Kids & YA Newsletter: October 2020

YOUNG ADULT

Four teens. One getaway car. Zero chance things will ever be the same again. Party boy Eddie Luna just wants to chill during the summer before his last year of high school. Self-absorbed sophomore Colette Johnson assumes she’ll continue to rack up tons of followers as an up-and-coming social media influencer. Hyper-focused freshman Kyle Vanderwall plans to immerse himself in solitude and robotics. And recent graduate Yukiko “Mouse” Hayashi hopes only to stay under her abusive mother’s radar until she’s forced to move out on her 18th birthday. When the four strangers unexpectedly flee a late-night graduation party together, they find themselves on a group date with destiny…and law enforcement. Bound by court-ordered community service while meeting up regularly to compare notes, each arrives at life-altering crossroads. For Eddie, it’s the realization that he needs to stop self-medicating and find his long-lost roots. For Colette, it’s an encounter with a psychotic stalker that forces her to confront her dangerous overconfidence. For Kyle, it’s the challenge to connect with other humans despite his disability. And for Mouse, it’s an opportunity to find her wings and fly far away from family dysfunction. Before summer’s over, demons will be faced, new identities will be forged, and lives will be forever changed in ALSO ME, a compelling contemporary YA novel by Nicole McInnes, college writing professor and author of 100 Days. (Please note, Stacey Glick is the agent on this project.)

Seventeen-year-old Izzy Romano is hiding a burning secret—she comes from a family of professional arsonists. Burning down empty houses is a sly source of cash to supplement her family’s struggling pizzeria (which also serves as an airtight alibi). When a mysterious arson job with a tantalizing fee of $50,000 lands on her doorstep, the shiny price tag is too alluring, despite the concern that somebody knows about her family’s underground business—and how to find them. Izzy thought she had enough to worry about for senior year—the looming threat of college, leaving her widowed dad an empty-nester, and attracting the attention of her longtime crush, Noah—but things get complicated when she realizes the arson job she just completed was Noah’s house. Even worse, she nearly took his mother down with it. Desperate to discover if she was set up to commit murder, Izzy investigates who hired her, even as her fear grows that Noah might be the next victim. But keeping her role under wraps becomes a combustible mission as she realizes she’s not the only one keeping secrets. And if she’s not careful, she might drag her loved ones into the flames with her. AN ARSONIST’S GUIDE TO HIGH SCHOOL, by debut author Mackenzie Reed, puts a modernized, fiery spin on the mafia, small-town secrets, and surviving high school. Fans of the savvy teens in Karen McManus’ One of Us Is Lying and the covert familial association in Ally Carter’s Heist Society will devour Reed’s clever and fast-paced thriller. (Please note, Amy Elizabeth Bishop is the agent on this project.)

MIDDLE GRADE

It was just supposed to be a quiet camping trip in Idaho with their parents. Eat some hot dogs, make some s’mores, sing songs by the fire. But when Mia convinces Max to go for a short hike before dinner, the real adventure begins. After the log they use to cross a ravine crashes down behind them, the twelve-year-old friends have to figure out another way back to their parents. They stumble upon a large concrete wall, and assuming they’ve made it to someone’s home, they sneak in through a crack. But this isn’t a home, or at least not one that’s hospitable to humans. Quickly, Mia and Max discover that they are locked in with terrifying, enormous, very hungry creatures unlike anything they’ve ever seen before, and when they finally find other people at a heavily fortified compound, they don’t feel much safer. Trapped by the man running the facility and with no means of contacting the outside world, the kids have to outsmart their captors and avoid The Creeps—the menacing creatures that terrorize every living thing inside the walls. In THE FENCE, author Matt McMann has created a thrilling middle grade adventure that’s equal parts Jurassic Park and The Island of Dr. Moreau, and that is sure to keep kids up at night with a flashlight, turning the pages. (Please note, Michael Bourret is the agent on this project.)

Jackie Robinson’s trailblazing baseball career has rightly become a staple of middle grade literature, but few books truly capture the entire scope of his accomplishments. In 42 FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, middle-grade readers will get the full picture of Robinson’s influential work in the civil rights movement after he retired from Major League Baseball. Using recently unearthed primary sources, historian Michael G. Long (co-author of the award-winning Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the March on Washington and author of the forthcoming Kids on the March and Peaceful Protestor) shares new findings about Robinson and depicts in colorful detail his work as a fierce civil rights leader who, until the day of his death, demanded first class citizenship for Black Americans everywhere—in schools and stores, baseball fields and business offices, voting booths and bus terminals. With a foreword by esteemed historian Yohuru Williams, 42 for Civil Rights is a significant contribution to the fields of sports, civil rights, and US history. (Please note, John Rudolph is the agent on this project.)

Brandon Todd made a splash with his debut as an illustrator for The Bear Must Go On (text by Dev Petty). SLJ called it "playful and endearing," and it's "witty and wonderful," according to Booklist. His first picture book as author/illustrator, Tou-Can’t!: A Little Sister Story, comes out next spring—but that’s too long to wait for an adventurer like Clarke! She and her family just moved to Meriwether Lane, and her plan is to explore and map every corner of the nearby park. Clarke intends to do it alone, but then she meets Luis, a friendly local kid who never does anything alone. Luis is determined to make a new friend, and despite Clarke’s initial reluctance, Luis and Clarke joins forces. Together, they map the foreign land, defeat its monsters, and discover its treasures—with a little help from Luis’s little brother Miguel! LUIS AND CLARKE: EXPLORERS OF MERIWETHER LANE is a fully illustrated chapter book that will strike a chord with backyard and neighborhood adventurers everywhere. (Please note, John Rudolph is the agent on this project.)