Photograph by Brianna Brailsford

Author Alan Markham’s extensive credentials—an MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults, K–12 special education teacher, school librarian, father, and martial arts student—all coalesce in his debut novel, Spy Sisters Versus Snake Ten-Fangs, ISBN 9781639935345, March 2026. The new middle grade series from Shadow Mountain Publishing follows three Spy Sisters, ages 6–13, as they take on the notorious Snake Ten-Fangs in a mission packed with high-stakes action, humor, and covert vocabulary and SEL lessons. Here, the author answers questions about his compulsively readable adventure story.

This is an epic action-adventure spy story, complete with code names, classified info, and a “secret face-language.” Where did the idea for this series start for you?

Spy Sisters evolved from bedtime stories I told my kids. The nightly routine forced me to stretch my imagination to come up with new and exciting stories night, after night, after night. Asking my kids to participate in creating the stories kept the tales fresh and helped keep my brain from exploding. It was win-win.

What made you want to put three sisters at the center of this series?

The main characters in Spy Sisters are patterned after my own children as I saw them at ages six, ten, and thirteen, with some exaggeration. My children have changed and evolved since then. The characters in Spy Sisters will also change, evolve, and grow in each new book.
 

Martial arts play a big role in your life, as they do in the Spy Sisters’. They make great action scenes, but what else do you hope your readers get out of their inclusion in the book?

Martial arts is a culture of discipline, respect, and self-improvement. Many know the Chinese style of martial arts as Kung Fu, which approximately means “skill achieved through hard work.” This could be any skill. Not just fighting. The sisters struggle with different things, but they don’t give up. That is largely what makes them heroes. I hope readers will learn that working to overcome something, or to achieve something, makes them the heroes of their own stories.

Drawing on your experience as a teacher and school librarian, what tricks did you use to engage kids in this middle-grade novel?

Many of my students struggle with attention deficits. I learned to give information in short bursts. When I write, I use short chapters. In the classroom, I engage students with learning examples that have action, adventure, intrigue, and humor. I use these same techniques to keep readers engaged in Spy Sisters.

You sneak some challenging vocabulary (e.g., "defenestrated" and “sesquipedalian”!) into the narrative in a fun way. What balance were you looking to strike between entertainment and education in this book?

For excellent readers, the balance between entertainment and education might be 90 percent entertainment and 10 percent education. For a reader who is less proficient it might be 60/40. I want less proficient readers to enjoy the book enough that they don’t realize they are learning. I think stealth learning is appropriate in a spy novel!

There are many valuable lessons in this story about heroism, fear of failure, and more. What do you hope kids will take away from this book?

I hope kids will learn persistence. I hope they learn that they are okay the way they are even as they work to improve. It’s okay to fail. It’s okay to not be perfect. Keep trying, but don’t beat yourself up. Take a break if you need to. But don’t give up. Love yourself and others who are also imperfect.
 

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