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Sally J. Pla

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Sally J. Pla

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August 2013


Sally J. Pla is the author of ALA Schneider Award-winning THE FIRE, THE WATER, AND MAUDIE McGINN, the Dolly Gray Award-winning THE SOMEDAY BIRDS, and other acclaimed novels and picture books. Her work has gained many awards and starred reviews, and has been included on many state awards lists and “best book” roundups.

Sally has appeared on television and radio as an author and neurodiversity advocate. She also runs A Novel Mind, an online resource for neurodiversity/mental-health/disability representation in children's lit.

Sally believes in the beauty of different brains. We are all stars shining with different lights.

For more, visit her website at sallyjpla.com .



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Popular Answered Questions

Sally J. Pla I love you back, Namrata! :-) I'm so grateful to you for reading and liking The Someday Birds, and for writing me this question. Hearing from kind peo…moreI love you back, Namrata! :-) I'm so grateful to you for reading and liking The Someday Birds, and for writing me this question. Hearing from kind people like you, it always makes my day.

I do have another middle grade novel in development right now. It is set about 100 years in the future, and it is about a young girl who is very different from the world around her, and her quest to save her best friend--who happens to be an unusual animal... It will be at least a year until this story is out in the world, but I deeply hope you will give it a try and like it. I've very much enjoyed writing it!(less)
Sally J. Pla Everything works better when you unplug it for a bit -- including us. So I take a creative break. I leave my laptop for a while. Read all kinds of dif…moreEverything works better when you unplug it for a bit -- including us. So I take a creative break. I leave my laptop for a while. Read all kinds of different, varied, new stuff, for fun. Relax. Make art. Play music. Think. Walk. Eventually, ideas start humming. (less)
Average rating: 4.36 · 6,906 ratings · 1,291 reviews · 8 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Someday Birds

4.25 avg rating — 3,188 ratings — published 2017 — 22 editions
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The Fire, the Water, and Ma...

4.52 avg rating — 2,520 ratings — published 2023 — 9 editions
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Invisible Isabel

by
4.33 avg rating — 470 ratings — published 2024 — 7 editions
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Benji, the Bad Day, and Me

by
4.34 avg rating — 408 ratings — published 2018 — 5 editions
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Stanley Will Probably Be Fine

by
4.22 avg rating — 303 ratings — published 2018 — 3 editions
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Der Gesang der Wellen: Mein...

by
4.67 avg rating — 12 ratings2 editions
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Ada and Zaz: Band 16/Sapphire

4.75 avg rating — 4 ratings
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L'onda dei segreti di Maudi...

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
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More books by Sally J. Pla…
A Promise Kept: H...
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Out of Sheer Rage...
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by Geoff Dyer (Goodreads Author)
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The Most Fun We E...
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by Claire Lombardo (Goodreads Author)
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Sally’s Recent Updates

Quotes by Sally J. Pla  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“You got to get out into the field. Secondhand information in this world only takes you so far.”
Sally J. Pla

“(It’s amazing, the things we are capable of, in our dreams. If only we could harness that power when we wake. —Tiberius Shaw)”
Sally J. Pla, The Someday Birds

“I have a public bathroom rating system that I keep in my head, and anything that I think rates lower than two stars, I won't even enter.”
Sally J. Pla, The Someday Birds

Polls

Sorry, the poll is late this month.

What book should we read in May?

You may write in titles, provided the book is a 2018 Newbery contender and already published.

 
  23 votes 18.5%

 
  21 votes 16.9%

 
  20 votes 16.1%

Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar (write-in)
 
  20 votes 16.1%

 
  19 votes 15.3%

 
  18 votes 14.5%

lucky broken girl (write-in)
 
  2 votes 1.6%

See you in the cosmos (write-in)
 
  1 vote 0.8%

124 total votes
More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

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Mock Newbery 2026: This topic has been closed to new comments. Let's Choose the Winners! 73 276 Jan 23, 2018 05:41AM  
Book Riot's Read ...: 2019 Read Harder Challenge Plans 172 1766 Nov 21, 2019 02:38PM  
EVERYONE Has Read...: This topic has been closed to new comments. Bingo Reading Challenge 2020 142 967 Jan 03, 2021 09:31AM  
A Million More Pages: Contemporary 33 53 Aug 22, 2022 04:05PM  
Nothing But Readi...: Serious Readers Challenge 2022 - Level 2 54 510 Dec 04, 2022 12:37PM  
2025 Reading Chal...: Melissa (ladybug)'s reading list 13 41 Dec 08, 2022 06:57PM  
“If we could look into each other’s hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.”
Marvin J. Ashton

“Being a person, I had come to
realize, is a communal activity. Dogs know how to be dogs. But people
do not know how to be people unless and until they learn from other
people.”
John Green, Zombicorns

“In the face of the obscene, explicit malice of the jungle, which lacks only dinosaurs as punctuation, I feel like a half-finished, poorly expressed sentence in a cheap novel.”
Werner Herzog

“May I propose a Herzog dictum? those who read own the world, and those who watch television lose it. ”
Werner Herzog

“Yes, I hate orthodox criticism. I don't mean great criticism, like that of Matthew Arnold and others, but the usual small niggling, fussy-mussy criticism, which thinks it can improve people by telling them where they are wrong, and results only in putting them in straitjackets of hesitancy and self-consciousness, and weazening all vision and bravery.

...I hate it because of all the potentially shining, gentle, gifted people of all ages, that it snuffs out every year. It is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the very first ones to get killed off. It is the brutal egotists that survive.”
Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

179584 Our Shared Shelf — 223480 members — last activity Oct 04, 2025 10:26PM
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more



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message 1: by Kira

Kira Hawke Hey there, Sally! Thanks for the friend request - I recognize you from Twitter and it's nice crossing paths again :)


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