Archives de catégorie : Bologna 2022 Children’s & YA

AVIVA VS. THE DYBBUK de Mari Lowe

A compelling, tender middle-grade story about friendship and community, grief and healing, and one indomitable girl who somehow manages to connect them all.

AVIVA VS. THE DYBBUK
by Mari Lowe
Levine Querido, February 2022
(via Context Literary)

A long ago « accident. » An isolated girl named Aviva. A community that wants to help, but doesn’t know how. And a ghostly dybbuk, that no one but Aviva can see, causing mayhem and mischief that everyone blames on her. That is the setting for this suspenseful novel of a girl who seems to have lost everything, including her best friend Kayla, and a mother who was once vibrant and popular, but who now can’t always get out of bed in the morning. As tensions escalate in the Jewish community of Beacon with incidents of vandalism and a swastika carved into new concrete poured near the synagogue, so does the tension grow between Aviva and Kayla and the girls at their school, and so do the actions of the dybbuk grow worse.
Could real harm be coming Aviva’s way? And is it somehow related to the « accident » that took her father years ago?

Mari Lowe has too little free time and spends it all on writing and escape rooms. As the daughter of a rabbi and a middle school teacher at an Orthodox Jewish school, she looks forward to sharing little glimpses into her community with her books. She lives in New York with her family, menagerie of pets, and robotic vacuum.

THE WITCH AND THE VAMPIRE de Francesca Flores

A queer Rapunzel retelling where a witch and a vampire who trust no one but themselves must journey together through a cursed forest with danger at every turn.

THE WITCH AND THE VAMPIRE
by Francesca Flores
‎ Wednesday Books, March 2023
(via Park & Fine Literary)

Ava and Kaye used to be best friends. Until one night two years ago, vampires broke through the magical barrier protecting their town, and in the ensuing attack, Kaye’s mother was killed, and Ava was turned into a vampire. Since then, Ava has been trapped in her house. Her mother Eugenia needs her: Ava still has her witch powers, and Eugenia must take them in order to hide that she’s a vampire as well. Desperate to escape her confinement and stop her mother’s plans to destroy the town, Ava must break out, flee to the forest, and seek help from the vampires who live there. When there is another attack, she sees her opportunity and escapes.
Kaye, now at the end of her training as a Flame witch, is ready to fulfill her duty of killing any vampires that threaten the town, including Ava. On the night that Ava escapes, Kaye follows her and convinces her to travel together into the forest, while secretly planning to turn her in. Ava agrees, hoping to rekindle their old friendship, and the romantic feelings she’d started to have for Kaye before that terrible night.
But with monstrous trees that devour humans whole, vampires who attack from above, and Ava’s stepfather tracking her, the woods are full of danger. As they travel deeper into the forest, Kaye questions everything she thought she knew. The two are each other’s greatest threat―and also their only hope, if they want to make it through the forest unscathed.

Francesca Flores is a writer, traveler and linguist. Raised in Pittsburgh, she read every fantasy book she could get her hands on and started writing her own stories at a young age. She began writing the City of Diamond and Steel duology while working as a corporate travel manager. Francesca currently resides in San Francisco.

SECRETS SO DEEP de Ginny Myers Sain

From the bestselling author of Dark and Shallow Lies comes a moody and atmospheric paranormal thriller about a seventeen-year-old girl returning to an exclusive theater camp to uncover the truth of what really happened there twelve years ago, the night her mother drowned.

SECRETS SO DEEP
by Ginny Myers Sain
‎ Razorbill/Penguin BYR, September 2022
(via Park & Fine Literary)

Twelve years ago, Avril’s mother drowned at Whisper Cove theater, just off the rocky Connecticut coastline. It was ruled an accident, but Avril’s never been totally convinced. Local legend claims that the women in the waves—ghosts from old whaling stories—called her mother into the ocean with their whispering. Because, as they say at Whisper Cove, what the sea wants, the sea will have.
While Avril doesn’t believe in ghosts, she knows there are lots of different ways for places, and people, to be haunted. She’s spent the past twelve years trying to make sense of the strange bits and pieces she does remember from the night she lost her mother. Stars falling into the sea. A blinding light. A tight grip on her wrist. The odd sensation of flying. Now, at seventeen, she’s returning to Whisper Cove for the first time, and she might finally unravel the mystery of what really happened.
As Avril becomes more involved with camp director Willa and her mysterious son Cole, Whisper Cove reveals itself to her. Distances seem to shift in the strange fog. Echoes of long-past moments bounce off the marsh. And Avril keeps meeting herself—and her dead mother—late at night, at the edge of the ocean.
The truth Avril seeks is ready to be discovered. But it will come at a terrible cost.

Ginny Myers Sain lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and has spent the past twenty years working closely with teens as a director and acting instructor in a program designed for high school students seriously intent on pursuing a career in the professional theatre. Having grown up in deeply rural America, she is interested in telling stories about resilient kids who come of age in remote settings. Her debut novel Dark and Shallow Lies was published by Razorbill in 2021.

THE THREE HARES TRILOGY de Scott Lauder & David Ross

Sara Livingstone’s school trip to the Beijing Palace Museum takes a terrifying turn when an encounter with the ancient Qingming Scroll thrusts her a thousand years into China’s past. With secrets in the shadows and danger around every corner, Sara relies on her wits and her Granny Tang’s stories to survive. As dark forces gather, she must take her place in a cosmic battle and find the courage to face an unworldly ancient magic.

