Feiwel and Friends, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, will publish The Shape of Water, an original adult novel that both mirrors and extends the story told by the feature film of the same name. Fox Searchlight Pictures will release the film, which has already won the coveted Golden Lion as Best Picture at the Venice International Film Festival, and has received 13 Oscar nominations. Based on an original idea by del Toro and Kraus, The Shape of Water has been developed from the ground up as a bold two-tiered release—one story interpreted by two artists in the independent mediums of film and literature.

The Shape of Water is set in Cold War-era Baltimore at the Occam Aerospace Research Center, which has recently received its most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man captured in the Amazon. What unfolds is a haunting love story between the asset and one of the female janitors on staff, a mute woman who uses sign language to communicate with the creature. The book features illustrations by  visual artist James Jean, and weaves fantasy, fable, and romance to create a tale that is equally gripping on the page as it is on the big screen.

Kraus and Del Toro previously collaborated on the young adult novel Trollhunters, which was adapted into the most-watched family show in Netflix history. It was during a meeting about that project that the two began to develop the idea which became THE SHAPE OF WATER.

A 2018 selection of the Junior Library Guild.