Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Agent, graphic novel, Martin Lemelman, middle grade, Miracle Seed

The Miracle Seed, New Middle-Grade Graphic Novel by Martin Lemelman

Published Mon, 30 Aug 2021 07:27:11 -0500

Last updated Sun, 09 Jul 2023 07:42:25 -0500

The Miracle Seed by Martin Lemelman is a new middle-grade graphic novel melding history, science, and adventure, about the Judean Date Palm that culminates with its resurrection in 2020 after 2000 years of extinction. In 2005, a team of scientists attempted to sprout a preserved 2,000-year-old seed. The attempt was a success, the oldest verified human-assisted germination of a seed (the claim in 2012 of a 32,000-year-old arctic flower involved fruit tissue rather than a seed). The palm, a male tree, was named Methuselah. Following this success, six further preserved seeds were sprouted. The Miracle Seed has been picked up by Kathleen Merz at Eerdmans who has bought world English rights to The Miracle Seed and it will be published in the spring of 2023. The agent Anna Olswanger at Olswanger Literary represented Martin Lemelman.

Born in Brooklyn, living in South Florida, Martin Lemelman trained in art at Brooklyn College, where he received undergraduate and Masters of Fine Arts degrees, and since 1976 he has been a freelance illustrator. He has illustrated over 30 children's books as well as The New York Times Book Review and Sesame Street Magazine. He is the author of two graphic memoirs,. The first, Mendel's Daughter, is about his mother's recollections about her 1930s Polish childhood and her eventual escape from Nazi persecution, with Entertainment Weekly listing it as one of the ten greatest graphic novels ever written. His second, Two Cents Plain: My Brooklyn Childhood continued the family saga, telling his own story of being raised in the back of a candy store in Brownsville in the 50s and 60s, as the neighborhood changed, which won the 2010 New York City Book Award for memoirs.

Founded in 1911 by William B. Eerdmans Sr and located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans Publishing Company is an independent publisher of religious books, from academic books and scholarly works in theology, biblical studies, and religious history to popular titles in spirituality, ministry, and cultural criticism.

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