Catherine Argulles author

I was thrilled to feature Catherine Arguelles’s debut middle grade book Flip Turns, especially as part of a group post last summer before the 2024 Olympics. Her newest middle grade novel, FIRST TO FIND, centers on a missing girl and her friend who will stop at nothing to find her.

 

Everyone assumes that 12yo Caitlin Mallory’s best friend Maisy Sutton drowned in the American River on Memorial Day weekend. But when Cait and her other best friend Lio find Maisy’s favorite bracelet in a geocache, they know Maisy might still be alive. As Cait and Lio search the woods along the river, new geocaches appear that contain more treasures connected to Maisy, and new friends shed light on possible suspects in Maisy’s disappearance. Working together, the friends hunt down the geocaches before other catchers intercept the clues, extinguishing the trail.

 

In our last interview, you said that the most challenging part of writing for a middle grade audience is “writing what kids want to read but also what adults want to buy.” What suggestions, if any, do you have for writing books that might appeal to both of these groups?

The best suggestion I have is to hide the lesson in a fun story. I like to do this with mysteries, but humor or romance or sci-fi/fantasy can also work. Get the kid invested in the action and suspense, and they won’t realize they’re learning something, which should make the adults happy.

 

A very neat idea! FIRST TO FIND centers on Caitlyn Mallory and her best friend Maisy’s disappearance. How did you know this was a story you needed to write?

I’ve talked with some other writers about how growing up in Northern California in the 80s and 90s makes us drawn to missing girl stories. That was the time and place where not only did several girls go missing, but the media really picked up the stories. Searches for these girls saturated the news in a way missing persons cases hadn’t before. They were everywhere. Girls like me were constantly warned about stranger danger and going places alone.

It occupied a lot of space for us! I even remember looking at the pictures of the missing girls in the paper and my dad’s Newsweek magazines and imagining finding them myself. Sadly, many of these cases resulted in devastating discoveries or remain unsolved. I yearned for a story with a satisfying conclusion.

Fast forward, I got the idea for a book where kids find clues in geocaches. It was the end of the pandemic for us–a time when kids were feeling uncertain and out of control.

So the missing girl memories plus the pandemic made me want to offer a story where kids have agency and can solve big mysteries themselves. Geocaching is the perfect backdrop since finding a cache is so satisfying, it gives the seeker confidence they can find anything.

 

I was unfamiliar with geocaches before this story. They’re fascinating! What are some of your current projects?

Thanks for asking! I’m working on a couple of YA Rom-coms focusing on theater kids. My kids are older now and I found myself drawn to YA. I’m having fun working on them!

 

Order FIRST TO FIND

 

 

To find out more about Catherine Arguelles and her books, go to https://catherinearguelles.com/

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