Tune It Out by Jamie Sumner

Hello, Jamie Sumner! Welcome back to Watch. Connect. Read.! Thank you for stopping by to share Tune It Out’s cover. What ran through your head (or your heart) the first time you saw Celia Krampien’s cover illustration and Karyn Lee’s cover design?

Jamie Sumner: Before I ever saw the cover, I was already a huge fan of Celia Krampien’s work. Her illustration on Dan Gemeinhart’s The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise was brilliant and I knew she would capture Lou’s spirit so well.

When I saw my own cover, I had to sit down and take a breath. I’d never experience that before – something being so perfect it literally took my breath away. 

It has a moody, bluesy vibe that makes you feel like you’re falling into it. Lou’s face is so perfect too – she’s both pensive and hopeful. I also love that they included vital details to the plot like her earbuds and the guitar and the tiny music notes everywhere. I could not love it more.



Scenario: A bookseller at Parnassus Books asks you to fill out a shelftalker about Tune It Out. There is enough space for 250 characters. 

Jamie Sumner: First of all, Parnassus is my indie bookstore home base so this needs to happen in real life!

Okay, here we go (also, this was really hard and I’ve never wished more that I’d given a character a shorter last name):

Lou Montgomery has the voice of an angel. She also has a fame-hungry mother and an undiagnosed sensory processing disorder that make performing nearly unbearable. When the mother-daughter duo get separated, Lou must discover what it means to live life on her own terms.



Please finish the following sentence starters:

Lou Montgomery is the bravest person to ever run from a stage.

Music is the medium that gives voice to our emotions and we all deserve our own personal playlist.

School librarians are gods and goddess sent to earth to bring hope and joy and heart to humanity. 

Mr. Schu, you should have asked me
how a kid like Lou ends up performing in a karaoke club in Las Vegas at age nine! Answer: there ain’t no mom like a showbiz mom (for better or worse).




Look for Tune It Out on September 1, 2020. 

From the author of the acclaimed Roll with It comes a moving novel about a girl with a sensory processing disorder who has to find her own voice after her whole world turns upside down.

Lou Montgomery has the voice of an angel, or so her mother tells her and anyone else who will listen. But Lou can only hear the fear in her own voice. She’s never liked crowds or loud noises or even high fives; in fact, she’s terrified of them, which makes her pretty sure there’s something wrong with her.

When Lou crashes their pickup on a dark and snowy road, child services separate the mother-daughter duo. Now she has to start all over again at a fancy private school far away from anything she’s ever known. With help from an outgoing new friend, her aunt and uncle, and the school counselor, she begins to see things differently. A sensory processing disorder isn’t something to be ashamed of, and music might just be the thing that saves Lou—and maybe her mom, too.

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