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Hello Mr. Korman,

My daughter’s 4th grade class in Mobile, AL is currently reading Restart.  Naturally, I have started to read it too.  My daughter was bouncing off her seat as I got to chapter 2 and discovered that Joel was sent to a prep and musical conservancy in New Britain, CT as I am a native daughter said city.  I am curious, how you choose your cities in your books? Do you look at a map and say that sounds like a great place for this sort of school? I do know that Melton is fictional.  

I am so curious—and I wonder if there is a reason you chose the name Melton for the prep school? My daughter and I ended up in gleeful discourse where she chided me for my pronunciation of Melton and for that matter, New Britain.  But as New Britain natives know, we have a distinct accent from other parts of Connecticut, and we drop our “t” and “n” so New Britain is pronounced as New Bri’ih and Melton is pronounced Mel’ih.  As a blue collar town built the foundation of factories like Stanley Works and Fafnir Ball and Bearings, prep schools are hard to find.

We are really enjoying the book so far.  Thank you for letting this New Britain mom and her Mobile daughter bond in an unexpected way!