Archives de catégorie : Frankfurt 2023 Children’s Books

SOMEWHERE IN THE DEEP de Tanvi Berwah

Krescent Dune is used to fighting monsters on her island, but she’s unprepared for the monsters lurking in the deep in this new South Asian-inspired fantasy from the highly-acclaimed author of Monsters Born and Made.

SOMEWHERE IN THE DEEP
by Tanvi Berwah
Sourcebooks Fire, January 2024

Krescent Dune is buried under the weight of her dead parents’ debt and the ruinous legacy they left behind. The only way she can earn enough money to escape her unforgiving island is by fighting monstrous amphibians in underground fighting pits. She’s never lost a match, until now.

Desperate, Krescent is offered a deal. Her debts will be erased if she joins a hunting party for a dangerous rescue mission deep beneath the island. With no other choice, Krescent is forced to play nice as the group’s bodyguard, even though every step that brings them deeper underground means she must face the terrifying truth that she is trapped with her childhood enemy and people who would gladly kill her if they knew who her parents were.

As the group journeys down beyond where their maps end with creatures never seen before, Krescent begins to suspect there’s more to their rescue mission than first meets the eye. Soon enough, they are abandoned in the deep dark underground, with only monsters seen and unseen for company.

Tanvi Berwah is a South Asian writer who grew up wanting to touch the stars and reach back in time. Her debut YA novel Monsters Born and Made, a book that has something to say and isn’t afraid to say it to your face (Lightspeed Magazine), is out now.

NOT QUITE A GHOST d’Anne Ursu

From award-winning author Anne Ursu comes a dark, deeply-felt story of illness, of growing up, and of the ghosts that that lurk just beyond our sight—as well as the ones we carry with us.

NOT QUITE A GHOST
by Anne Ursu
HarperCollins, January 2024
(via DeFiore and Company)

The house on Katydid Street seems to sit apart from the others, silent and alone, like it doesn’t fit among them. For Violet Hart—whose family moves into the house—little feels like it fits anymore. Like her old home, too small since her mother remarried and the new baby arrived. Or her friend group, which since middle school began is no longer enough for Violet’s best friend, Paige. But maybe, Violet tells herself, change is sometimes okay. Then Violet sees her new room.

The attic bedroom is shadowy, creaky, and wrapped in faded wallpaper covered with twisting vines and sickly flowers. After moving in, Violet falls ill, and days turn into weeks without any improvement. Her family grows more confused and her friends wonder if she’s really sick at all.

Violet finds herself more and more alone in the room with the yellow wallpaper, the shadows moving in the corners, wrapping themselves around her at night. But soon, she starts to suspect that she might not be alone in the room at all….

Anne Ursu is the author of the acclaimed novels The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy, The Lost Girl, Breadcrumbs, and The Real Boy, which was longlisted for the National Book Award. The recipient of a McKnight Fellowship Award in Children’s Literature, Anne lives in Minneapolis with her family and an ever-growing number of cats.

STEFI AND THE SPANISH PRINCE de Donna Freitas

In Barcelona, the beach is beautiful, the tapas are delicious, and the boys are plentiful.

STEFI AND THE SPANISH PRINCE
by Donna Freitas
Harper Teen, June 2024
(via DeFiore and Company)

Photo: © Allen Murabayashi

Good thing, because Stefi’s nursing a broken heart after a disastrous breakup. Excited to reinvent herself in a magical city where no one knows her, she hopes a summer in Barcelona will do wonders for her love life, her Catalan language skills, and her pastry-making repertoire after she enrolls at Catalunya’s famed culinary institute.

Another thing Barcelona has? A secret prince. The heir in question, Xavi Borges, helps his mother run a popular tapas spot. After Stefi stops at their counter, Xavi can’t get the beautiful American girl off his mind. His life is way too complicated for romance, but doesn’t he deserve to enjoy his final summer of anonymity before assuming his royal duties?

Part bodyguard, part confidante, Santiago is tasked with keeping Xavi out of trouble. Santiago knows Xavi and Stefi’s budding relationship can’t last once Xavi’s real identity becomes public. But soon Santiago is crushing on Xavi’s best friend, Diego, and his focus shifts from royal protection duties to the possibility of enjoying a romance of his own.

