Jenny Boylan on What Monsters Can Teach Us

Jennifer Boylan (English) and sons Zach, left, and Sean, who served as“consultants” for Boylan’s new novel, Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror

By Sarah Braunstein

Photos by: Heather Perry ’93

Colby English Professor Jennifer Boylan isn’t afraid of ghosts. Or monsters. Or, for that matter, metaphors. When it comes down to it, Boylan doesn’t seem afraid of much at all—and she has written a bold new book asking young readers (and adults, for that matter) to think again about the scary things in their own lives.

In Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror, Boylan takes us on a wild ride, daring readers to share an adventure story, explore the possibilities of identity, and figure out just what it means to “be yourself.”

At 13 we all feel like monsters. Our bodies and voices aren’t our own. Our parents have become strangers. We’re forced to decode a new and complex social order. Adolescence is brutal—for Falcon Quinn, it’s doubly challenging. One day this plucky, kind-hearted kid from Cold River, Maine, boards what appears to be a regular school bus and is shuttled at harrowing speed to a supernatural boarding school on a mysterious island. There he is greeted by Mrs. Redflint, a no-nonsense administrator who happens to breathe fire. Contrary to what he’s always believed, Falcon is not human, Mrs. Redflint announces.

Welcome, friends, to the Academy for Monsters. (Click here for the full story)