A landmark new nonfiction upper middle-grade series curated by literary legend Dave Eggers and International Youth Congress member Zainab Nasrati. Inspiring, engaging, and utterly absorbing, I, WITNESS gathers together the world’s foremost teen activists, writers and changemakers to tell their stories. Filled with accounts of extraordinary challenge from voices across the globe, it’s a one-of-a-kind series by the leaders of tomorrow—a rallying call to action, a praise song to youth resilience, and a testament to the incredible power of shared stories.
I, WITNESS Series
curated by Dave Eggers & Zainab Nasrati
Norton, Summer 2021
(chez Writers House – voir catalogue)
Book #1, ACCUSED, tells the story of Muslim-American activist Adama Bah, who, at the age of 16, was wrongly seized by the FBI on suspicion of being a suicide bomber. Her experience provides a riveting window into the damaging effects of racial profiling and post-9/11 discrimination. Book #2, HURRICAINE, is the astonishing account of Salvador Gómez-Colón, who raised over $160,000 for families devastated by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico (read more about Salvador here).
Books #3-4 tentatively to follow over the next 12 months.
The International Congress of Youth Voices was founded by Dave Eggers and Amanda Uhle and is an assembly of the world’s most exceptional teenage writers and activists. You can read more about the organization here.
Dave Eggers is the acclaimed author of several books for adults and children, and is the winner of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the TED Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His establishment of the International Congress of Youth Voices is a natural extension of his well-known activism including the founding of 826 National and his ongoing involvement with ScholarMatch. Dave and co-founder Amanda Uhle are working alongside Danish activist (and congress delegate) Zainab Nasrati to shape the series. Bestselling illustrator AG Ford will provide cover art for each book in the series in order to give it a unified look.
Plum Winter has always come in second to her sister, the unbelievably cool, famous influencer Peach Winter. And when Peach is invited to an all-expenses paid trip to a luxurious art and music festival for influencers on a private island in the Caribbean, Plum decides to intercept the invite. This time, she’s going to have some fun. She convinces her two best friends Antonia and Marlowe to come with her—’cause hey, they were planning on a spring break trip anyway, right? But when Plum and her friends get to the island, it’s not anything like it seemed in the invite. The island is run-down, creepy, and there doesn’t even seem to be a festival—it’s just seven other quasi-celebrities and influencers. And then people start to die… Plum and her friends soon realize that someone has lured each of them to the « festival » to kill them. Someone has a vendetta against every person on the island–and no one is supposed to leave the island alive. So, together, Plum, Antonia, and Marlowe will do whatever it takes to unravel the mystery of the killer, and fight to save themselves and as many influencers as they can, before it’s too late.
Magic is harder than it looks. Now that Moth has discovered the secret family history at the heart of Founder’s Bluff, it’s time to adjust to her life as a beginner-level witch. She gets more and more fed-up with her basement-low middle school status and the daily mocking that comes with it, until she discovers a powerful charm that can basically turn her “cool.” And it works! But there’s a catch. An ancient, demonic catch. The charm releases a cool, but wicked and tricky Shadow Moth who only wants to take over Moth’s life. With the help of the Shadow, Moth acquires new, cool friends, totally owns her bullies, and gets a chance at the coveted Founderella crown, the ultimate symbol of Founder’s Bluff popularity. Will Moth get everything she thought she ever wanted? Or will Shadow Moth eat her first?
Once upon a time, a girl named Sophie rode into the forest with the queen’s huntsman. Her lips were the color of ripe cherries, her skin as soft as new-fallen snow, her hair as dark as midnight. When they stopped to rest, the huntsman took out his knife . . . and took Sophie’s heart. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Sophie had heard the rumors, the whispers. They said she was too kind and foolish to rule — a waste of a princess. A disaster of a future queen. And Sophie believed them. She believed everything she’d heard about herself, the poisonous words people use to keep girls like Sophie from becoming too powerful, too strong . . . With the help of seven mysterious strangers, Sophie manages to survive. But when she realizes that the jealous queen might not be to blame, Sophie must find the courage to face an even more terrifying enemy, proving that even the darkest magic can’t extinguish the fire burning inside every girl, and that kindness is the ultimate form of strength.
Seventeen-year-old Phoenix has spent much of her life drifting from town to town with her mom Nina, using their charms to swindle and steal to get by. Now they’ve made it to their ultimate destination, Nina’s hometown of Jasper Hollow. The plan: bring down Ellis Bowman, the man who ruined Nina’s life. When Phoenix gets caught spying on Ellis, she spins a convincing story that inadvertently gives her full access to the Bowman family. As she digs deeper into their secrets (and begins to fall for daughter Melody), she finds herself entrenched in the tale of a death and a disappearance that doesn’t entirely line up with what Mom has told her. But there’s even more to this story Phoenix doesn’t know. Who, if anyone, is telling the whole truth about what happened? Debut author Brooke Lauren Davis explores the murkiness of right and wrong, of choices and consequences, of heroes and villains, in an eerily compelling and thought-provoking small-town saga.