When Kaylena Radcliff of Elverson was a youngster, her favorite book series was "The Chronicles of Narnia." "That was a book series that I really latched onto as a kid, and I found myself often drawn to fantasy," she said. "I tore through Brian Jacques' Redwall series, and I think I read every single Animorphs book as a kid. I always loved those stories."

Today, Radcliff has parlayed that early love of books into a career as an author of Young Adult (YA) books, including "Mouse, The Elmnas Chronicles, Book One," which was released in 2019. Radcliff has chosen the Village Library as the location to launch the publication of the next installment in the series, "Fox: The Elmnas Chronicles, Book II" on Friday, March 31, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

"A book launch is a celebration. I spend a lot of time at the library, and I thought it would be a good place to (hold the launch party)," said Radcliff. "There will be refreshments, and I will read an excerpt from the book and answer questions. It will be a fun, celebratory thing and a place to come and support a local author."

In "Mouse," the main character is a young girl who wakes up not knowing who or where she is. "Mouse wakes up without a memory in a manufacturing facility, which is really a slave camp where they have taken prisoners and their memories and do experiments on them," said Radcliff. "(In the second book), we follow her world through her journey to go back to her home country, which had been subjected to this 100-year war."

Radcliff explained that while YA is for high school-age students, adults enjoy the genre as well. "The stories tend to be more exciting, more engaging and are more character plot-driven," she explained. "My books cross genres. I call what I write dystopian fantasy. People have (described) my first book as 'Hunger Games' meets 'Lord of the Rings.'"

In addition to authoring the fantasy series, Radcliff is a magazine editor, church planter's wife and homeschooling mom of two. She is also the author of sci-fi novelette "The Canaan Project" and a children's biography on Corrie ten Boom, whose family hid Jewish people in its home to protect them during the Holocaust. Radcliff has published numerous short stories and articles, and she occasionally writes for The Torchlighters and the Christian History Institute, where she works as the director of editorial staff.

"I grew up constantly writing stories and was always a very creative kid. I kind of thought of (writing as a career) as something that I could do in ninth grade when I had written a story for class and my teacher said, 'You should pursue this,'" Radcliff recalled.

A college professor at Eastern University, where Radcliff majored in creative writing, also offered her advice, which she also imparts to her young children: "If you want to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader. Read as much as you can."

The Village Library is located at 207 N. Walnut St., Morgantown. For more information about the author and the book launch, visit http://www.facebook.com/kaylenaradcliff.