A haunted, decaying mansion. A cemetery that’s being disinterred. Dead souls that seem to come back to life and beckon to teenage twin sisters separated at birth. These are just a few of the wonderfully mysterious elements in Mirror Girls, Kelly McWilliams’ second YA novel.
As if slowly building terror and suspense weren’t enough, the book is also an exceptional work of historical fiction set in 1953 Eureka, Georgia. McWilliams’ genre blending works remarkably well, although perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the days of segregation and lynchings were a horror show. What better way to confront this era than with a horror story?
As in McWilliams’ first book, Agnes at the End of the World, two sisters narrate Mirror Girls. Charlie and Magnolia are born in 1936 to Marie, who is Black, and Dean, the wealthy white heir to Heathwood Plantation. Their young parents are murdered as they drive north to be married, leaving behind their infant daughters. Marie’s mother takes darker-skinned Charlie to live in Harlem, where she becomes a civil rights activist. Meanwhile, Dean’s mother raises light-skinned Magnolia as a privileged white Southern belle in their crumbling plantation. The girls have no idea about each other’s existence until Charlie brings her dying Nana back to Eureka, setting the plot explosively in motion.
Once Magnolia learns that she is Black, she realizes that she will have to choose between continuing to live a lie or embracing her heritage as well as her twin sister. Her choice becomes a matter of life and death: After Grandmother Heathwood dies, Magnolia is unable to eat, drink or see her own reflection in a mirror. This is an effective device; as Charlie notes, “It never ceases to haunt me—the unpredictable ways colored folk are reflected in a white eye.”
McWilliams is an excellent stage manager, pacing the action well and keeping the stakes high. The sisters’ alternating voices immerse readers in what life was like during Jim Crow for both white and Black people, and Magnolia’s emerging consciousness is especially well done. A few characters, including Grandmother Heathwood and Magnolia’s beau, Finch, sometimes seem stereotypical; however, even they ultimately have a few surprises up their sleeves.
Mirror Girls is a spine-tingling, empowering look at justice and civil action that urges readers to be aware, to be true to themselves and to take action. As Magnolia observes, “As twin sisters, white and Black, we are a symbol of coming victory. A promise of change.”
This story of biracial twin sisters separated at birth and the reckoning that comes when they reunite is a remarkable blend of historical fiction and horror.
Debut author Jetta Grace Martin joins forces with scholars Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr. to present the fascinating history of an iconic group of Americans in Freedom! The Story of the Black Panther Party. The result is a work of narrative nonfiction that will engage and challenge teen readers.
The book opens by introducing the party’s co-founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, and depicting their early confrontations with police forces, in which they displayed independence that the Black community in the United States had not seen before. Engaging sections unfold in linear fashion and depict the formation, work and eventual fall of the party.
The authors expertly integrate pivotal moments for the organization, such as the Panthers’ early support of the family of Denzil Dowell, who was killed by Mel Brunkhorst, a sheriff’s deputy. Inclusion of events such as the Watts rebellion of 1965, a six-day period of unrest sparked by the police beating of the mother of a man arrested for a DUI in a mostly Black neighborhood in Los Angeles, enables readers to understand the circumstances that energized Black communities during the 1960s and set the stage for a group like the Black Panthers, who could direct such powerful frustrations into a movement.
Throughout the book, the authors incorporate drama and suspense without sacrificing accuracy or integrity. Freedom! makes full use of the authors’ extensive research and frequently incorporates both quotations and photographs. The book’s back matter includes a timeline, a glossary and 15 pages of endnotes to support the book’s notably positive depiction of the Panthers’ accomplishments.
The Black Panthers used a variety of methods and strategies to accomplish their goals, and their shifting tactics offer food for thought to a new generation of young people contemplating which coalitions, programs and techniques will help them become effective changemakers. Freedom! positions the Panthers within “the long freedom struggle” against not only all forms of racism also but imperialism and capitalism. It’s a thorough, thought-provoking and entertaining investigation into one of the most significant movements in 20th-century American history.
By incorporating drama and suspense without sacrificing accuracy or integrity, the authors of Freedom! have created a narrative history that engages and challenges.
Flicker is pretty good, but flare is what everyone really wants, because in Fire Becomes Her,the world runs on flare. The magical substance has made the country of Candesce rich and powerful, but Candesce’s political elite decide who deserves access to the precious resource and who will be left in the dark.
Like flicker, the illicit, bootleg version of flare, a good education and social connections not enough for 17-year-old Ingrid Ellis. Wealth and power are what she truly desires. Ingrid yearns to leave behind her impoverished childhood, forced to scrape by on bits of flicker just to keep warm. She longs for a life full of the magic, power and opulence available only to those with unlimited access to pure flare. Senator and presidential candidate Walden Holt’s son, Linden, seems to be the perfect way to get there.
As Ingrid pursues and (maybe, she thinks) falls in love with Linden, she is desperate to win his father’s approval. After she makes an impressive but unexpected display of magical strength during a raid at an underground flicker club, Ingrid is invited to join Senator Holt’s campaign. She offers to embed herself as a spy among the opposition and to pass along information that might ensure Holt’s victory. Things become complicated, however, as Ingrid gets to know the policies and ideals of the candidate she’s spying on. Along the way, her own worldview is shaken to its core.
In their second novel, author Rosiee Thor masterfully blends a fantasy setting inspired by the Prohibition era and a plot dripping with political intrigue. Fire Becomes Her thoughtfully explores complex themes including inequality, social hierarchies, families both found and chosen, and the possibility of redemption. Thor takes every opportunity to let these characters be uniquely themselves, and the range of gender identities and sexualities represented, as well as the nuanced forms of attraction and love depicted, are impressive and will be, for some readers, revelatory.
Fire Becomes Her is an imaginative, glittering tale about what it’s like to hold the kind of power that can truly change the world.
Rosiee Thor’s second novel masterfully blends a fantasy setting inspired by the Prohibition era and a plot dripping with political intrigue.
