Christmas came early for Charlestown writer Natalie Coward Anderson. Her debut young adult novel, “The Breaking Wheel,’’ has been sold to Putnam in a “significant’’ two-book, six-figure deal, with six publishers bidding for it.

“It’s a measure of how talented Natalie is, and how timely and important the story she is telling is,’’ said her literary agent, Faye Bender, who confirmed the book is also being considered for a film “by major studios and production companies.’’ The novel tells the story of Tina, a Congolese refugee who seeks revenge and becomes a thief after her mother is murdered. Anderson works for the Cambridge-based refugee agency RefugePoint, and the book is based on stories she heard from displaced Somalis, Congolese, and Eritreans whom she has met in Africa. She wrote the book during her 2014 Children’s Writer-in-Residence fellowship at the Boston Public Library, sponsored by the Associates of the Boston Public Library, an independent nonprofit. Publication is planned for spring 2017.