Archives de catégorie : Frankfurt 2022 Children’s Books

THE MEMORY HOTEL de Mariko Turk

From the highly acclaimed author of The Other Side of Perfect comes a layered YA novel about grief, love, and what it means to believe in the beyond—perfect for fans of Emily X.R. Pan, Dustin Thao, and Nina LaCour.

THE MEMORY HOTEL
by Mariko Turk
‎ Little, Brown, Winter 2024
(via Writers House)

Natalie and Imogen were inseparable—Imogen was always the infuriatingly humble and intelligent one, while Natalie was the brave one, jumping into danger and new adventures. Despite their differences, one thing tied them together: their love of the supernatural. Every summer, they’d vacation with their parents at the famously haunted Harlow Hotel. Imogen fully believed in the tales of the supernatural, while Natalie saw ghosts stories as nothing but pure fun. Natalie has never been a believer.
Then, their summers change forever. When Imogen unexpectedly passes away from an undiagnosed heart condition, Natalie is left to take on the summer before senior year alone. Now that Imogen’s gone, Natalie’s doesn’t have much to focus on besides her senior project. Her passion is still horror so Natalie decides her project will be all about ghost chasing—specifically, she’s planning to spend her summer back at the Harlow Hotel recording fun fake footage that will get her on the teen ghost hunting show of her dreams. And her plans would be a lot less complicated if Leander, her arch rival from school, wasn’t working on his senior project at the very same hotel.
But the longer that Natalie stays at the Harlow Hotel, the more she realizes that her nemesis Leander might be helpful for her project. After all, she could use an extra hand to help record her fake footage. But, when strange occurrences suggest that ghosts could be real, Natalie questions her long held beliefs and whether Imogen is truly gone. In this story about the way grief shapes the way we look at the world and what we choose to believe, Natalie Nakada learns what it means to let go and let new love in.

Mariko Turk teaches writing and rhetoric classes and works as a writing tutor at the University of Colorado Boulder. She received her PhD in English from the University of Florida, with a concentration in children’s literature. The Other Side of Perfect was her debut novel.

THE ONLY GIRL IN TOWN d’Ally Condie

What would you do if everyone you love disappeared? What if it was your fault? A biting and breathless contemporary novel from Ally Condie, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Matched series.

THE ONLY GIRL IN TOWN
by Ally Condie
‎ Penguin Random House, September 2023
(via Writers House)

For July Fielding, nothing has been the same since that summer before her senior year. Or that late-August night at the jump. Before, she had Alex to be her loyal bestie, always up for playing endless rounds of mini golf or trying every ice cream flavor at local favorite Verity. She had Sydney, who pushed her during every sweaty and wonderful cross country run, and who sometimes seemed to know July better than she knew herself. And she had Sam. Sam, who told her she was everything and left her breathless with his kisses.
Now, July is alone. Every single person in her small town of Lithia has disappeared. No family. No Alex or Sydney. No Sam. July’s only chance at unraveling the mystery of their disappearance is a series of objects, each a reminder of the people she loved most. And a recurring message that begins to appear all over town: GET TH3M BACK.
With sharp, poetically visceral prose that grabs you by the heart and refuses to let go, New York Times bestselling author Ally Condie makes her contemporary YA debut with a searingly candid, breathless novel that perfectly distills the messy, beautiful realities of growing up, growing apart, and the courageous act of self-discovery.

Ally Condie is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Matched trilogy and co-author of the Darkdeep middle grade series. She is also the author of the novel Summerlost, an Edgar Award Finalist. A former English teacher, Ally lives with her family outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Ally has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is the founder and director of the nonprofit WriteOut Foundation.

I LOVED YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE de David Arnold

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mosquitoland and Kids of Appetite comes a sweeping tale of love and loss, and a coming-of-age story like no other.