Mirror Girls blends historical fiction and horror to tell the story of Charlie and Magnolia, biracial twin sisters separated at birth after their parents’ murder, and the unforeseen consequences of their unlikely reunion 17 years later.
Author Kelly McWilliams spoke to BookPage about the deeply personal experiences that inform the novel and what it’s like to write what scares you.
Can you introduce us to Charlie and Magnolia? Magnolia has been raised to believe she’s a white Southern belle, with no knowledge of her racial heritage. When her grandmother admits the truth on her deathbed, Magnolia’s reflection suddenly disappears from every mirror: She’s unmoored after the loss of her self-conception.
Charlie begins the story in New York City, living with her Black grandmother. It’s the dawn of the civil rights movement, and she dreams of being a protester and fighting for justice. But then her grandmother falls ill and wants to be buried in the place she was born: the rural town of Eureka, Georgia, where Magnolia still lives on an old plantation.
So, at the start of the story, both girls have just lost crucial aspects of their identities. Charlie has lost her life in New York, where it was safer (though not fully safe!) for her to defy the racist status quo. Magnolia, in turn, is reeling from the revelation that despite her skin tone, she’s not, in fact, white. Both girls desperately need to find each other in order to construct a new, mixed-race identity from the ashes of their old lives.
You’ve said that your debut novel, Agnes at the End of the World, was inspired by a dream you had. How did Mirror Girls begin? Mirror Girls is more personal than Agnes, and I think I’ve been making my way toward writing that story for a long time—possibly decades. I grew up in a mixed-race family, and families like mine always have to fight to be seen as family. I can’t tell you how many times people challenged the fact that my brother and I were blood related, just because our skin tone is different. Mixed-race families have to affirm their existence over and over to a society that often chooses not to reflect us. This story was inspired by my own childhood, my own life.
“I grew up in a mixed-race family, and families like mine always have to fight to be seen as family.”
I was also inspired by the photographs of twin sisters Marcia and Millie Briggs, who made the news as infants because one baby presented as white (complete with red hair) and the other as Black. While I found these sisters sweet and inspiring, I recognized that the world was quite puzzled and uneasily fascinated by their existence. The subtext was: What does race even mean if twins can be born with such different racial presentations? And I thought, well, I know the answer to that! In order to survive a world that is still inhospitable to mixed-race families, I had to learn the answer to reconciling my own identity, and it was hard. That journey to self-acceptance felt like a story worth telling.
Mirror Girls has quite a few excellent names for both people and places. How do you find the right names? For the most part, I just wait for names to come to me—and I know in my gut when I’ve found the right one. Sometimes it’s instant; other times it takes months.
I struggled mightily with the name of the plantation in the book for one horrible reason: There are so, so many plantations that still stand in the South, if only as historical destinations or people’s inherited homes, that I kept imagining names that had an analog in real life, which wasn’t ideal. I probably Googled 10 different names (many ending in –wood) until I found one that didn’t already belong to some plantation somewhere. It gives you a sense of the devastating scale of slavery to have that particular problem.
Both of your novels feature sisters as co-narrators. What elements of sisterhood did you want to explore in Mirror Girls that you didn’t touch on in Agnes? Do you see any commonalities between the two pairs of sisters in each of your books? I’ll be honest: When I wrote Agnes, I wasn’t quite ready to take on the subject of mixed-race identity. It was too raw and personal for me at that moment in my life. Nevertheless, in that earlier novel, Agnes and Beth also lose their received identities—as oppressed members of a fundamentalist cult—and must fight to claim a new life and to redefine themselves. Part of that journey means understanding each other as sisters, despite their radically different temperaments and despite the fact that, while Agnes escapes the cult, Beth initially chooses to stay.
Charlie and Magnolia fight a parallel battle in the land of Jim Crow, which frankly has always seemed to me much like a malignant cult. In a cult, oppressive leaders tear down their members, trying to bend them to their will. During Jim Crow, Black people were told that we’re second-class citizens, that we don’t deserve what white folks have. Jim Crow explicitly targeted the Black sense of self, trying to force us to accept a damaged reflection of ourselves. To survive, Magnolia and Charlie must affirm, over and over again, their own worth—but they can’t do it alone. Their sisterhood, across class and the color line, becomes a key piece of their identity. Family and familial love is the greatest antidote to a world that insists, at the top of its lungs, that Black girls don’t count and don’t matter.
In addition to exploring sisterhood, Mirror Girls also dives deep into daughters, mothers and grandmothers, and the ways each generation’s actions ripple outward and affect future generations. What drew you to exploring these ideas in this story? Every Black family in America suffers from intergenerational trauma, especially along our maternal lines. I heard somewhere that 95% of Black Americans are direct descendants of enslaved people, and the crux of chattel slavery as an institution was the separation of children from their mothers on the auction block. That’s an ever-present truth, an inherited cultural memory for every Black mother.
“Family and familial love is the greatest antidote to a world that insists, at the top of its lungs, that Black girls don’t count and don’t matter.”
But intergenerational trauma also takes very personal forms. On the day I was born in a hospital in Maryland, my mother was recovering from a cesarean section when a nurse took me for a checkup. My mother is obviously Black, but I’m extremely light. That nurse didn’t bring me back to my mother; they brought her a Black baby boy instead! Despite our identifying wristbands, that nurse just could not believe that we belonged together. My mother injured herself hollering in the hallway for me, and that story became a huge part of our family identity. In fact, when I gave birth, I remembered what had happened to my mother and worried that if my daughter’s skin tone didn’t match mine, there’d be trouble. It’s a terrible thing to fear that the world will deny your family their basic right to be a family.
Of course, terrible things happen to Black mothers in hospitals every single day, considering the horrible mortality rate. I firmly believe that every bit of maternal suffering causes intergenerational trauma down the line. Grandmothers, mothers and daughters bear so much of that pain. But we also tell the stories that help us to make sense of those traumas. It’s our heritage, and it’s also what we must pass down to help our descendants survive.
