I’ve always been a voracious reader of the news and history, consuming everything from Johnny Tremain to Slaughterhouse-Five, from old-fashioned newspapers to online news feeds. I’ve also always loved writing fiction. I aligned my interests in history, the news, and writing in my first novel, The Blood Lie, based on a hate crime in my hometown in the 1920s. Since then, I’ve written two other novels based on true events: Ripped Away and my novel, listed below.
I love how this book portrays young people intelligently speaking truth to power…even when that power is the teacher grading you…even when that teacher is well-liked…even when some oppose your ideas.
This novel showed me what antisemitism (and bigotry in general) can look like in a contemporary high school, a place already brewing with emotions, factions, and hormones. The characters are so nuanced and realistic that I felt I was right there with them in the classroom and beyond.
This book inspired many productive conversations with my family and friends.
Inspired by a real-life incident, this riveting novel explores the dangerous impact discrimination and antisemitism have on one community when a school assignment goes terribly wrong.
Would you defend the indefensible?
That's what seniors Logan March and Cade Crawford are asked to do when a favorite teacher instructs a group of students to argue for the Final Solution--the Nazi plan for the genocide of the Jewish people.
Logan and Cade decide they must take a stand, and soon their actions draw the attention of the student body, the administration, and the community at large. But not everyone feels as Logan…
I’ve read many nonfiction pieces about the Chernobyl nuclear power explosion, but nothing comes close to the emotional impact of watching these two fictional fifth-graders live through the devastation and evacuation that ensued.
I cried and then cheered as these girls, who were initially separated by religious discrimination, built a friendship in the face of mutual tragedy.
I love a story that is both uplifting and heartbreaking, and this book is a shining example.
On a spring morning, neighbors Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko wake up to an angry red sky. A reactor at the nuclear power plant where their fathers work - Chernobyl - has exploded. Before they know it, the two girls, who've always been enemies, find themselves on a train bound for Leningrad to stay with Valentina's estranged grandmother, Rita Grigorievna. In their new lives in Leningrad, they begin to learn what it means to trust another person. Oksana must face the lies her parents told her all her life. Valentina must keep her grandmother's secret, one that could put all…
Always Orchid is the moving, award-winning finale to the Goodbye Orchid series that Glamour Magazine called "a modern, important take on the power of love." With themes of identity, disability, and the redemptive power of love, Always Orchid is perfect for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle…
The 1986 Challenger shuttle explosion. I remember exactly where I was - at home - and what I was doing - living my everyday young person’s life.
This is the setting for the three siblings in this novel, which I could not put down. Like me, the characters have to process the reality of the explosion right alongside doing homework, squabbling with each other, and watching sitcoms.
I love how the kids end up much more resilient without any heavy-handed messaging from the author. And the ’80s details are the best!
A Newbery Honor Book * BookPage Best Books * Chicago Public Library Best Fiction * Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee * Horn Book Fanfare * New York Times Notable Children's Book * School Library Journal Best Book * Today Show Pick * An ALA Notable Book
"A 10 out of 10 . . . Anyone interested in science, sibling relationships, and friendships will enjoy reading We Dream of Space."-Time for Kids
Newbery Medalist and New York Times-bestselling author Erin Entrada Kelly transports readers to 1986 and introduces them to the unforgettable Cash, Fitch, and Bird Nelson Thomas in this pitch-perfect middle…
This vivid YA novel about the impact of the Spanish influenza pandemic in 1918 holds a special place in my heart. The uncle I never knew died in that pandemic at age nine, and my mother was the “replacement baby” three years later.
So, I guess you could say I owe my existence to that pandemic. Beyond this personal attachment to the subject, I loved the deft portrayal of the main character’s internal turmoil: she wants to help the sick, but she doesn’t want to get sick herself.
I think anyone who lived through the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic can relate. I know I do.
Schools, churches, and theaters shut down. The entire city is thrust into survival mode-and into a panic. Headstrong and foolish, seventeen-year-old Cleo is determined to ride out the pandemic in the comfort of her own home, rather than in her quarantined boarding school dorms. But when the Red Cross pleads for volunteers, she can't ignore the call. As Cleo struggles to navigate the world around her, she is surprised by how much she finds herself caring about near-strangers. Strangers like Edmund, a handsome medical student and war vet. Strangers who could be gone tomorrow. And as the bodies begin to…
Constance is a wild, stubborn young girl growing up poor in a small industrial town in the late 1800's. Beneath her thread-worn exterior beats the heart of a dreamer and a wordsmith. But at age twelve, she’s orphaned. Running away to join the circus—like kids do in adventure books—seems like…
I love the unique and true voices in this alternating-narrator story of two boys in LA who differ by race and neighborhood but end up in the same sixth-grade class, thanks to bussing.
The hilarious dialogue, combined with the sobering elements of grief and bullying, takes this gem way beyond the usual “unlikely friendship” trope.
I delighted in watching these two boys flail and ultimately thrive in the quagmire that is early adolescence.
Charlie isn't looking forward to sixth grade. If he starts sixth grade, chances are he'll finish it, and he'll be older than his older brother ever was. Armstrong isn't looking forward to sixth grade either. He'll have to wake up at five thirty to ride a bus to an all-white school in the Hollywood Hills. When they are assigned seats next to each other, what starts as a rivalry becomes a close friendship.
Set in Los Angeles in the 1970s, Armstrong and Charlie is the hilarious, heartwarming tale of two boys from opposite worlds. Different, yet the same.
Nellie and Tamiko live on opposite sides of the world, on opposite sides of WWII. What could they possibly have in common? This novel explores the true story of the only WWII casualties in the continental U.S.: Project Fu-Go, Japan’s 10,000 bombs sent by balloons across the ocean to the U.S.
In rural Oregon, Nellie waits for her father to come home from the army, filling her days with salvage drives, secret love, rationing, and annoying twin brothers. In southern Japan, Tamiko finds a secret way to support her country’s war effort while her brother goes off to fight the Americans. Nellie’s and Tamiko’s spheres couldn’t be more different … until their worlds collide in life-changing ways.
The Pact is a contemporary fiction novel about Australian sisters, Samantha and Annie, who are doubles tennis champions. This story amplifies the usual sibling issues and explores their professional partnership and personal relationships – similarities, differences, motivation, competition, abandonment, and grief – and how they each respond to the stress…
Katie's Gamble is an unexpected, unique story about a young woman who's trying to support her younger siblings by keeping her family's confectionery shop open.
In order to do that, she has to take on her older brother, who's a notorious gambler in Louisiana. Additionally, she has to outsmart Rowdy…
