough critic, kind of deep in the Wings of Fire series, so maybe not his typical jam, but he, uh, he was a fan and, uh, my daughter's gonna eat it up, so I, I didn't let her take it till I could finish it myself. 

Julia: I have to share, one of the highlights of my career was the author of Wings of Fire two. He everyone saying, oh, my kid loves your book. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh, that's amazing. 

Julia: No, everybody's kid loves, loves her book. So that's a good choice. Solid 

Zibby: choice. Solid choice. Well, thank you so much and congrats.

Thanks for sharing so openly about your own experience. Sorry for delving deep right away, so I'm sorry, but thank you so much. 

Julia: Never apologize. I'm always happy now to, to share. Hopefully give people hope, educate, and also, you know, I've got book recommendations from being in the hospital, so thank you so much.

Zibby: Thank you. I see you soon. Bye.