Mirror Girls is set in Georgia in 1953, with lots of references to Charlie’s life in Harlem. What sort of research did you do for the book? Were you able to do any travel- or interview-based research? While deciding on a setting, I read Remembering Jim Crow: African-Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South, which is a collection of oral histories. Hearing those voices, I knew I would set the story during this time of struggle, when survival depended in part on Black folks’ own belief in their self-worth. At this time, elders worked so hard to imbue Black children, who were looked down upon by white society, with a sense of pride.
What I really loved about those oral histories, though, was the amazing specificity. Who knew that Coca-Cola once advertised itself in the South for being a “whites-only” drink in some states? And the segregated water fountains just came up over and over as a source of humiliation. It was really a deep laceration to the soul, to be segregated in those mundane ways.
I had desperately hoped to get down South for this project, but the pandemic prevented me from traveling. I did reach out to a sensitivity reader from the South to help with my understanding of the place.
As for interviews, I guess I did sort of interview my own family! We have a family legend that our last enslaved ancestor, a grandmother, walked off a Georgia plantation after emancipation, which is why I set the story there. Black families have long memories, but you do sometimes have to specifically ask the elders in your life to tell them. There’s quite a bit that the older generation often keeps to themselves because the stories are so painful to speak out loud.
I loved the book’s references to three real-life figures: Caleb Hill, Walter White and Ella Baker. Why was including each of these figures important to you and to the story? My book is in part about an imagined lynching, that of Charlie and Magnolia’s parents. I included Caleb Hill’s name and tragic fate because it’s so important that we remember that lynchings really happened, en masse, in the real world. Caleb Hill died at a time when New York’s NAACP headquarters was keeping very careful track of Southern lynchings, so it was also the exact type of event that would have formed a bridge between the South and New York at the time. Northern brothers and sisters never stopped decrying Southern brutalities, and lynchings especially.
“Knowledge is power, and feeling empowered leads to feeling less scared, in the end.”
As for Ella Baker, she’s Charlie’s role model, because she’s not only an activist, she’s also a leader in a sexist time. I imagine Charlie following in her footsteps.
Finally, as I’m a woman light enough to pass for white, Walter Francis White is perhaps my very favorite historical figure of all time. Naturally, he becomes Magnolia’s as well, as she’s establishing her identity as a biracial person. Walter White could easily pass, but he chose not to. This brother had blond hair and blue eyes! In his early years, he acted as a sort of spy, investigating Southern lynchings for the NAACP. He put himself in grave danger pretending to be white to extract information from murderers. There’s a story that, at one point, he had to jump onto a moving train to save his own life. I just love that though he could have chosen the easy way out—pretending to be white to further his own opportunities—he dedicated his life to the Black community. And he used his light-skinned privilege to do something good for others.
Your first book combined the “cult escape” narrative with a pandemic story, and Mirror Girls seamlessly blends historical fiction and horror. What do you enjoy about stirring different genres together? Are there other genres you’d love to combine in the future? I love to stir up genres, and I think it’s because I genuinely feel that life is too messy to be captured by one genre alone. There’s also a tension that two distinct genres place on each other that leads to fruitful and interesting narratives. Genre mashups also help you to avoid writing plot points that are too cliché.
I do have some combos I hope to write one day! One is a Western combined with a spy novel (actually based on the life of Walter White), but my next project is a single genre: a contemporary social satire. Genre mashups, while rewarding, are hard to pull off, and I need a short break!
In an interview, you once said that you tend to write what scares you. Do you ever have to take a break from writing because you’ve scared yourself? What makes you feel brave? The things that scare me exist in the real world: patriarchy, white supremacy and racism, and I’m thinking about and dealing with them every single day. In a weird way, writing about those things is itself my break from the awfulness of reality. Writing what scares you is oddly therapeutic, the way nightmares are. I have to work through my thoughts about these heavy topics in order to stay grounded in my real life. It’s like a very demanding form of self-care.
When I’m finished with a book, I’ve usually worked out some of the troubles in my own head and squared my thoughts on these heavy topics and how we should respond to them. Knowledge is power, and feeling empowered leads to feeling less scared, in the end.
What will you take away from the writing of this book? When I was in middle school, I struggled to look into mirrors, because I just could not square the racial identity that I hold so dear with my own light face. By the time I hit my 20s, mirrors and I were on better terms, but in another, deeper way, I was still avoiding a certain type of mirror: my own writing. I did not write about white passing or light-skinned existence or the struggles of mixed families. Or, I suppose, I was writing about those things, but they were extremely sublimated.
Now, in my 30s, I finally feel strong enough to write more explicitly from my own personal experience. It’s been absolutely revelatory. I’ve never felt so at peace with my own racial ambiguity, and I’m finally beginning to process and even speak about the core traumas of my mixed childhood. My book is dedicated to mirror girls of every color, everywhere—and come to think of it, that includes me.
Four years ago, after attracting the unwanted attention of Poseidon and being cursed by Athena, Medusa and her sisters fled to a distant island. Her winged sisters take to the skies every day, leaving Medusa alone with only the snakes on her head for company. One day, Medusa discovers Perseus, a handsome boy stranded on the island. Slowly, they open up to each other, unaware that their blossoming relationship will become the spark of a tragedy.
Jessie Burton’s Medusa is a feminist retelling of the classical Greek myth of Medusa and Perseus, brought to life with full-color illustrations by Olivia Lomenech Gill. The book adds complexity to a character many readers may know only as a monstrous Gorgon, famously capable of turning anyone who looks at her into stone. Here, readers meet Medusa not as a monster but as a hopeful girl who bears both psychological and physical scars.
Burton’s narrative powerfully explores the effects of abuse. Medusa tells her story, giving readers a firsthand glimpse into the trauma she’s experienced, its long-term ramifications and the twisting rationalizations that others use to defend her abusers. As she transitions to adulthood and navigates healing, identity and romance, she often looks to the women in her life for guidance and insight. Medusa’s sisters, Stheno and Euryale, and even Athena herself offer varying perspectives on maturity and femininity, and Medusa is able to consider their conflicting views while also developing her own way forward.
