TREND
WHEN KATHERINE ASHENBURG pitched a middle-grade adaptation of The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History (Vintage Canada), her popular 2007 non-fiction title for adults, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. “I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to make it much shorter, I’m going to take out all the biggest words, and all the historical allusions that won’t mean anything to a kid, take out the sex, and that would be it,’” says Ashenburg. “Boy, was I wrong.”