Author: Kelly Jensen

Hey YA Readers!

Let’s dive into this week’s YA book news and the new YA books hitting shelves. I’ve been going one-on, one-off with YA lately (that is, every other book I read lately is YA) and have been enjoying titles like this week’s release No Filter and Other Lies by Crystal Maldonado.

YA Book News

• Legendborn by Tracy Deonn is being adapted for television.
• Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret will hit theaters in September.
• A really fabulous interview with five Black YA authors about why joyful books are important.
• What it’s like being the target of book challengers as a school librarian.
• Between the Lines, the YA novel Jodi Picoult wrote with daughter Samantha van Leer, is becoming an off-Broadway musical.
• All of the amazing YA SFF hitting shelves this month.

New YA Books This Week

Please note that with supply chain issues, paper supply challenges, and the pandemic more broadly, publication dates are changing at a pace I can’t keep up with. Some release dates may be pushed back. If a book catches your attention, the smartest thing to do right now is to preorder it or request it from your library. It’ll be a fun surprise when it arrives.

Hardcover

Across a Field of Starlight by Blue Delliquanti

Finding Her Edge by Jennifer Iacopelli

From Dust, A Flame by Rebecca Podos

Golden Boys by Phil Stamper

In Harm’s Way by Michael J. Tougias and Doug Stanton

Lulu and Milagro’s Search for Clarity by Angela Velez

Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams

No Filter and Other Lies by Crystal Maldonado

Pinball by Jon Chad

Pixels of You by Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota, illustrated by J.R. Doyle

Sunny G’s Series of Rash Decisions by Navdeep Singh Dhillon

You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen

Paperback

Payback by Kristen Simmons (series)

Dryer’s English: Young Readers Edition by Benjamin Dreyer (nonfiction)

How To Change Everything: Young Readers Edition by Naomi Klein and adapted by Rebecca Stefoff

Rebel Daughter by Lori Banov Kaufmann

We Are The Ashes, We Are The Fire by Joy McCullough

Make sure to get your own Read Harder Book Journal from Book Riot to track your reading for the year!

YA Talk at Book Riot

• American librarians chose their favorite YA audiobooks of the year.
• A look at some popular teen books of 2022.
• This roundup of 2022 queer retellings includes a number of YA titles.
• Last week’s book censorship news.

This book lover mug is so much fun, and it makes me yearn for reading a book out in my hammock with a glass of lemonade and ice. $12.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you on Saturday for some sizzling deals and Monday for some cover fun.

Happy reading!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.

Hey YA Readers!

I was thinking about my history education in high school in writing today’s newsletter. I went to a predominantly white high school in an area that was moving from being rural to being more suburban. My high school American history class was one of my favorites, in part because my teacher elected to do things outside the traditional curriculum. I recall him specifically talking about how if the school board found out we were reading Howard Zinn or The Autobiography of Malcolm X they’d likely be unhappy.

Despite these extra readings adding depth to the class, history in America still seemingly stopped around the second World War. “Time” ran out. It’s hard to really sit with that explanation though, given that months seemed dedicated to the wars (and the weeks of learning why and how the Civil War “wasn’t about slavery”) and very little time was given to social movements.

All of that is preface for saying that I don’t recall learning about the Black Panthers except maybe as a line in a textbook, briefly. I suspect my education, despite being a little more broad than most, mirrors what many white Americans experienced as well.

It wasn’t until I met the Black Panthers in Kekla Magoon’s The Rock and the River that I better understood what this group did to help Black Americans. That their role, pushed to the margins of textbooks (if they were mentioned at all), deserved far more attention.

In the last couple of years, YA has brought more history of this Black political organization to young readers, thanks to the anti-racism movement and, of course, Black Lives Matter. Let’s take a look at some of the fiction and nonfiction in YA exploring the Black Panther Party (and indeed, you’ll see Kekla Magoon mentioned a few times here because she really was the first in YA and has been consistently writing about them).

Make sure to get your own Read Harder Book Journal from Book Riot to track your reading for the year!

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

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I hope you’ve found some outstanding, compelling, and vital reads here tis week.

Until Thursday, happy reading!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.

Hey YA Readers!

Welcome to a whole new month of YA news and new YA books. It might be a short month, but it’s going to be a good one. Let’s dive in. Note that news is light this week only because it doesn’t include the host of book challenges going on — those’ll be linked in the last section of the newsletter.