Gill’s illustrations provide visual representations of Medusa’s thoughts and feelings. Sketches of birds and ocean life ground the story in the seaside isolation of Medusa’s island. Some of the images, such as one of Medusa and her sisters flying into the night sky, have a collage-like quality that endows the story’s mythical subjects with genuine human emotion. Gill’s colors mirror Medusa’s emotional journey: Medusa’s joy shines through in vivid blues and greens, her curiosity about Perseus is a soft yellow, and her horrific past is a dark and bloody red.
Throughout the book, Burton’s prose and Gill’s art work in harmony to offer two intertwined ways of learning who Medusa really is. By placing her at the center of the tale, they give an epic voice to victims whose stories often go ignored and untold. Readers who love nuanced retellings of myths will not want to miss it.
Medusa adds complexity to a character typically known only as a monstrous Gorgon, and readers who enjoy nuanced retellings of myths will not want to miss it.
Preston Norton’s third YA novel is a profound and often profane exploration of family and forgiveness. Hopepunk is the story of Hope Cassidy, whose beloved sister, Faith, runs away after their mom tries to send her to a camp that practices so-called conversion therapy. While trying to track Faith down, Hope also discovers a love for forbidden rock music, forms a band, Hope Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, and enters her school’s Battle of the Bands. We chatted with Norton about his book’s nuanced depiction of religion and how they balance heavy themes with humor.
When did you begin to write Hopepunk?
In order to answer that, I feel like I need to address the elephant in the room, which is that the word hopepunk existed long before it became the title of my novel. I first heard it on Twitter, where a reader had compiled a list of their favorite “hopepunk” stories, and one of my previous novels, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe, made the list.
The entire hopepunk genre is a reaction to the dystopia we were all living in—and in many ways, continue to live in to this day—and our desperate need to find hope and happiness in our speculative fiction. Hopepunk isn’t speculative fiction per se, but it is 100% a love letter to speculative fiction and the lifeline it provides us in super dark times.
Hope wears her heart on her sleeve. Where did her character originate?
Whenever I write in first person (which is pretty much all the time), I have a very difficult time not injecting a bit of myself into the main character. When you take a step back and look at my past three protagonists, you will find that they all wear their hearts on their sleeves, they cry a lot, and they have a bit of unchecked anger that could easily be resolved with counseling. All of these characters have someone they care about so much that it hurts—it almost becomes their entire identity—and when the people they love are hurt, the main characters sort of lose their minds. It’s by learning to care in the right way that they eventually find themselves. This is how you write a protagonist for a Preston Norton novel. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
“It is really interesting to me to see the shape a person leaves when they are no longer there.”
The sisterhood between Faith and Hope is one of the relationships at the core of Hopepunk. What were the challenges of conveying their bond when one of them is literally missing for most of the novel?
To me, the trick was less about writing the relationship than writing the hole that forms when a relationship is broken. It doesn’t just break Hope’s heart. It breaks her entire family, and it breaks each of them in different ways.
It is really interesting to me to see the shape a person leaves when they are no longer there. Faith didn’t believe her presence made a difference, so it is very interesting and also very heartbreaking that when she runs away, all that seems to be left is her absence.
Initially it may seem like you’re pretty harsh on the subject of religion, but so much of Hopepunk is actually about forgiveness and faith. Why was exploring this duality important to you?
I have a very complex relationship with religion. On the one hand, I grew up in a religious community that I feel like represented the very worst when it came to homophobia and gaslighting and shame culture in Christianity. I am not religious anymore and have not been for a very long time.
I do see immense value in spirituality. I think we all need something to believe in that is bigger than ourselves sometimes. Not for any moral reason. I think we need it for our own happiness. To help us find equilibrium.
In that same sense, I feel like forgiveness—a concept that we often think of as “Christian” in nature—might be the most important ingredient to any one human being’s personal happiness. Even if it’s just yourself you need to forgive.
“I realize that not everyone in the world is an ally, but I like to believe it’s possible that everyone in the world could become one.”
Many characters in the book undergo transformations, but Hope’s mom’s journey is one of the most meaningful. How did you avoid extremes when creating her character?
If Hope was the easiest character to write (because she is very similar to me), Hope’s mom was maybe the most difficult, perhaps because I have never personally met a person who has undergone a transformation quite like hers. But I am very proud of where she ended up because, at the end of the day, she is 100% someone I would want to have on my team.
Christianity 101 is all about powerful transformations, villains becoming heroes (case in point, Saul becoming Paul), so it seems oddly appropriate that she undergoes such a metamorphosis. I realize that not everyone in the world is an ally, but I like to believe it’s possible that everyone in the world could become one.
Hopepunk is set in Wyoming. Why did you choose to tell this story in a conservative setting? Can you talk a little bit about the broader significance of telling queer stories in spaces like that?
I’ll be 100% honest. This story was almost set in Alabama, but then a conversation with my agent and editor drop-kicked it out of Appalachia and into the Rockies. We landed in Wyoming purely because of Sundance. (Yes, the band was called Hope Cassidy and the Sundance Kids before the setting had anything to do with Sundance.) When we finally pushed that puzzle piece into place, it just clicked.
Regardless of where the story could have been set, queer stories are needed everywhere because queer people are everywhere. I’m drawn to conservative settings because those are the places I’ve always lived. My hope is always to connect with just one reader in such a way that they feel seen, heard and understood. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I will have given them something that wasn’t there before.
Within Hopepunk is a second story, a lesbian sci-fi adventure called “Andromeda and Tanks Through Space and Time.” Was it challenging to incorporate this into the larger narrative?
I had so much fucking fun with this story! Maybe too much fun. There were many times when I was afraid that it wouldn’t make it into the final version of Hopepunk, and it is much more sliced and diced than it was in my original draft.
The greatest challenge was always selling my editors on this very weird little story within the story. When I try to explain it to people, I always bring up the “Carry On” story with Simon and Baz in Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl. It is very different, obviously, but on a spiritual level, I feel like it is very much the same thing.
“I think we all need something to believe in that is bigger than ourselves sometimes.”
