Watt Key

Albert Watkins Key, Jr., publishing under the name Watt Key, is an award-winning southern fiction author. While enjoyed by all ages, his novels are widely used in elementary and middle grade classrooms for their success with young reluctant male readers. His debut novel, Alabama Moon, was published to international acclaim. Alabama Moon won the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award and the Parents’ Choice Gold Award. It is listed on the “100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time” list by Time magazine and has been translated into eight languages. The companion novel, Dirt Road Home, was published to similar praise. Key’s third novel, Fourmile, earned starred reviews from Kirkus, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and more. Terror at Bottle Creek, was published to rave reviews from critics, including Booklist, which called it “Hatchet for the post-Katrina generation,” and it won the Alabama Library Association’s award for Juvenile Fiction. Watt’s latest novel, Beast, is published by Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers.  Deep Water has been called “a thrilling journey of determination” by Booklist, and Kirkus declares it a “page-turning adventure”.