With so many sparks flying, a threat to expose Xavi’s royal secret goes unheeded, and when the news blows up, it threatens to burn down all of their lives.

Donna Freitas is the author of several young adult and middle grade novels. She is also the author of the adult novel The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano. She has appeared on NPR, The Today Show, CNN, and many other news media outlets, and she has lectured about her research at over two hundred colleges and universities across the United States.

THE DARK TIMES OF NIMBLE NOTTINGHAM de Ryan James Black

Set during World War II, a twelve-year-old orphan who accidentally unleashes a shadow monster onto the streets of London must team up with unlikely allies to hunt it down.

THE DARK TIMES OF NIMBLE NOTTINGHAM
by Ryan James Black
Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, August 2025
(via Park, Fine & Brower)

Surviving on the streets of World War II London alone certainly hasn’t been easy, but Nimble Nottingham has perfected the art of going it alone—and that’s just how he likes it. The only friend he needs is his beloved dog, Winnie. To pass the time between rolling blackouts and bombs falling through the air, Nim spends his days fence-climbing, roof-jumping, and gargoyle-perching…that is when he’s not scrounging for food to stave off the ever-present hunger the war has brought to London.

So when opportunity strikes in the form of a bomb falling onto the notoriously creepy Gravenhurst Manor, Nim knows he has to get inside and find whatever spoils he can get his hands on to sell for food. Get in. Get out. Quick as a flash. At least, that was the plan until Mouse—a member of a local street gang called the Dead End Kids—shows up and invites himself along for the heist.

Inside, Mouse and Nim encounter far more than just crumbling walls and shattered windows. Beneath Gravenhurst Manor lies a secret room and inside that room is a locked safe. Nim, inspired by the Hardy Boys adventures he used to read at Waifs and Strays orphanage, knows that something this protected has to be valuable, and so he cracks the safe and unknowingly unleashes a monster.

A shadow creature is now loose on the streets of London, and it’s up to Nim, Mouse, and a band of unattended children to end its reign of terror.

“The twists and surprises just keep on coming. My kind of book! »—R.L. Stine, author of Goosebumps and Fear Street

Ryan James Black is Ryan James Black is a writer from Manitoba, Canada, where he lives with his wife, two children, and a Jumanji’s worth of pets. When not writing or reading, Ryan enjoys travelling, watching scary movies with all the lights on, and exploring the Great Outdoors with his family.

ONE LAST BREATH de Ginny Myers Sain

The New York Times bestselling author of Dark & Shallow Lies  delivers another chilling supernatural thriller filled with murder, romance, and a decades long mystery that haunts a small Florida town.

ONE LAST BREATH
by Ginny Myers Sain
Razorbill/Penguin Random House, March 2024
(viaPark & Fine Literary and Media)

True love never dies. It just stays buried.

Mount Orange, Florida, is famous for two things: Cerulean freshwater springs, perfect for free divers who aren’t afraid of lurking gator, and the gruesome cold case murder of best friends, Bailey and Celeste, twenty years ago.

The spectre of Bailey and Celeste’s murders cast a permanent darkness over sunny Mount Orange. Tru has always lived in that shadow. Sometimes, it seems like she knows the long-dead Bailey, feels the dead girl in her bones. Now she’s supposed to head to FSU in the fall with her boyfriend, but those unsolved murders — and the death of her own sister — invade her every thought. It’s only in the shadowy deep, 100 feet below the surface of Hidden Glen Springs, that she can breathe.

When Rio, a strange girl, rolls into town, hell-bent on figuring out who killed Bailey and Celeste, Tru can’t resist entangling herself in the thrill of solving the decades old mystery any more than she can resist her familiar, aching attraction to Rio.

As the summer heat ignites, so does the spark between Tru and Rio…along with their other-worldy connection to Bailey and Celeste. But when someone begins stalking them, the girls become convinced the killer is back in town. And if they keep digging into the past, Tru and Rio know this time, it could be their blood that makes the springs run red.

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.