How did you balance the weighty themes and emotions in Hopepunk with the fact that it’s also often extremely funny?
This is very easy for me, because life is simultaneously so very funny but also so very sad. I think humor is my way of dealing and coping with sad and difficult topics. Humor allows me a safe distance to be vulnerable, but not so vulnerable that it makes me depressed and anxious.
Hopepunk is also about rock ’n’ roll and how powerful it can be to make music. In your acknowledgments, you mention that the songs in the book were going to be covers, but one of your editors pushed you to write original songs, which you found a daunting prospect. How did you pull it off?
I honestly have no idea. I don’t necessarily believe in miracles, but I also cannot deny that it must be some sort of miracle because I am NOT a songwriter.
With that said, I will readily admit that the third and final song in the book, “Love Can See,” was the most difficult one for me to write—so much so that I feel like I kind of cheated and borrowed the tune, time signature and lyrical beats of a preexisting song as a model for it. (But there is no actual tune in my book, so good luck suing me, mwahaha!)
I will have to award some sort of prize to the first reader who calls me out on Twitter for which song I used as a crutch. Would you like to be a minor character in my next book? I feel like that’s the only thing of value I have to offer. The contest begins NOW!
Hope quite literally finds her voice while singing karaoke at a local haunt. Are you a karaoke person? If so, what’s your go-to song?
I will sing anything and everything. I am a karaoke monster. I am not good by any means, but what I lack in talent, I make up for in loudness and staggering enthusiasm. There is nothing I won’t sing.
June CL Tan’s debut novel is the tale of two haunted teens, one by traumatic memories of losing his parents and his rightful claim to the throne, the other by the absence of any memories whatsoever.
Ahn feels stuck in the small village where she lives with her adoptive grandmother. She struggles to earn—and sometimes steal—enough to survive and grapples with the blank space that is her past. When her illegal magical abilities are discovered, she is brought to the palace, certain that imprisonment and execution will be her fate.
Meanwhile, Altan is traveling through the country, tracking down and exacting vengeance on the people who murdered his parents and twin sister. Relying on his clan’s training and his friend Tang Wei, Altan is desperate to find the legendary Life Stealer, a person with a rare magical ability that’s integral to Altan’s quest.
When Ahn’s and Altan’s paths intersect, they soon realize that working together will be more thrilling and more dangerous than either could have predicted.
Jade Fire Gold is a complex and fast-paced fantasy that alternates between Ahn’s and Altan’s perspectives. Readers will be quickly swept up in Ahn’s efforts to discover who she truly is and who she wants to become and in Altan’s battle between self-fulfillment and the personal sacrifice required to serve the greater good.
The novel is vivid, thrilling and occasionally humorous as it honestly and powerfully explores colonization and oppression, the long-term ramifications of violent conflicts and how easily the truth can be lost when history is written by the victors. This mix of epic storytelling, Chinese mythology and adventure-filled romance marks the arrival of an exciting new voice in young adult fantasy.
This fast-paced fantasy blends Chinese mythology, adventure and romance. It’s an irresistible and exciting debut.
Poets Irene Latham and Charles Waters have collaborated on two books for young readers. Their third book together, African Town, is a novel in verse for teen readers about historical events known by far too few Americans. In 1860, decades after the federal government had banned the importation of slaves, a group of 110 Africans were forcibly brought to the United States and enslaved. After the Civil War, the group’s survivors created a community that still exists today, now called Africatown. In many voices and poetic forms, Latham and Waters powerfully chronicle their story. The poets discuss the origins of the project and the responsibility they felt to do justice to the survivors—and to their living descendants.
African Town is your third literary collaboration. How did these collaborations begin? This all started with an email from one poet (Irene) to another (Charles) in February 2015, with an invitation to work on poems for a potential book from Lerner Publishing Group. The aim was to write about universal subjects with the topic of race as a through line, which turned into Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes and Friendship. The book was the brainchild of Lerner Editorial Director Carol Hinz. If it wasn’t for Carol, we never would have worked together in the first place. We’re eternally grateful to her.
How did African Town start? It feels like our previous two books together—and the degree of difficulty involved in creating them—prepared us for undertaking this project, which was quite challenging and rewarding. We were surprised by our lack of knowledge about this vital story, and we hope our book helps remedy that for others.
We learned of this history when we were presenting together at the Alabama Book Festival in Montgomery, Alabama, in the spring of 2019. We were so inspired by these courageous humans—how they endured so much, and how bound they were to one another. They were ripped from their lives, and yet they continued to dream and to do. Every step of the research brought us to another “wow” moment, and we wanted to help bring the story to young readers.
Your previous books together were written for younger readers than African Town, which is for teens. How did you settle on telling this story for teen readers? The age of the characters and the brutality of parts of this history demanded that this book be marketed as young adult, but we approached it as a “family” story. We imagine intergenerational families sharing this book and having rich discussions about our past, our future and how resilience and hope are cultivated at home—however (and wherever) one defines that word.
What research did you do to ensure you could immerse yourselves in the characters’ experiences? Thank the universe we were able to visit Mobile, Alabama, in late February 2020, about two weeks before the country shut down due to the pandemic. We visited Africantown, spent time outside the Union Missionary Baptist Church, which was founded by the Clotilda survivors, stood next to the bust of Kossola outside the church, visited the Old Plateau Cemetery also founded by the Clotilda survivors, went on the Dora Franklin Finley African-American Heritage Trail, visited the History Museum of Mobile, pored over documents at the Mobile Public Library’s local history and genealogy library, and spent time at Kazoola Eatery & Entertainment, meeting the kind people of Mobile and soaking up the atmosphere.
“We imagine intergenerational families sharing this book and having rich discussions about our past, our future and how resilience and hope are cultivated at home.”
As you researched, what did you learn that was the biggest revelation for you? One of the biggest revelations was how little we actually know about the women who were onboard the Clotilda. The main sources of information were male-focused, like Kossola’s many interviews and William Foster’s journal. Holes in research are gifts to historical fiction writers, and it became important to us to recognize these incredible humans and to create rich, full female characters.
