While writing his latest book, Soman Chainani moved to St. Louis. The pace of life, he said, after more than two decades in New York, is a little slower.
“I like it. It’s much quieter,” Chainani said. “I feel like I can think.”
But the book, “Coven,” which is illustrated by Joel Gennari, is anything but quiet. Their first graphic novel collaboration draws on one of Chainani’s childhood passions.
“I loved monster movies,” said Chainani, who grew up in Miami, Florida, in the 1980s. “I loved B movies that were blood-soaked in a kind of beautiful way, like Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein.’”
Another obsession from his youth, Disney animated movies, led to Chainani’s New York Times best-selling series, “The School for Good and Evil,” which Netflix adapted as a film in 2022. It also sparked his desire to reclaim fairy tale stories.
So Chainani pitched this new idea to his publisher.
“I was like: ‘I want to do a serial-killer, murder-mystery, horror thing — but it’s going to be for kids,’” he said. “I promise it’ll work.”
“Coven,” published on April 1, continues the story of three witches from “The School for Good and Evil” series. In it, Hester, Anadil and Dot are in demand as detectives and peacekeepers, and Red Isle, a mysterious place on the brink of war, requests their help. A substance called Raaka is at the center of the conflict.
“It comes out of the ground, it’s pure red, it’s the source of all the vitality for the island,” Chainani says. “It’s a clear analogy for oil.”
After a number of unexplained deaths, the island’s two factions blame each other and, in true B-movie fashion, the victims’ faces are erased.
Chainani says the work’s comic-book style — with words in all capital letters and plenty of exclamation points — adds to the drama.
“Once you add the sound effect of the facial features vanishing,” he says, “then it works.”
Chainani is also an award-winning filmmaker, and he says there are similarities between making movies and graphic novels. Storyboarding, or translating the script into illustrated panels, is just one example.
“Your job as the writer (of a graphic novel) is almost like a screenwriter,” he says, “present the ultimate script and try to direct the artist through it.”
For parents trying to direct their kids away from smartphones and into a book, Chainani — who has visited more than 800 schools while on book tour — views his role as helping to break down barriers. He knows it’s an ongoing challenge.
“And I think, with ‘Coven,’ I wanted to get to all young readers,” he says. “In the sense of, a parent could pick it up and … the graphic novel form would let any reluctant reader enjoy it as much as a novel.”
The book marks the first graphic novel for Chainani and Gennari, an illustrator and Emmy-winning puppet builder for the Jim Henson Company. The pair spent three and a half years on the project.
Like Chainani’s previous series, “Coven” is targeted to readers ages 8 and up, and most of his readers are 10- to 14-year-olds. But he says some of the themes, such as the impact of climate change, will likely resonate with all ages.
“It actually became quite an interesting allegory for where our world is going and all the things that we're doing,” he says. “I think it speaks directly to the anxieties that kids are facing — that there's something about the world that feels unstable to them.”
Soman Chainani will discuss “Coven” at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8, at the Kansas City Public Library’s Plaza branch, 4801 Main St., Kansas City, Missouri 64112. The event is free with an RSVP. More information is available at KCLibrary.org.
This story was produced in partnership with the Kansas City Public Library.