YA Book News

• Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series is getting a film adaptation.
• What happened when Angeline Boulley got the call she won the Printz award.
• If you fall into the center of the diagram of “Loves The Hunger Games” and “Film Lover,” you’ll be into the 4K box set of the adaptation.
• The Temperature of You and Me is getting a Disney+ adaptation.

New YA Books

Please note that with supply chain issues, paper supply challenges, and the pandemic more broadly, publication dates are changing at a pace I can’t keep up with. Some release dates may be pushed back. If a book catches your attention, the smartest thing to do right now is to preorder it or request it from your library. It’ll be a fun surprise when it arrives.

Hardcover

Castles In Their Bones by Laura Sebastian (series)

Court by Tracy Wolff (series)

The Iron Sword by Julie Kagawa (series)

And We Rise by Erica Martin

Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor

Forward March by Skye Quinlan

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

In The Serpent’s Wake by Rachel Hartman

Once More With Chutzpah by Haley Neil

Ready When You Are by Gary Lonesborough

Required Reading for Disenfranchised Freshmen by Kristen R. Lee by Kristen R. Lee

Respect the Mic edited by Peter Kahn and Hanif Abdurraqib

These Deadly Games by Diana Urban

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi (series)

Why Would I Lie? by Adi Rule

Paperback

All The Tides of Fate by Adalyn Grace (series)

At Somerton: Diamonds and Deceit by Leila Rasheed (series)

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (series)

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer (series)

Murder of Crows by K. Ancrum (series)

Red Tigress by Amélie Wen Zhao (series)

Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders (series)

Admission by Julie Buxbaum

Bones of a Saint by Grant Farley

Camp So-and-So by Mary McCoy

Charming As a Verb by Ben Philippe

Deepfake by Sarah Darer Littman

Destination Anywhere by Sara Barnard

Girls On The Line by Jennie Liu

Heartbreakers and Fakers by Cameron Lund

Horror Hotel by Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff (graphic novel)

Love In English by Maria E. Andreu

Love Is A Revolution by Renée Watson

Loveless by Alice Oseman

Playing With Fire by April Henry

Sing Me Forgotten by Jessica S. Olson

The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold

Make sure to get your own Read Harder Book Journal from Book Riot to track your reading for the year!

YA at Book Riot

• Last week’s roundup of book challenges and book bans.
• LGBTQ+ books quietly pulled from a Washington middle school.
• YA comics and graphic novels about friendship.
• Excellent genre-blending YA books.
• What happened when I took three blind dates with a YA book.
• 2022 Contemporary YA books you’ll want on your TBR.
• A giant roundup of queer books for teens.

Keep your place in your current read with this sweet YA pride bookmark. $6.50.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you again on Saturday with your YA ebook deals.

Happy reading!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.

Hey YA Readers!

Groundhog Day approaches, and if you’ve been here for more than a year, you know this is my favorite holiday. Besides being kitschy and low stakes, I live where the movie was filmed and my town goes all out. But even beyond being literally enmeshed in all things Groundhog Day, it’s also the midpoint marker of winter. Whether or not the oversized squirrel sees a shadow or not, we know winter is half-way over.

In previous celebrations of the hog, I’ve done YA books that feature time loops. But since there haven’t been many in the past year to add to the previous roundups, I’m taking a new spin on it this year.

Welcome to repeating book titles.

Welcome to repeating book titles.

Welcome to repeating book titles.

Let’s take a look at some YA books that relive their titles over and over.

Make sure to get your own Read Harder Book Journal from Book Riot to track your reading for the year!

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

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I won’t be bundling up this year to see the groundhog in action, but I will be watching him on the livestream from the comforts of my warm house a few blocks from where he’ll make his proclamation. I’ll likely be there with a book, too.

Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you again (again) on Thursday.

Until then, happy reading!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.

Hey YA Readers!

I hope wherever you’re at, you’re staying warm and well during the deep season of winter (and if you’re in the southern hemisphere, cool for the summer).

Let’s dive into this week’s YA news and new book releases.

YA Book News

• Here’s the full rundown of authors and books that won major awards this year from the American Library Association. Included are the best YA book with the Printz, the best debut with the Morris, best nonfiction, best representation of the disability experience, and so many more.
• Reese Witherspoon announced her latest YA book club pick.
• The trailer for The Sky Is Everywhere is here. Will you be watching it?
• Dig into the National Jewish Book Award Winners, including the finalists and winner for YA.
• And the finalists for this year’s Edgar Awards.

