The Decemeberists’ Colin Meloy Is Working on a Children’s Book About Pete Seeger

Outside of his day job as the frontman for the Decemberists, Colin Meloy has fashioned a successful career as a children’s novelist. The singer-songwriter issued the last installment in his Wildwood trilogy back in 2014, and now, he’s planning to add picture books to his CV.

Meloy is currently working on two books that will be his first outside of the Wildwood universe. First, he’ll publish a picture book dubbed The Golden Thread about the late Pete Seeger. According to Publishers Weekly, the book celebrates both Seeger’s music and social activism. Meloy’s wife, Carson Ellis, will illustrate the forthcoming book. She also collaborated with Meloy on the Wildwood series and the Decemberists' album art. The Golden Thread is expected in the summer of 2017 via Balzer + Bray.

Meloy is also writing a “middle grade novel about an impressionable young American who falls in with a ragtag group of pickpockets in 1961 France” -- which, frankly, sounds like one of the Decemberists’ songs. That book is slated for release in fall 2017.

Meloy made his literary debut with Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book 1 in 2011. He published the sequel the following year. Wildwood Imperium continued the saga in 2014.

The Decemberists dropped their most recent full-length What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World last year. A collection of outtakes was compiled on the Florasongs EP in October.

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