African Town speaks to readers in so many different characters’ voices, including the Clotilda herself. How did you decide who would write whom? Our decisions about who would write which character were dictated by where each of us was in the research. We each ended up writing both Black and white characters, and then we spent a lot of time revising together. The Clotilda was perhaps one of the most delicate to write, because we cast her in an all-knowing, voice-of-the-world kind of tone. The Africans in the hold don’t necessarily know what’s happening to them, but the Clotilda does.
At the end of the book, you share details about the various poetic forms you paired with each character and why you chose them. Are there certain forms you each tend to favor? Did you learn any new ones? We worked hard to match form with personality. With so many voices, we were looking for ways to distinguish each one. Varying the form and shape of the poems on the page helped a great deal. This is where writing our previous book Dictionary for a Better World proved helpful because that book had 47 different poetry forms. We both tend to favor free verse when writing, but we have come to enjoy nonets and tricubes among others.
Even though it was challenging to craft, we’ve come to respect and be proud of using tankas, a short Japanese form of five lines and 31 syllables, for the character of James. It’s such an elegant and difficult form to pull off. We were partially inspired by the verse novel Garvey’s Choice by Nikki Grimes, which is written only in tankas. We felt the form matched James’ personality and mien. Another one we’re proud of is the form used for Cudjo Jr. It was a combination of the poetic styles of E.E. Cummings and Arnold Adoff—with our own twist on it.
“It wasn’t always easy to join these courageous humans on their journey, but it was life-changing.”
How did you feel about doing justice to the real people, events and places in the book? Both of us knew that since we were writing about many instances that happened to real people, it was vital to be as thorough as possible in research so that we might “get it right.” The mantle of responsibility felt a lot heavier than our previous two books, which dealt with our own lives. We spent hours and hours discussing personality, relationships and motivation—which, due to gaps in information available, was often left for us to imagine.
It’s been important to us to involve the descendants as much as possible, and we’re so grateful for the warm welcome we have received from the community. Our hope is to honor their ancestors, to work with them to make this history more accessible, and to share with young readers a story that impacted us on a very personal level. It wasn’t always easy to join these courageous humans on their journey, but it was life-changing. We feel so lucky to know these characters so intimately. Their resilience continues to inspire us.
Author photo of Irene Latham and Charles Waters courtesy of Eric Latham.
Acclaimed poets Irene Latham and Charles Waters give the past a voice in African Town, their new novel in verse about the last group of Africans brought to America and enslaved.
Whether you love sprawling fantasies, gothic fables, jubilant rom-coms or page-turning mysteries, 2022 is guaranteed to be a YA lover’s best reading year ever.
Tahereh Mafi has written a bestselling six-volume dystopian series as well as middle grade fantasies and two devastating realistic novels set in the early 2000s. Her fans love her imaginative, emotional storytelling and razor-sharp prose. In 2022, she’ll publish her first work of high fantasy for teen readers, a sprawling yet intimate tale with Persian and Muslim influences. If your ideal reading experience is being transported into an epic and magical story, you’ll want to put This Woven Kingdomat the top of your TBR.
The thing I love most about historical fiction master Ruta Sepetys is how unwilling she seems to be to simply rest on her laurels. At this point in her writing career, Sepetys could forge a comfortable path retreading familiar territory, but instead, she follows her unique instincts for sniffing out compelling stories amid locales and historical moments little-known to most of her American readers, from war-torn northern Europe during the final days of World War II to Barcelona at the height of the Franco regime. In I Must Betray You, she turns those instincts to 1989 Romania, and the result is a can’t-miss read for fans of historical fiction and thrillers alike.
Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams Little, Brown | February 8
Kelly McWilliams is the daughter of acclaimed children’s author Jewell Parker Rhodes, and her 2020 debut, Agnes at the End of the World, proved that she’s a talented storyteller in her own right. Mirror Girls is an ambitious step forward for McWilliams. A historical horror novel that reads like The Vanishing Half meets “Lovecraft Country,” it’s the story of biracial twin sisters who are separated at birth and reunite under mysterious circumstances in the small Georgia town where they were born.
Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi Knopf | February 15
Akwaeke Emezi is one of the most exciting and visionary writers working today, and I’m thrilled that they’re returning to YA shelves with this prequel to their 2019 National Book Award finalist, Pet. Bitter will reveal the story of Pet’s mother, the eponymous Bitter, and add new dimensions to the world Emezi created in Pet.
All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir Razorbill | March 1
It’s hard to think of a more successful or more influential YA fantasy series of the past decade than Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes quartet, which ended in December 2020 with A Sky Beyond the Storm. All My Rage explores vastly different territory: It’s a work of contemporary realism about two teens coming of age in a small town in the Mojave Desert. Like the novel’s protagonists, Tahir grew up at her family’s 18-room motel in the Mojave Desert, and All My Rage draws inspiration from her personal experiences. Changing genres and creating such a personal story is an ambitious move, but Tahir is a storyteller I’d follow just about anywhere.
The Rumor Game by Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra Disney-Hyperion | March 1
In December 2020, Netflix released the first season of “Tiny Pretty Things,” adapted from Clayton and Charaipotra’s 2015 YA novel of the same name. It was an addicting mix of a high-pressure environment (a ballet school) and a twisting, shocking plot that kept me up past bedtime on more than one occasion. Clayton and Charaipotra have both released books individually since publishing Shiny Broken Things, the sequel to Tiny Pretty Things, in 2016, but they’re reuniting in 2022 for a brand-new standalone thriller about rumors, secrets and lies set at an exclusive prep school. It’s got the makings of a late-night read written all over it.
Gallant by V. E. Schwab Greenwillow | March 1
I’m going to throw some words and phrases at you right now: Fog. Gloom. Mysterious. Crumbling old house. Ghostly. Candlelight. A door to the unknown. Secrets. Haunting. Enchanting. If those are vibes you find yourself inexplicably drawn to, bestselling author V. E. Schwab has written a book especially for you. The less I say here about Schwab’s return to the YA category, the better, because as with all tales of mystery and magic, half the pleasure’s in the discovery itself.
