Archives de catégorie : Frankfurt 2021 Children’s Books

LIVE, LAUGH, KIDNAP de Gabby Noone

From the author of Layoverland comes another bitingly clever, laugh-out-loud funny novel, about a group of teen girls going up against an exploitative megachurch in their small Montana town.

LIVE, LAUGH, KIDNAP
by Gabby Noone
Razorbill/Penguin YR, March 2022

The only thing Genesis, Holly and Zoe seem to have in common is being stuck in Violet, Montana. Well, that and the fact that Hope Harvest Ministries is trying to ruin their lives.
Genesis lives on a commune that is now an echo of the New Age cult it once was. She’s witnessed power couple Pastor Jay and Ree Reaps transform their sleepy small town into a haven for online Influencers, who flock to Violet, bible in one hand and Ree’s bestselling Act Like a Lady, Pray Like a Boss in the other. Now, the Reaps have decided it’s God’s Will™ that they take over Gen’s ranch.
Holly is a begrudging tourist, forced to spend the summer with her estranged father as punishment for her unsavory behavior back in LA. To Holly, Hope Harvest is nothing but a gimmicky marketing ploy, but it’s threatening to put her father’s diner out of business and, for some reason, Holly cares.
All Zoe wants is to leave Violet, working thankless shifts at the diner to scrape together enough cash to start a new life with her girlfriend. But Zoe’s mother has lost everything to the church’s multilevel marketing schemes so the little money that Zoe manages to make goes right to debt collectors.
The only solution to their problems is to scam the scammers and protect what’s theirs. It shouldn’t take much – the Reaps’ golden son, an accidental kidnapping, some light blackmail – and the Reaps’ fortune will be in the girls’ much more deserving hands. As long as everything goes according to plan…

Gabby Noone is the author of the indie bestseller Layoverland. She grew up in Abington, PA and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

THE COUNSELORS de Jessica Goodman

From bestselling author Jessica Goodman comes a twisty new thriller about three best friends, one elite summer camp, and the dark secrets that lead to a body in the lake.

THE COUNSELORS
by Jessica Goodman
Razorbill/Penguin YR, May 2022

Camp Alpine Lake is the only place where Goldie Easton feels at home. As the daughter of the camp nurse and shop instructor, plus the honorary granddaughter of the camp’s owners, she’s always had a special connection to Alpine Lake, even before she was old enough to attend. Now she’s back as a counselor, desperate for summer to start and her camp friends to arrive. Because with the dark secret she’s been keeping, she’s more in need of the comfort of home than ever.
But with everything she’s been holding back from her best friends, Ava and Imogen, things might not be as simple as she’d hoped—and Goldie’s not the only person at camp who has been lying. When a local boy turns up dead in the lake, she knows that his death couldn’t have been an accident. She also knows that Ava went down to the lake that night. But Ava’s her best friend, and despite everything that happened this past year, Goldie dives into the mystery surrounding the boy’s death.
But asking questions offers no answers, only danger and betrayals deeper than Goldie ever imagined.

Jessica Goodman is the op-ed editor at Cosmopolitan and author of They Wish They Were Us and They’ll Never Catch Us. The Counselors is her third novel.

GHOSTLIGHT de Kenneth Oppel

One teen’s summer job scaring tourists with ghost stories takes a terrifying turn when he accidentally summons the spirit of a dead girl—and she has demands. . . . The award-winning author of Airborn delivers a roller-coaster ride of a story about the wakeful and wicked dead.

GHOSTLIGHT
by Kenneth Oppel
Knopf, September 2022
(via Writers House)

Rebecca Strand was just sixteen when she and her father fell to their deaths from the top of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse in 1839. Just how they fell—or were they pushed?—remains a mystery. And their ghosts haunt the lighthouse to this day. . .
Gabe tells this story every day when he gives the ghost tour on Toronto Island. He tries to make it scary enough to satisfy the tourists, but he doesn’t actually believe in ghosts—until he finds himself face to face with Rebecca Strand. The true story of her death is far more terrifying than any ghost tale Gabe has told. Rebecca reveals that her father was a member of the Order, a secret society devoted to protecting the world from “the wakeful and wicked dead”—malevolent spirits like Viker, the ghost responsible for their deaths. But the Order has disappeared, and Viker’s ghost is growing ever stronger. Now Gabe and his friends must find a way to stop Viker before they all become lost souls. . . .

