Download high-resolution image
Listen to a clip from the audiobook
audio play button
0:00
0:00

The Impossible Destiny of Cutie Grackle

Listen to a clip from the audiobook
audio play button
0:00
0:00
Audiobook Download
On sale May 31, 2022 | 6 Hours and 25 Minutes | 9780593631911

Do you believe in impossible things? Cutie Grackle does. She has to. Otherwise, she’ll never be more than a lonely 10 year old in a cursed family.

Cutie Grackle is used to being different—she lives alone on a mountain withher feeble-minded uncle, and when she’s not sucking pebbles to trick her stomach into feeling full, she’s chatting with a weathered garden gnome forcompany. But having a flock of ravens follow you is more than just different.Cutie worries the birds are connected to the curse Uncle Horace tends tomutter about. And she’s right.
 
The ravens present her with a fortune from a cookie, and when she touches itshe’s pulled into a vision from her family’s past. It involves the curse and herlong-lost mother. The birds offer up a series of objects, each imbued withmemories that eventually reveal Cutie must do what her mother could not:break the curse.
 
Part outdoor survival adventure, part fantastical quest, Shawn K. Stout’s TheImpossible Destiny of Cutie Grackle is a journey of hope, heart, and awillingness to believe in the impossible.
© Erin Summerill
Shawn K. Stout (www.shawnkstout.com) grew up in Hagerstown, Maryland, the same town where A Tiny Piece of Sky takes place, but she did her growing up more than forty years after the events in this story occur. She is the author of the Not-So-Ordinary Girl series and the Penelope Crumb series and has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Shawn K. Stout lives with her family in Maryland. You can follow her on Twitter at @shawnkstout. View titles by Shawn K. Stout

About

Do you believe in impossible things? Cutie Grackle does. She has to. Otherwise, she’ll never be more than a lonely 10 year old in a cursed family.

Cutie Grackle is used to being different—she lives alone on a mountain withher feeble-minded uncle, and when she’s not sucking pebbles to trick her stomach into feeling full, she’s chatting with a weathered garden gnome forcompany. But having a flock of ravens follow you is more than just different.Cutie worries the birds are connected to the curse Uncle Horace tends tomutter about. And she’s right.
 
The ravens present her with a fortune from a cookie, and when she touches itshe’s pulled into a vision from her family’s past. It involves the curse and herlong-lost mother. The birds offer up a series of objects, each imbued withmemories that eventually reveal Cutie must do what her mother could not:break the curse.
 
Part outdoor survival adventure, part fantastical quest, Shawn K. Stout’s TheImpossible Destiny of Cutie Grackle is a journey of hope, heart, and awillingness to believe in the impossible.

Author

© Erin Summerill
Shawn K. Stout (www.shawnkstout.com) grew up in Hagerstown, Maryland, the same town where A Tiny Piece of Sky takes place, but she did her growing up more than forty years after the events in this story occur. She is the author of the Not-So-Ordinary Girl series and the Penelope Crumb series and has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Shawn K. Stout lives with her family in Maryland. You can follow her on Twitter at @shawnkstout. View titles by Shawn K. Stout

Three Penguin Random House Authors Win Pulitzer Prizes

On Monday, May 5, three Penguin Random House authors were honored with a Pulitzer Prize. Established in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes are the most prestigious awards in American letters. To date, PRH has 143 Pulitzer Prize winners, including William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Josh Steinbeck, Ron Chernow, Anne Applebaum, Colson Whitehead, and many more. Take a look at our 2025 Pulitzer Prize

Read more

Books for LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

In June we celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual + (LGBTQIA+) Pride Month, which honors the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. Pride Month is a time to both celebrate the accomplishments of those in the LGBTQ+ community and recognize the ongoing struggles faced by many across the world who wish to live

Read more