Great or Nothing by Joy McCullough, Caroline Tung Richmond, Tess Sharpe and Jessica Spotswood Delacorte | March 8
How many reimaginings and adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel Little Women is too many for me? To quote an iconic scene from the 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls, the limit does not exist. I regularly sing along to the soundtrack of the 2005 Broadway show while driving to work. I inhaled Bethany C. Morrow’s 2021 remix, So Many Beginnings, set in 1863 in a Virginia colony of newly emancipated people. Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation was the last movie I saw in a theater before the pandemic. (I loved it, obviously.) So I truly cannot wait to see what this reimagining will hold. The details are already tantalizing: It’s set in 1942, with each March sister’s perspective written by a different YA author. Jo builds planes! Laurie is an army pilot! Amy is a Red Cross volunteer in London! Beth’s point of view will be in verse! I look forward to swooning, sighing and ugly-crying all over again when it hits shelves in March.
Right Where I Left You by Julian Winters Viking | March 15
Julian Winters has published three of the most beloved LGBTQ+ realistic fiction YA novels in recent memory through a small, independent publisher called Interlude Press. This spring, Winters will release his first book from one of the so-called Big Five publishers, a move that’s sure to make his rising star shine even brighter. Right Where I Left You has all the ingredients that readers loved in Winters’ previous books, including authentic teen characters and heartfelt depictions of friendship, romance and the search to figure out who you are and what you really want.
Kiss & Tellby Adib Khorram Dial | March 22
Adib Khorram’s first two novels told the quiet but deeply powerful story of queer biracial teen Darius Kellner. Darius the Great Is Not Okay and its sequel, Darius the Great Deserves Betterare master classes in creating a unique and authentic narrative voice. In his third book, Khorram seems to be interested in turning up the volume—literally. The protagonist of Kiss & Tell is the only gay member of a newly successful boy band, but he’s struggling with his heart and with the pressures of the spotlight. Readers who enjoyed the showbiz romance of Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich’s If This Gets Out or the music-loving heart of Leah Johnson’s Rise to the Sun won’t want to miss it.
This Rebel Heart by Katherine Locke Knopf | April 5
Although they’ve published two YA novels and two picture books (including What Are Your Words, which is the most accessible introduction to personal pronouns I’ve ever read) and edited two anthologies, Katherine Locke isn’t a household name—yet. This Rebel Heart could very well be the book to change that. Set in the midst of the 1956 revolution in communist Budapest, the story promises an intriguing juxtaposition of history and magic that fans of Julie Berry, Naomi Novik, Gavriel Savit and Ruta Sepetys will love.
Nothing Burns as Bright as Youby Ashley Woodfolk Versify | April 5
While we’re on the subject of authors who should be household names, allow me to get out my megaphone and sandwich board and stand out on the sidewalk to sing the praises of Ashley Woodfolk. Woodfolk’s first two novels are two of the best works of YA contemporary realistic fiction of the past decade, and she was one of six contributors to Blackout, the collaborative YA romance hit of summer 2021. To read a Woodfolk novel is to lose all sense of time and be swept away in her character-driven storytelling and effortless prose, and Nothing Burns as Bright as You looks to be her most explosive novel yet.
An Arrow to the Moon by Emily X.R. Pan Little, Brown | April 12
Emily X.R. Pan’s 2018 debut novel, The Astonishing Color of After, was a New York Times bestseller and received a number of awards, including a Walter Honor and a YA Honor from ALA’s Asian/Pacific American Awards. It was the uncommon debut novel whose ambition was matched by its creator’s skill, so while Pan’s second book looks even more ambitious, I’m so excited to watch her pull it off. Like Pan’s debut, An Arrow to the Moon will blend romance, emotional storytelling, Chinese mythology and fantastical elements for an unforgettable combination.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston Wednesday | May 3
Casey McQuiston burst onto bookshelves in 2019 with her adult romance debut, Red, White & Royal Blue, a book that reads like “The West Wing” meets “The Crown” but with much more kissing, and then didn’t let their foot off the gas one bit in their second book, One Last Stop. So when, in the summer of 2021, McQuiston announced that she would be publishing her first YA novel, to say that it was exciting would be an understatement. I Kissed Shara Wheeler is set at a conservative school in Alabama and, like One Last Stop, will incorporate elements of both mystery and romance.
Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert Flatiron | June 28
The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert’s first YA novel, spent more than half of 2018 on the New York Times bestseller list. Since then, Albert’s fans have devoured a sequel, The Night Country, as well as a companion set of short stories, Tales From the Hinterland. Our Crooked Hearts will capture the same intoxicating potion of dark magic and sharp prose that readers loved in Albert’s previous books, but since it’s a wholly original story unconnected to the Hinterland world, it’s also a perfect entry point to Albert’s work for new readers.
As readers who enjoy young adult books look back on 2021, they’ll see that it was a year packed with truly amazing new books. Here are the 15 titles BookPage readers loved most.
This novel’s easy charm, strong mother-daughter relationship and romantic elements recall the best moments of “Gilmore Girls” or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Longtime Enola Holmes fans as well as those who met Sherlock’s irrepressible younger sister via the hit film adaptation will devour this brisk, stylish mystery.
When townsfolk go missing and Amity Falls starts to crumble, Ellerie must uncover what’s really haunting her home in Erin A. Craig’s haunting second novel.
Millie Price has her heart set on Broadway, so when her single dad tells her that he wants her to stay in New York for her senior year of high school rather than attending the prestigious musical theater pre-college she’s been accepted to in California, she feels her dreams slipping away. When she stumbles across her dad’s old college-era LiveJournal, however, she discovers the perfect solution. If Millie can find her mom, she’s convinced she’ll have an ally—but the LiveJournal entries mention three different women. As Millie sets out to find out which of her dad’s former flames is her mother, she realizes there’s someone else she needs to get to know: herself.