THE THREE HARES TRILOGY
by Scott Lauder & David Ross
‎ Neem Tree Press
(via Emily Randle Literary)

THE JADE DRAGONBALL (Book 1, September 2019)

Meet Sara Livingstone. A normal schoolgirl in Beijing who enjoys playing the clarinet and learning new words of the day like ‘sepulchral’ and ‘debacle’. Yes, totally normal… Except from when she’s starting to experience disturbing hallucinations when she sees pictures of a strange-looking man in the newspaper. And not just any strange-looking man, either… Specifically, the 17 year-old CEO of a big mining corporation based up in Northern China, carrying out illegal genetic testing in China and mining a rare mineral near the ecologically fragile beaches of San Salvador. The hallucinations are one thing – she can try to ignore them, kind of – but when she studies the Qingming scroll with her class on a field trip, and accidentally time travels to medieval China, she can’t ignore what’s happening to her any longer. Whether she wants to or not, Sara is being called by The Immortals to help them defeat an ancient and vengeful plot that threatens an end to humanity. As if that wasn’t hard enough, she has to find her two counterparts in this challenge, whoever and wherever they might be. It seems this mission is rather urgent.

THE GOLDEN MONKEY KEY (Book 2, May 2021)

Sanjeev’s dog Jigsaw is missing in the middle of winter in New Jersey. But this tragedy is dwarfed by what happens to him in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Has he really entered the 6th Century and become the slave to monks traveling the Silk Road to Byzantium – and might they just be murderers? Trouble is, even if he figures out how to get out of this, he’s got other problems: someone, or something, is coming after him. Part of the answer might be Sara, a girl who contacts him on the net and keeps talking about the Immortals. But who or what are The Three Hares and how can they stop the darkness about to engulf the world?

THE TERRACOTTA HORSE (Book 3, October 2022)

Salma Mansour is a black belt in taekwondo, a skill she will need to stay alive. One second, she’s in the British Museum, the next a thousand years away in a battle between the Saxons and Vikings. And she’s supposed to help? Things momentarily brighten when she encounters Sara and Sanjeev, who seem to understand. They don’t have much time to plan though; without warning, all three are transported to Xi’an, stronghold of Chan, a wealthy gang leader bent on immortality. Chan has kidnapped world famous geneticist Lin Dan and assembled fragments of an ancient magic. Chan will stop at nothing to fulfil his dream… even if it means releasing forces far beyond his control. The Three Hares must work together to defeat Chan and the power that controls him … or else.

Scott Lauder was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. Having taught in Greece, Japan, and England, he now lives with his wife and four cats in the UAE where he teaches English. His other books include The Right Thing, A Single Shot, and The Boy-King Tutankhamun.
David Scott Ross has traveled and taught throughout Asia since he first moved there in 1987. He currently teaches in upstate NY, where he lives with his wife and two sons. He is writing two other novels.
The authors met as English teachers in Japan. It’s through their shared love of languages, travel and world cultures that the idea for this global and mythological YA trilogy was born. Read more about them in a recent interview here.

THE UNICORN RESCUE SOCIETY: THE SECRET OF THE HIMALAYAS by Adam Gidwitz & Hena Khan

The newest adventure in the bestselling Unicorn Rescue Society transports readers to the Himalayan mountains in Northern Pakistan!

UNICORN RESCUE SOCIETY: THE SECRET OF THE HIMALAYAS
by Adam Gidwitz & Hena Khan
illustrated by Hatem Aly
Dutton/Penguin BYR, paperback edition in June 2022
Ages 7-10

When Uchenna and Elliot’s classmate publishes an article in the school newspaper about the Schmoke Brothers, Professor Fauna notices something alarming in a photo. Mounted on the wall of the Schmoke’s living room is a single spiral horn that he’s certain could have come from only one animal—a unicorn! To save these magical creatures—and to finally see a unicorn themselves—the Unicorn Rescue Society heads to the rugged mountains of Pakistan.
Hena Khan, the critically acclaimed author of Amina’s Voice, joins Newbery Honor-winner Adam Gidwitz for the Unicorn Rescue Society’s most dramatic, action-filled mission yet!

Adam Gidwitz is the author of the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling Grimm trilogy. He spent six years researching and writing his Newbery Honor-winning The Inquisitor’s Tale, including a year living in Europe. Adam lives with his family in Brooklyn, NY.
Hena Khan is a Pakistani American writer. She is the author of the middle grade novels Amina’s Voice, Amina’s Song, and More to the Story, and picture books Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns, Under My Hijab, and It’s Ramadan, Curious George, among others. Hena lives in her hometown of Rockville, Maryland, with her basketball-loving family.
Hatem Aly is an Egyptian-born illustrator whose work has been featured in multiple publications worldwide. He currently lives in beautiful New Brunswick, Canada, with his wife, son, and more pets than people. His illustrated work includes the Newbery Honor winner The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz, the Unicorn Rescue Society series, also by Adam Gidwitz with several amazing contributing authors, the Story Pirates book series with Geoff Rodkey and Jacqueline West, early readers series Meet Yasmin with Saadia Faruqi, and How to Feed Your Parents by Ryan Miller. He has more upcoming books and projects in the works.