I LOVED YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE
by David Arnold
Viking 2023, Fall 2023
(via Writers House)

Meet Evan and Shosh, two teens whose lives are coming apart at the seams. They don’t know it yet, but they’re about to hear music no one else can hear, songs that will lead them to the same park on the same night. They don’t know it yet, but this music is about to change their lives forever. Just like it always does.
From an escaped murderer in 19th century Paris, to a Norwegian kosmonaut in low-earth orbit, a mysterious bird is bringing strangers together in fortuitous ways. Through art, poetry, and original songs (written and recorded by the author), the book explores the history of love, and how some souls are meant for each other—yesterday, today, forever.

“I Loved You in Another Life will have your soul soaring! With unmatched lyricism, David Arnold has written a timeless love saga for the ages about two teens whose love outlasts even death itself. I love this book so much.” —Adam Silvera, #1 New York Times bestselling author of They Both Die at the End

David Arnold is the New York Times bestselling author of The Electric Kingdom, Mosquitoland, Kids of Appetite, and The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik, which has been optioned for film by Paramount. He has won the Southern Book Prize and the Great Lakes Book Award, and was named a Publishers Weekly Flying Start for his debut. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and son.

FOX FIRES d’Emilia Ojala

A fantasy-adventure graphic novel addressing the relationship between humans and nature, friendships, family, self-growth, and Finnish folklore, told from an animal’s perspective.

FOX FIRES
by Emilia Ojala
Rocketship Entertainment, May 2022
(via JABberwocky)

“Fox Fires” refers to the Northern Lights; a literal translation from the Finnish word “revontulet.” (Revontulet = Repo’s fires.) The Fox Fires are a gate between this world and the land of the dead – it allows souls to visit their loved ones. But suddenly, the Fox Fires disappear. Our main character, a young raccoon dog named Raate, heads north to find what’s happened to Repo, the fire fox whose burning fur is said to make the Fox Fires appear in the sky. On her journey, Raate meets all kinds of interesting creatures, and also new friends.

Emilia Ojala, also known as « Pipilia », hails from the small, cold country of Finland. A self-taught artist with a degree in graphic design, Emilia had always dreamed of writing and illustrating folk stories (while also owning many pets, of course!). Her passion for storytelling, art, and animation led her to develop her own stories at a very young age. Even back then her stories centered around animals, typically the adventures of her family pets. The small, Finnish towns she grew up in, with their close proximity to the fields and forests, provided Emilia with many opportunities to spend ample time in nature. These experiences have driven her creative process for tales about what might happen within nature when people aren’t around to see it. A fan of folklore and mythology, it was while Emilia was reading Finnish tales one afternoon she was inspired to create FOX FIRES. Since Finnish myths are somewhat lesser known she felt FOX FIRES could be a wonderful opportunity to open them up to the rest of the world.

HOUSE OF YESTERDAY de Deeba Zargarpur

Taking inspiration from the author’s own Afghan-Uzbek heritage, this contemporary YA debut is a breathtaking journey into the grief that lingers through generations of immigrant families, and what it means to confront the ghosts of your past.

HOUSE OF YESTERDAY
by Deeba Zargarpur
Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR, November 2022
(via Laura Dail Literary)

Struggling to deal with the pain of her parents’ impending divorce, fifteen-year-old Sara is facing a world of unknowns and uncertainties. Unfortunately, the one person she could always lean on when things got hard, her beloved Bibi Jan, has become a mere echo of the grandmother she once was. And so Sara retreats into the family business, hoping a summer working on her mom’s latest home renovation project will provide a distraction from her fracturing world.
But the house holds more than plaster and stone. It holds secrets that have her clinging desperately to the memories of her old life. Secrets that only her Bibi Jan could have untangled. Secrets Sara is powerless to ignore as the dark truths of her family’s history rise in ghostly apparitions – and with it, the realization that as much as she wants to hold onto her old life, nothing will ever be the same.
Told in lush, sweeping prose, this story of secrets, summer, and family sacrifice will chill you to the bone as the house that wraps Sara in warmth of her past becomes the one thing she cannot escape…

Deeba Zargarpur is an Afghan-Uzbek American. She credits her love of literature across various languages to her immigrant parents, whose eerie tales haunted her well into the night. If given the choice, Deeba would spend her days getting lost in spooky towns with nothing but a notebook and eye for adventure to guide her. HOUSE OF YESTERDAY is her debut novel.