Emma Lord’s When You Get the Chance is an exuberant celebration of all things Broadway, complete with musical theater references on nearly every page. But this gender-bent Mamma Mia! retelling is also a touching exploration of what family really looks like, and a powerful reminder that sometimes everything we need is already right in front of us.
Millie describes herself as “a lot,” and she’s not wrong. With her meticulously styled looks and her “Millie Moods,” which she describes as feeling like “everything is just so much that . . . it’s going to spill out of me if I don’t find a place to put it,” Millie is an unapologetically loud character who is unafraid to take up space. Add in her deep-seated kindness and her single-minded pursuit of her goals, and Millie is a fun and easy protagonist to root for.
The book’s supporting characters come to life just as vividly, from Millie’s steadfast best friend, Teddy, and her drama club rival-turned-crush, Oliver, to her introverted dad and the outgoing aunt who helped him raise her, to each of her potential moms. This rich cast of characters creates an enviable found family that lifts one another up and shows Millie that there might be a better way to achieve her dreams.
Perfect for the “theater dweebs” to whom the book is dedicated, as well as any teen who’s ever felt somehow incomplete, When You Get the Chance is a joyful read that will have readers tapping their toes to the music in Millie’s heart.
Raised by her dad, theater-loving Millie longs to discover her mom’s identity. Does her dad’s old LiveJournal hold the key?
Two profound events change teenager Hope Cassidy’s life. First, she catches her dad jamming out to classic rock ’n’ roll, an explicit violation of her mother’s strict religious code of conduct. In that moment, Hope is introduced not only to rock music but also to rebellion.
Second, Hope’s older sister, Faith, runs away from home. After their younger sister, Charity, hears that Faith has been locking lips with the cute girl who works at the record shop, she tells their mom, who decides to send Faith to a camp that practices so-called conversion therapy. Faith’s disappearance paralyzes Hope’s entire family. As weeks turn into months and eventually an entire year without Faith, their home becomes a pit of despair.
Hope, who describes herself as “born full of swear words,” spews rage as she rebels in her sister’s absence, while remaining hopeful that she might be able to find Faith. She gets a questionable tattoo from a questionable but cute boy, finds catharsis in a private karaoke room where she hones her Janis Joplinesque pipes, and most consequently, invites her longtime crush, Danny, to move in after he is kicked out of his house for revealing to his family that he is gay. When Danny discovers that Hope can sing, he talks her into forming a rock band.
And that’s just the beginning. Alt-Rite, a hate-fueled band fronted by Danny’s twin brother, is favored to win the annual battle of the bands, but not if Hope Cassidy and the Sundance Kids have anything to say about it. Hope discovers a lesbian sci-fi novella that has been going viral online but seems very familiar. And at home, Hope’s mom accepts Danny with open arms in an effort to relearn what it means to be a “good Christian.”
Preston Norton’s Hopepunk is perhaps the most foulmouthed, punk rock book to ever be written about religion and forgiveness. It’s stellar. Jampacked with plot and overflowing with characters who turn from hilarious to downhearted on a dime, it is a wonder that instead of seeming dense and manic, Hopepunk is instead clever and precise.
Norton pulls off several impressive hat tricks. He tells a layered and complex story about forgiveness and family. They also write a surprisingly emotional sci-fi romance story-within-a-story and original songs that you can practically hear through the page. Hope is emotional, funny and crass, like a wounded insult comic who, instead of landing punchlines, wails melodies to speak her truth. Norton surrounds her with a cast of diverse and interesting friends and allies who want to help her find Faith and her own voice.
Hopepunk is both a balm and a call to action. “Art means nothing without the people who experience it,” says one of Hope’s bandmates. When it comes to reading Hopepunk, oh, what an experience!
Hopepunk is perhaps the most punk rock book ever to be written about religion and forgiveness. It’s a stellar read.
The true story of the final group of people who were forcibly brought to the United States and enslaved is rendered powerfully and poetically in African Town, a novel in verse by Irene Latham and Charles Waters.
The poets (co-authors of two previous books, Can I Touch Your Hair? and Dictionary for a Better World) offer a tangible and memorable way for readers to bear witness to the lives of the 110 Africans brought to the U.S. in 1860 by Captain William Foster aboard a ship called the Clotilda. They were pawns in a cruelly casual bet made by a wealthy Mobile, Alabama, landowner named Timothy Meaher. Meaher bet $1,000 that, despite a decadeslong ban on the importation of enslaved people, he could pay Foster to smuggle people into the U.S. without getting caught.
Throughout the book, the poets move between voices and poetic forms as they imagine the long and terrible journey. They embody the despair of a religious man named Kupollee down below (“We are inside a / terrible story. When will it end?”); the denial of Foster, above (“I can’t think of them as humans. I won’t.”); and the anguish of the Clotilda herself (“If I’d been built with a heart, it would be broken”).
Among the 14 voices that narrate this history is Kossola, a young man eager to learn from his Yoruba elders at home and who, once in America, encourages fellow survivors to find home within each other. Teens Abilè̩ and Kêhounco forge a sisterhood that unites them in grief and love. And Meaher, well, he holds fast to his beliefs, repugnant as they are.
Readers will feel heartened to learn that, after the Civil War ended and the Clotilda survivors were freed, they worked together to create a community that was theirs alone, and that the African Town (now Africatown) of the book’s title still exists today in Alabama. In fact, Joycelyn M. Davis, an Africatown resident descended from Oluale, one of the survivors, wrote the book’s introduction.
Plentiful back matter includes a glossary, timeline and bibliography, news about Africatown’s present and future plans and more. A section called “Poetry Forms/Styles” offers fascinating insight into the authors’ creative process; their descriptions of the poetic forms employed in the book are little poems in and of themselves.
African Town is a book that should be both taught and treasured.
This powerful novel in verse recounts the true story of the final group of people who were enslaved and forcibly brought to the United States.
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Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.
Sean Adams has dialed down the dystopian quotient from his first satirical novel, The Heap, but that element is still very much present in The Thing in the Snow.
