Kari Sutherland

Kari Sutherland's day job gives her an unusual vantage point on children's publishing: after starting on the editorial side at Disney Press and HarperCollins Children's Books, she became a literary agent in 2017 and now represents middle-grade and YA fiction — which makes her, on the other side of the desk, a published children's author herself. With her sister Tui T. Sutherland (of Wings of Fire fame), she co-wrote The Menagerie, a contemporary fantasy trilogy about twelve-year-old Zoe Kahn, who discovers her small Wyoming town hides a secret sanctuary for mythological creatures — griffins, unicorns, a young dragon — under threat from a black-market smuggling ring. Written for a slightly younger reader than the Sutherlands' more famous dragon-war epics, The Menagerie trades chosen-one stakes for a gentler magical-creature-rescue adventure, closer in spirit to a fantasy zoo mystery than a prophecy-driven saga. The trilogy — The Menagerie, Dragon on Trial, and Krakens and Lies — tells one complete, serialized story and should be read in order starting with the first book. It's a good fit for readers who want mythological creatures and a real mystery without the higher body count of her sister's solo work. Sutherland, who grew up traveling widely in South America before settling into publishing, continues to work as an agent while occasionally returning to fiction alongside her sister.