New YA Books

Please note that with supply chain issues, paper supply challenges, and the pandemic more broadly, publication dates are changing at a pace I can’t keep up with. Some release dates may be pushed back. If a book catches your attention, the smartest thing to do right now is to preorder it or request it from your library. It’ll be a fun surprise when it arrives.

Hardcover

Loveboat Reunion by Abigail Hing Wen (series)

Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden

Augusta Savage by Marilyn Nelson (nonfiction)

Into the Midnight Void by Mara Fitzgerald (series)

The Greatest Thing by Sarah Winifred Searle

The Temperature of Me and You by Brian Zepka

Paperback

A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer (series)

Dark Stars by Danielle Rollins (series)

The Serpent’s Curse by Lisa Maxwell (series)

Blackout by K. Monroe

Dissenter on the Bench by Victoria Ortiz (nonfiction)

Notes From a Young Black Chef Young Reader Edition by Kwame Onwuachi and Joshua David Stein

Soulswift by Megan Bannen

The Girl From Shadow Springs by Ellie Cypher

Make sure to get your own Read Harder Book Journal from Book Riot to track your reading for the year!

YA Book Talk on Book Riot

• Great Gothic YA fiction to sink your reading teeth into.
• Read your way into these YA books adapted into comics.
• Must-read contemporary YA hitting shelves this winter.

How fun is this sword bookmark? Perfect for your latest YA fantasy read. $13.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you on Saturday for some deals, followed by Monday’s fun take on Groundhog Day reads (my favorite holiday!).

Until then, happy reading!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram

Hey YA Readers!

Are you into book covers and book cover design? If you’ve been here a minute, you know it’s one of my personal passions. This week, as I was perusing social media, I was reminded of how many different ways the same book can be packaged, and not just whether or not it gets a cover in paperback that differs from its hardcover. There’s also a literal world of different covers for those books which see international editions.

Let’s take a peek at a handful of YA book covers with different, compelling, and interesting designs outside of the US. I’ve done my best to seek out cover artist and designer information but that is often hard to track down in English….and even more so in other languages.

Make sure to get your own Read Harder Book Journal from Book Riot to track your reading for the year!

On the left is the US cover for Katie Henry’s This Will Be Funny Someday, designed by David Curtis. It’s clever and minimal and manages to pack a punch with that alone. You know it’s going to be a funny book but also will use that humor for some kind of bigger purpose.

The right cover is the German edition. It’s a wholly different feel, but it’s also incredibly appealing (heh). I love the ticket, the maximalist foliage in the background, and the color contrast of the red and green.

While we’re looking at primarily red US covers, how about Angie Thomas’s Concrete Rose? The illustrated cover pairs so perfectly with The Hate U Give while also making it clear this is fully Maverick’s story. His style screams late-90s/early-00s. Jenna Stempel-Lobell designed the cover and Cathy Charles illustrated.

The Swedish book cover on the right is both incredibly different and incredibly similar. It’s certainly not illustrated, but it does center Maverick and though the styling is less indicative of a time period, the timelessness of it makes it clear the story itself isn’t historical or not timely and relevant today. I’m not a huge fan of the odd color combination of the yellow title on purple blocks, but I do dig Maverick’s profile taking center stage.

Akemi Dawn Bowman’s sci-fi adventure The Infinity Courts hit shelves last winter with a cover illustrated by Casey Weldon and designed by Laura Eckes. The pitch for this book, which is the first in a series, is Westwood meets Warcross, and I think the US cover does a great job of conveying that. There is a mystery in this one, alongside themes of love, humanity, grief, and technology.

The Russian cover on the right feels a little more fantasy than sci-fi to me, though it, too, is really lovely. The long dark braids of the cover illustration carry over, as does the inclusion of stars and a big pink moon.

The artwork by Johnny Tarajosu for Namina Forna’s The Gilded Ones is stunning, isn’t it? I love that it portrays its main character as both strong and soft — we see the power in all of the symbology she dons, as much as we see a real softness in her eyes, lips, and expression. The jade green of the cover really makes her skin pop, too. I

The Italian cover on the right reminds me a lot of the updated covers for the Akata Witch series. It doesn’t offer the same softness for our main character as the US cover, but leans more heavily into the strength. The use of only two colors only enhances that feeling of this being a powerful and power-filled book.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

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Are you the kind of person who’ll buy multiple copies of a book because you enjoy different cover options? I am sorry and you’re welcome — the four above are but the tip of the iceberg.