Kenneth Oppel was born in Port Alberni, a mill town on Vancouver Island, British Columbia but spent the bulk of his childhood in Victoria, B.C. and on the opposite coast, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is one of the most highly regarded authors of middle-grade fiction writing today. Some of his best-known titles are The Inkling, The Nest, Airborn, a 2005 Printz Honor Book, and Silverwing.

BEATING HEART BABY de Lio Min

A tender best friends to enemies to lovers story with Asian Americans leads, celebrating first love, second chances, indie rock, and transitions of all kinds.

BEATING HEART BABY
by Lio Min
Flatiron Books/St. Martin’s Press, July 2022

Santi has only had his heart broken one time, and it was all his fault. When he accidentally leaked his internet best friend Memo’s song, and it became an overnight hit, Memo disappeared—leaving their song’s cult fame, and Santi, behind.
Three years later, Santi arrives in Los Angeles with a mission: get over the ghost of Memo. Thankfully, his new school and its wildly-talented Sunshower marching band welcome him with open arms. All except for his section leader, the prickly, proud, musical prodigy Suwa. After a disastrous first encounter, Suwa makes Santi’s life a living hell. But when Santi realizes Suwa is trans, then Suwa realizes Santi takes his identity in stride, both boys begin to let their guards down. Santi learns Suwa’s surliness masks a painful, still-raw history of his own, and as they open up to each other, their friendship quickly takes on the red-hot blush of a mutual crush.
Just as Santi is feeling settled in this new life, with a growing found family and a head-over-heels relationship with Suwa, he begins to put together the pieces of an impossible truth—that Memo and Suwa might just be one and the same. But their fragile fresh start threatens to rip apart at the seams again when Suwa is offered the chance to step into the spotlight he’s owed, but has always denied himself. Now, as each of them faces the future, Santi and Suwa must finally reckon with their dreams, their pasts, and the boy who always seems to appear right at the wrong time.
Truly an electric “mix tape” debut, Beating Heart Baby is a coming-of-age and romance celebrating the uncertainties queer youth encounter amidst the turmoil of first love. This knockout book truly pulses with life and energy, begging to be read and shared. It’s Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist for a new generation.

Lio Min has listened to, played and performed, and written about music for most of their life. Their debut novel BEATING HEART BABY is about boys, bands, and Los Angeles, where they lived for seven years. They’ve profiled and interviewed acts including Japanese Breakfast, Rina Sawayama, Purity Ring, Caroline Polachek, Christine and the Queens, Metric, Yaeji, Speedy Ortiz, and Mitski.

THE LOCK-EATER de Zack Loran Clark

For fans of Nevermoor and Howl’s Moving Castle comes an epic middle-grade fantasy about a girl with the ability to unlock anything—including the empire’s darkest secrets.

THE LOCK-EATER
by Zack Loran Clark
Dial Books/Penguin Young Readers, January 2022

Melanie Gate is a foundling with a peculiar talent for opening the unopenable—any lock releases at the touch of her hand. One night, her orphanage is visited by Traveler, a gearling automaton there on behalf of his magical mistress, who needs an apprentice pronto. When Melanie is selected because of her gift, her life changes in a flash, and in more ways than she knows—because Traveler is not at all what he seems. But then, neither is Melanie Gate.
So begins an epic adventure sparkling with magic, humor, secret identities, stinky cats, fierce orphan girls, impostor boys, and a foundling and gearling hotly pursued by the most powerful and dangerous wizard in the land.
Action-packed yet layered, THE LOCK-EATER is a mix of lush world-building, high stakes, humor, and emotional heft—a page-turner and so much more.

« An epic tapestry threaded with rich lore, vibrant characters, and a twisting plot that will have readers tumbling through the pages. Marrying the zany inventiveness of Alice in Wonderland with the thorough magical world-building of Howl’s Moving Castle, Clark creates a deeply immersive fantasy, full of both heft and humor, that’s sure to stay with young readers long after its final page is turned. » —Soman Chainani, New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good and Evil series

Zack Loran Clark is a writer and editor of children’s books, and the co-author of The Adventurers Guild trilogy. A lifelong fantasy nerd, avid Dungeons & Dragons player, and aspiring sorcerer, he lives with his husband and their dog in Brooklyn, New York.