About the Editor

“Krista Vitola is an executive editor at Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers. Before coming to S&S, Krista had been an editor at Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books. A few of the authors she is lucky to work with are Alex Evanovich, Avione Lee, Janet Fox, Kelly Yang, Shirley Marr and Stuart Gibbs.

Krista gravitates toward picture books and chapter books that make her laugh and place a huge smile on her face. These books explore the everyday with a comedic and outlandish sensibility while imparting important life lessons in the process. Her young adult taste leans toward novels that have a ton of heart and explore coming of age experiences in a unique setting or format, like Sia Martinez and the Moonlight Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland and verse novels like Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo. If Krista could live solely in the middle-grade bubble, she would, and you will find that most of her list focuses on this age range. Krista adores middle grade with a ton of heart, lyrical writing, and characters that reveal the inner kid in all of us. Some of her favorite authors are Lauren Wolk, Soman Chainani and Kate DiCamillo. Krista also does a range of non-fiction middle grade—from gene editing to LGBTQAI+ dictionaries to visual intelligence.

On weeknights, Krista is obsessed with beating her time on the mini New York Times crossword puzzle, watching ruthless dramas and wry romantic comedies, and dancing to country music while performing any necessary household chore. When Krista is not reading, she is running outdoors, eating whatever delicious treats are available and drinking red wine (most times in that order, sometimes all at once). She is a graduate of Villanova University. Follow her @Kav_Tepedino.”