Nashville, TN (September 30, 2023)
WaterBrook, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is celebrating the milestone sales achievement of The Wingfeather Saga reaching more than one million copies sold. Authored by Andrew Peterson and illustrated by Joe Sutphin, The Wingfeather Saga is a series of middle grade fantasy novels. The four books follow the three Igiby siblings on a perilous journey where they discover their true identities, fight against evil, and attempt to save their world from destruction. The bestselling series has been licensed for translation in 14 languages worldwide and adapted into an animated television series by Angel Studios, with Peterson as an executive producer along with J. Chris Wall.
WaterBrook originally published the first two books in the series, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness and North! Or Be Eaten, in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Peterson had a vision for the story to stretch across four books and published books three, The Monster in the Hollows, and four, The Warden and the Wolf King, through Rabbit Room Press. In 2020, WaterBrook repackaged and released all four books in hardcover: On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, North! Or Be Eaten, The Monster in the Hollows, and The Warden and the Wolf King, followed by the short story collection, Wingfeather Tales (2021), and the wildly inventive, Pembrick’s Creaturepedia (2021), catapulting the series onto the bestseller lists and finding a whole new generation of readers.
The Wingfeather Saga’s books have garnered many accolades, including the 2009 Christy Award Winner for Young Adult Fiction (North! Or Be Eaten), WORLD’s 2015 Children’s Book of the Year (The Warden and the Wolf King), and the 2015 Clive Staples Award for Fantasy Fiction (The Warden and The Wolf King).
“‘Wow, I’m so grateful,’ is the first sentence that comes to mind, but ‘grateful’ isn’t big enough for how I really feel toward the agents, publishers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, and especially the readers who made this happen. ‘Exceedingly grateful’ gets a bit closer,” said Peterson. “Seriously, I can’t overstate how wonderful it feels to have connected with so many readers—and there’s even more Wingfeather stuff to come. The second sentence that comes to mind is, ‘A million is a crazy number so there must be some mistake, but I hope nobody in accounting notices.’”