Indie rock frontman Colin Meloy (The Decemberists) has been sharpening his pencils lately, writing two new children’s books, including one about Pete Seeger called The Golden Thread. The second book will be a middle grade novel about an American who falls in love with a group of pickpockets in 1960s France.
The new books will be illustrated by Meloy’s wife Carson Ellis, and arrive in Fall of 2017 on the Harper Collins-owned Balzer + Bray press.
The Golden Thread will be a kid-friendly biography of the life of Pete Seeger. In it, Meloy will celebrate Seeger’s music and social activism, serving up one of the most important socio-political songwriters of the past century for consumption by young and impressionable minds.
The written word is nothing new for the singer, who previously penned a three-book series of kids books called Wildwood, also illustrated by Ellis. That said, it has been a couple years since he published anything in the genre; the last of the Wildwood books was published in 2014.
He might not have put pen to paper in a couple of years, but Decemberists projects have kept Meloy pretty busy of late. The group put out a seventh studio album, What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World last year, supporting the release with both European and North American tours.
With these two upcoming written projects, what little off-time the singer/songwriter has between recording and touring looks to be heavily-occupied.
But so much writing time is probably great news for the Decemberists’ music, as Meloy is likely fanning the flames, developing even more complex and illustrative lyrics in tandem with his writing projects.
The singer has previously been inspired by other writers, even going so far as to write a David Foster Wallace-inspired gem called Calamity Song for his group’s 2011 record The King Is Dead.