As always, thanks for hanging out. We’ll see you again on Thursday with your YA book news and new books.

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.

Hey YA Pals!

Let’s dive into this week’s YA book news and new books. Like we’ve seen so far this month, it’ll be heavier on new books than on news.

YA Book News

• Children of Blood and Bone has been acquired by Paramount Pictures for adaptation. If this news sounds familiar, that’s because the book was optioned by another studio earlier. Being re-optioned is a positive sign this might actually be made.
• Some news about season two of Shadow and Bone (it’s happening).
• Speaking of second seasons, Peacock is bringing a second season of One Of Us Is Lying.
• Buried in this piece about the cancelation of Gentefied is a little update about I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter — it’s in the works for Netflix.

Make sure to get your own Read Harder Book Journal from Book Riot to track your reading for the year!

New YA Books

Please note that with supply chain issues, paper supply challenges, and the pandemic more broadly, publication dates are changing at a pace I can’t keep up with. Some release dates may be pushed back. If a book catches your attention, the smartest thing to do right now is to preorder it or request it from your library. It’ll be a fun surprise when it arrives.

Hardcover

Akata Woman by Nnedi Okorafor (series)

Beyond the End of the World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (series)

Bound by Firelight by Dana Swift (series)

Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

Freedom! The Story of the Black Panther Party by Jetta Grace Martin, Joshua Bloom, and Waldo E. Martin Jr. (nonfiction)

Game On: 15 Stories of Wins, Losses, and Everything in Between edited by Laura Silverman

Ice Breaker by A. L. Graziadei

Lawless Spaces by Corey Ann Haydu

When The Water Runs Dry by Nancy F. Castaldo (nonfiction on the lower YA end)

Paperback

One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite

Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour

When You Look Like Us by Pamela N. Harris

With You All The Way by Cynthia Hand

Your Corner Dark by Desmond Hall

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

YA on Book Riot This Week

• Forthcoming queer YA audiobooks to TBR.
• Wise and witty self-help books for teens.
• Excellent sports manga (so many of these are perfect for teens and YA readers)
• Our annual “most anticipated” books roundup is here, and you’re going to want to check out the YA picks.

I love this book collector enamel pin so much. $10.

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you with some deals on Saturday.

Until then, happy reading!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.

Hey YA Readers!

It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day in America, and as I sat down to write the newsletter, I wondered where and how MLK has appeared in YA literature. I suspected there’d be more than a couple of fictional titles where MLK played a big role and a handful of nonfiction titles that go beyond his biography. Books that didn’t simply pull inspiration from his most famous speeches, stripping them of their context, their tone, their demands.

These exist, and we’ll get there, but in my research, something else emerged.

Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story was a 16-page comic published and distributed in 1957 by Fellowship of Reconciliation, an organization focused on social justice and non-violent activism. It was the height of comic books and the height of the US government fearing what influence comic books had on young readers. Alfred Hassler and Benton Resnik wrote the text of the comic, while Sy Barry did the illustrations. Martin Luther King made small changes to the text itself, which followed the Montgomery bus boycott and the “Montgomery Method” of nonviolent protest that activists could use for social change. King approving of the comic’s publication.

Schools, churches, and social justice groups received 250,000 copies of the comic, and in later years, the comic was translated in numerous languages, including as recently as 2011.

John Lewis got his hands on Martin Luther and the Montgomery Story at the age of 18. It was 1958 and he was at a workshop that would help him prepare for a host of nonviolent Civil Rights protests. A few years later, Lewis and King would be guests of honor at the March on Washington in 1963, and they would march together from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.

Decades later, John Lewis wrote his own comic series, which has been tremendously influential in YA literature. The March trilogy is Lewis’s story of working toward Civil Rights and the first book in the series offers the moment when Lewis met King and how that helped sett his life’s work into deeper motion.

Lewis collaborated on March and Run, published posthumously, with Andrew Aydin. Aydin, who’d served as a member of Lewis’s campaign team, was the force behind the comic books coming to be when, in 2008, when he mentioned attending a comics event after Election Day. Aydin’s comment made a number of people laugh, but Lewis told everyone not to laugh, as it was a comic book — the above-mentioned Martin Luther King and The Montgomery Story — which changed his life.

Aydin read the comic that night and himself inspired, encouraged Lewis to tell his own story in comics. It took time to come to fruition, YA readers now have a powerful comic showcasing the work of a legend of Civil Rights work, inspired by a comic. Aydin also wrote his masters thesis at Georgetown University on Martin Luther King and The Montgomery Story and the tremendous influence that comic has had globally.

