This outstanding novel about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork—empathetic, brutal, and entirely human.
A SITTING IN ST. JAMES
by Rita Williams-Garcia
Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins Children’s, May 2021
Ages 14 +
1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilberthas decided, in spite of her family’s indifference, to sit for a portrait—a testament to all the hardships she has overcome, and the glory that her life ought to have had. But there are other important stories to be told on the Guilbert plantation. Like that of Thisbe, the young enslaved woman who must stand silent by her mistress, but who observes everything. Or Byron, the heir to the plantation, whose desires cannot possibly fit with his family duty. Stories that span generations, from the big house to out in the fields, of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and a tangled lineage of descendants and dependents who have never forgotten who they are.
A complicated, ugly, yet empathetic portrayal of the period: This is not a whitewashed account of slavery; though never gratuitous, the narrative does not shy away from the horrors that occur on the Guilbertplantation. Yet every character is portrayed with empathy and humanization, in all their complications—both the enslaved and the slave owners. It’s a fine balance to strike, but Rita Williams-Garcia does it masterfully.
Rita Williams-Garcia’s Newbery Honor Book, One Crazy Summer, was a winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and a New York Times bestseller. The two sequels, P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama, were both Coretta Scott King Author Award winners and ALA Notable Children’s Books. She is also the author of National Book Award finalist Clayton Byrd Goes Underground and six distinguished novels for young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here, Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book), Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); Blue Tights; and Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Rita Williams-Garcia lives in Jamaica, New York.
When a plane commissioned by the CDC to transport a newly identifed virus to a testing facility for early vaccine development crashes in a lake community just outside Touristville, Florida, three teens—previously unknown to one another—accidentally ingest tainted water and are told they have 30–60 days to live. Albie is 16 years old and the glue for his crumbling family. Cameron has dreamed of getting out of Touristville, Florida for as long as her parents made her join a vaudeville act at the tender age of fve. But it’s Lacey—sweet, angelic, full–of–shit Lacey—who has the idea to start a support group. It’s also Lacey who fleeces Albie and Cameron out of fifteen bucks per session. So when Cameron and Albie catch Lacey conning a tourist into letting her “borrow” a yacht, they know she has no intention of returning it. And they have every intention of joining her. When three teens on the brink of death form an unlikely alliance, how do they react? For starters, they steal a yacht. And then they have one of the best adventures of their lives: an adventure that results in a true reckoning with who they really are. Will Albie learn to come out of his shell and truly experience life for the first time? Will running away force Cameron to grapple with a repressed secret that’s made her restless for years? And when—in the end— they discover their lives are not over, how will Lacey reckon with the fallout of her lies? This coming–of–age–tale set on a yacht examines the ways three very different teens grapple with the threat of imminent death, and how each emerges with very different ideas of what life ought to be.
Instagram-famous triplets Cecily, Amber, and Rudy—the children of home renovation superstars—are ready for a perfect summer. They’ve just moved into the site of their parents’ latest renovation project when they begin to receive chilling messages from someone called The Follower. It soon becomes clear that this anonymous threat is more than a simple Internet troll, and he can’t wait to shatter the Cole family’s perfect veneer and take back what’s his. THE FOLLOWER examines the implications of what it is to be watched in the era of social media fame—as well as the lies we tell and the lengths we’ll go to uphold a perfect image, when our lives depend on it.
A movement that started with a hashtag—#BlackLivesMatter—on Twitter spread across the nation and then across the world. From one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic memoir and reflection on humanity. Necessary and timely, Patrisse Cullors’ story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have been called terrorists, a threat to America. But in truth, they are loving women whose life experiences have led them to seek justice for those victimized by the powerful. Now, the New York Times bestseller is adapted for the YA audience with new material and reader questions plus photos, journal notes, lyrics, doodles, and more!