Q&A with Kenneth Oppel, Author of July/August Kids’ Indie Next List Top Pick “Best of All Worlds”

Bookselling This Week: While stories of survival within a dome have been done before, Best of All Worlds is a really memorable take on the topic. Where do you start on a story like this? What did building out this novel look like for you?

Kenneth Oppel: I started out thinking I was going to write a story about a teenager and his family who are abducted by aliens and put on display in a zoo. There would be harrowing encounters with alien creatures, and an amazing escape. Then I decided I didn’t want to create alien creatures. I didn’t want the characters or readers ever to see aliens. In fact, were there even aliens at all? I decided to keep my heroes’ captors unseen and their motives mysterious. Gradually I realized there needed to be two families in my dome, with very different values and approaches to how to escape. And then I wondered if escape was even a possibility.

BTW: Best of All Worlds forces us to think about what choices we would make in a situation like this where we have very little agency left. What are you hoping readers take away from Xavier’s story?

KO: My first hope with any of my books is that my readers enjoy a gripping experience. For this book in particular I also hope that people will talk about it, maybe argue about it — the ending in particular. True or fake? Happy or sad? Fair or heartless? (I know the answer, but then again, I wrote the book.)

I see Best of All Worlds as an invitation for the reader to wonder not just “What would I do?” in a given situation, but also “What might work better?” as an overall solution to the conflict between the Oaks and the Jacksons. Because if escape isn’t an option, we really do have to make it work, all of us together.

BTW: The dome is a bit of a microcosm of Earth, where we see a lot of the issues that we’re facing in wider society on a smaller scale. One of those is the prevalence of misinformation and the harm it can cause. Given that booksellers live in the world of information literacy, I’d love to hear more about your decision to integrate this into the story. What would you say to our booksellers who are also trying to help combat misinformation?

KO: You can’t make good decisions without good information. In the twenty-first century, we’re incredibly lucky to have access, digitally and in print, to the treasure trove of all human knowledge. We are unlucky in that, online especially, there has never been more misinformation circulating. Booksellers are so powerful and important because they can help guide people toward reliable sources of information. A range of views is healthy and vital, but they should all be based on facts and peer-based research — and written by rigorous thinkers as opposed to self-declared experts or the mouthpieces of corporations and politicians.

BTW: Can you tell us a little bit about the role of books and indie bookstores in your life?

KO: Like libraries, indie bookstores are beacons of a decent, flourishing society. I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by books, not just in school but at home. Every indie bookstore I’ve visited has its own personality and, most important, knowledgeable, book-loving owners and staff. People who own indie bookstores aren’t in it for the money, they’re in it because they know how amazing, and amazingly essential, books are for humans to thrive, individually, and in society. More indies = better world.