![\"North](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/1-Danielle-Mages-Amato.jpg\")
This might be talent she has developed as a dramaturg, the role in which she currently serves at The Old Globe Theatre. But however she came by it, Amato\u2019s ability to blend a suspenseful story with very real teen challenges and the grief of loss makes \u201cThe Hidden Memory of Objects\u201d a success. So successful, that it was optioned for a possible television series months before the book was released this March by HarperCollins.<\/p>\n
The story\u2019s protagonist, 15-year-old Megan Brown, has lost her older brother, Tyler, in reported circumstances she doesn\u2019t want to believe. Her quest for the truth leads her to discoveries about life, her peers and herself, including her sudden and mystifying ability to observe memories inherent in significant objects she touches.<\/p>\n
Amato weaves an array of current social issues into Megan\u2019s pursuit, making the book both relatable for her intended audience and entertaining for adults, with its complex and fast-paced story. There\u2019s barely an \u201cism\u201d Amato doesn\u2019t address, and her love of young-adult books is clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere can be a sense of ennui, despair, boredom,\u201d Amato said in an interview with San Diego Uptown News, \u201cbut young-adult books deal with huge questions \u2014 identity, how does the world work? \u2026 You can dismiss the [teen experience] \u2014 who cares what happens in high school \u2014 but the stakes are really high. Young-adult books are the books I read most often. Those are the books that made me who I am as a person, in a way that adult books never did.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Amato\u2019s childhood favorites is \u201cMiss Frisby and the Rats of NIMH,\u201d a classic fantasy-sci-fi. Amato also admitted to being \u201cmadly in love with \u2018Harriet the Spy.\u2019 I had a spy notebook. I lurked in people\u2019s bushes. But I also have notebooks of just observations of the world. I always have a little bit of Harriet the spy \u2014 watching people around me, overhearing people\u2019s conversations in coffee shops.\u201d<\/p>\n Coffee shop-dotted North Park has been home to Amato since 2011. She describes her neighborhood as \u201cincredible and supportive,\u201d and she sounds quite settled, in contrast to her transient childhood.<\/p>\n \u201cMy family moved around a lot,\u201d she said. \u201cWe lived in four states by the time I was 4 years old. It made me aware at a really young age that people in different parts of the country live differently, have different cultures. Now I\u2019m raising kids who are Californians, two kids, 6 and 9. They go to McKinley \u2014 North Park all the way!\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Amato\u2019s mobile youth \u2014 or perhaps because of it \u2014 her sense of place is strong, and it shines in her novel, particularly in the scenes set in D.C.<\/p>\n \u201cI lived in Washington for five years. I absolutely loved living there. In ways the book is a love letter to the city. Its problems become emblematic of national problems. I found the residents were incredibly politically aware. \u2026 These days, young people are incredibly aware. It\u2019s in the air. There are things teenagers know about how their city works that adults don’t know.\u201d<\/p>\n While Amato said one goal of writing her book \u201cwas to have fun \u2026 to have an adventure, a place to be,\u201d \u201cThe Hidden Memory of Objects\u201d also feels like a love letter to young-adult readers, a letter of empathy for the joys and sorrows they experience, and a celebration of their sense of fun and hope and enthusiasm for the future.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be able to write for readers who are still figuring themselves out,\u201d Amato said, \u201cis a challenge and a privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014Kit-Bacon Gressitt writes commentary and essays on her blog Excuse Me, I\u2019m Writing, is a founding editor of WritersResist.com<\/a>, and has been published by Missing Slate, Ms. Magazine blog and Trivia: Voices of Feminism, among others. She formerly wrote for the North County Times. She also hosts Fallbrook Library\u2019s monthly Writers Read authors series and open mic, and can be reached at kbgressitt@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Kit-Bacon Gressitt Behind the hazel eyes and engaging laugh of young-adult fiction author Danielle Mages Amato bubbles a bright and imaginative mind. And from that internal kettle, the debut author and North Park resident has percolated a fascinating mystery with a dash of the paranormal, \u201cThe Hidden Memory of Objects.\u201d Set in and around […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":251562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"North Park author makes debut","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"North](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2-The-Hidden-Memory-of-Objects-cover-art.jpg\")