March isn’t the only book with King influences in YA, though it may be the most direct. But we also see King in Nic Stone’s knockout debut Dear Martin, which follows Justyce McAllister, a young Black boy unjustly arrested and outcast by his peers. He looks to King for answers, beginning a journal to Dr. King in hopes to figuring out who he is and what he can do to make sense of his place in the world.

Though on the upper end of middle grade/lower end of YA, James L. Swanson’s Chasing King’s Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Assassination is a nonfictional account of the final hours of King’s life, including a close look at James Earl Ray, the racist prison escapee who assassinated the leader.

Swanson’s book, published in 2018, includes an introduction by none other than John Lewis himself.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

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As always, thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you later this week for your YA book news and new books roundup.

Until then, happy reading!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram

Hey YA Readers!

I hope you’ve been able to sink into your first (or second or third…) great YA book for 2022. I’ve been reading at a good clip, and I’m pleased that both of my 2022 YA reads have been outstanding so far. You’ll want Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams and Lawless Spaces by Corey Ann Haydu on your TBR if they’re not there already.

Let’s take a look at this week’s YA book news and new books. This week, we’re heavier on new releases than on news.

YA Book News

• Here’s a first look at the upcoming adaptation of The Sky Is Everywhere. I’m super curious how this will do, as it’s been a long time since the book’s publication.
• What’s coming next for the Star Wars: High Republic project.
• A look at the science fiction and fantasy YA books hitting shelves in January and February.
• YA and graphic novel print sales were way up last year. I’m curious what books were selling in such huge numbers in print — I don’t think it was midlist stuff but wonder if it was the big titles doing even bigger sales.
• Prime has canceled the reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer after one season.

New YA Books

Please note that with supply chain issues, paper supply challenges, and the pandemic more broadly, publication dates are changing at a pace I can’t keep up with. Some release dates may be pushed back. If a book catches your attention, the smartest thing to do right now is to preorder it or request it from your library. It’ll be a fun surprise when it arrives.

Hardcover

Ain’t Burned All The Bright by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Jason Griffin

Ashes of Gold by J. Elle (series)

The Monarchs by Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige (series)

Cold The Night, Fast The Wolves by Meg Long

Crushing by Sophie Burrows

Hopepunk by Preston Norton

Love Somebody by Rachel Roasek

Medusa by Jessie Burton, illustrated by Olivia Lomenech Gill

My Fine Fellow by Jennieke Cohen

The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder

The Storyteller by Kathryn Williams

The Subtle Knife graphic novel by Philip Pullman

Vinyl Moon by Mahogany L. Browne

Paperback

Igniting Darkness by Robin LaFevers (series)

Reaper of Souls by Rena Barron (series)

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna (series)

Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown

Don’t Tell a Soul by Kirsten Miller

Ruinsong by Julia Ember

The Beautiful Struggle (Young Reader Edition) by Ta-Nehisi Coates (nonfiction)

The Missing Passenger by Jack Heath

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

YA Book Talk at Book Riot

• There are so many great new comics for YA readers hitting shelves this winter.
• What happens when a teen tells you they hate reading.
• If you want more books like Firekeeper’s Daughter, here you go!
• 12 YA fantasy books for your 2022 TBR.
• Great books like Blood and Ash.

How fun are these fairy tale earrings? $10. (I hope you peruse this shop’s offerings — I’m kind of obsessed with the kitsch, and those shopping basket earrings are too much in the best way).

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Thanks, y’all, for hanging out, and we’ll see you on Saturday for deals.

Happy reading!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram

Hey YA Readers!

There’s a fun microtrend in 2022 YA books, and that’s marching bands. There are at least three forthcoming titles this year that put marching at the heart and center of a book.

Let’s take a look at those titles, along with some excellent backlist marching band fiction. While I want to say that I’m surprised how white these books are in terms of authorship, I’m not entirely surprised. Despite the fact some of the most tremendous marching ensembles are inclusive and Black marching bands have a long and fascinating history, that hasn’t yet translated to fiction for young adults. I hope that the books hitting shelves this year help usher in more diverse marching band titles (and I won’t lie: I want to see some killer Black rhythm dancing on YA book covers–some of these covers get me excited for the potential here!).

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

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As always, thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you again on Thursday for your YA book news and new releases roundup.

Happy reading!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.