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The Waiting Place: When Home Is Lost and a New One Not Yet Found by Dina Nayeri ill. Anna Bosch Miralpeix

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2022 Boston Globe–Horn Book Nonfiction Award Honour Book

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“The strength of the volume is its focus on real children, including five-year-old Matin from Afghanistan, his friends Ahmad and Hashmat, and his ten-year-old sister Mobina and her friends. Both text and photos compassionately humanize young refugees who, despite coping with unimaginable trauma, have talents and dreams; readers will come away with a deeper understanding of the refugee crisis, which is addressed more fully in a lengthy afterword.” Horn Book

An unflinching look at ten young lives suspended outside of time – and bravely proceeding anyway. Each lyrical passage leads the reader from one story to the next, revealing the dreams, ambitions, and personalities of each displaced child. The stories are punctuated by intimate photographs, followed by the author’s reflections on life in a refugee camp.

Anna Bosch Miralpeix is a documentary photographer whose projects include the award-winning Bubble Beirut. A graduate of the Institute of Photographic Studies of Catalonia, she is also a teacher and visual project developer.

The Upper World by Femi Fadugba

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 28 Jun 2022
Shortlisted 2022 YA Book Prize
Sunday Times Children’s Book of the Month 5 Sep 2021

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“Fadugba’s debut dazzles, particularly when it comes to dialogue—the London slang flows with ease, adding to the sense of place. Themes of code-switching, found families, and loss resonate strongly as well. The novel includes diagrams and scientific explanations for the physics that drives the story. Much of the cast is Black, including Esso, whose family is from Benin, and Rhia, who is living in foster care. A riveting thriller that creatively incorporates scientific elements. (math and physics information).” KIRKUS 
“A complex book filled with challenging ideas that will keep readers thinking for a long time after putting it down.” Children’s Books Ireland

This epic thriller is soon to be a major Netflix movie starring Academy Award winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Black Panther, Judas and the Black Messiah).

Esso is running out of time and into trouble. When he discovers he has the ability to see glimpses of the future, he becomes haunted by a vision of a bullet fired in an alleyway with devastating consequences. A generation later, fifteen-year-old Rhia is desperately searching for answers – and a catastrophic moment from the past holds the key to understanding the parents she never got to meet. Whether on the roads of South London or in the mysterious Upper World, Esso and Rhia’s fates must collide. And when they do, a race against the clock will become a race against time itself . . .

Recommended Guardian feature…

Idol Gossip: A K-Pop Dream Come True by Alexandra Leigh Young

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“This is a fast-paced, captivating inside look at what lies behind the glitz of the K-pop industry. Alice’s road to fame highlights cultural differences, self-discovery, sisterhood, and empathy. The narrative is laced with blog posts that help move the story forward and give background information. Korean dialogue is romanized. An entertaining read unveiling the people behind K-pop glam.  A debut novel about standing out and fitting in, dreaming big and staying true.” KIRKUS

After graduating from UC Berkeley in 2007, Alexandra Leigh Young moved to New York City where she ran an audio post-production house called Explosion Robinson. In 2014 she was awarded an artist residency in South Korea in 2014, where she fell in love with a new kind of music: K-pop. After spending a year reporting on South Korea’s music industry, she returned to the US and produced her first podcast episode for Radiolab, called “K-poparazzi”. The episode was the inspiration for this debut novel.

K-pop gets the Gossip Girl treatment when Alice Choy is catapulted into the life of a manufactured popstar at the elite Top10 Entertainment’s Star Academy.

When seventeen-year-old Alice Choy moved from San Francisco to Seoul, she left behind her friends and the regular singing lessons she used to love. Now the only singing she does is karaoke with her little sister in Myeongdong. That is, until she’s spotted by a scout for Top10 Entertainment and invited to attend their Star Academy. But sculpting herself into one-fifth of soon-to-be-launched K-pop group A-List is hard work. It’s rising at dawn for lung-crushing cardio, dancing drills and calorie controlled meals. It’s egos and rivalry and secrets lived outside of the public eye, because if A-list gets on the wrong side of a certain influential blogger and the anti-fans, then Alice’s dreams of being an idol might never materialise.

Alexandra Leigh Young discusses Idol Gossip from Candlewick Press on Vimeo.

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Love Radio by Ebony LaDelle

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“LaDelle does a fantastic job of bringing the complex, dynamic personalities and relationships of her characters to life while highlighting romantic, familial, and platonic love as well as self-love. Strong pacing allows the storylines to flow organically. Readers will find themselves hooked from the first page to the last. A sweet, charming story with both heartwarming and heart-rending moments.” KIRKUS

Prince Jones is passionate about music and romance, dishing out relationship advice on his Love Radio show. But his own love life is looking kind of quiet… until he meets Dani Ford. Dani isn’t checking for anybody. She’s focused on her plan to move to New York City to become a famous author, and avoiding dealing with what happened at that party a few months ago.

When the two meet, sparks fly – but Dani’s not looking to get derailed. So she gives Prince just three dates to convince her that he’s worth falling for… sometimes the best love story is the one you write yourself.

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Release by Lucy Christopher

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ACHUKA Book of the` Day 20 Jun 2022

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This book is published for adults (by Australian indie publisher, Text) but is a sequel to the author’s YA novel Stolen and, as such, can be recommended for readers of that earlier book, and indeed to any YA readers who routinely mix the reading of adult and YA fiction.

Ten years ago (as told in the book Stolen) sixteen-year-old Gemma Toombs was kidnapped from Bangkok Airport by an infatuated drifter, Tyler MacFarlane, who took her to a secret den in the Australian desert. Now her name is Kate Stone and it’s her turn to confront Ty and try to find answers to the questions that have obsessed her since her ordeal. What is the legacy of this coercive relationship? Who holds the cards now? In the confusion of past and present, will Kate remain trapped in a deranged dance of desire and revenge? Or will she regain control and find release?

Both a courtroom drama and a road trip in the searing heat of the West Australian desert, Release is the story of two people confronting each other, each intent on destruction and survival.

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This Place is Still Beautiful by XiXi Tian

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 16 June 2022

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“About much more than just racism toward Chinese Americans, this novel deftly tackles the precarious moments surrounding the end of high school and the beginning of college, when romantic and familial relationships are complicated, changing, and all-consuming. Quiet yet powerful, complex, and grounded in the reality that nothing will ever be completely resolved.” KIRKUS

Two sisters. A shocking racist incident. The summer that will change both of their lives forever.

Annalie and Margaret are sisters who agree on only one thing — that they have nothing in common. Annalie is seventeen — sweet, content, and looking forward to a summer of flirting with the most popular boy in school. Margaret is nineteen — ambitious, a warrior for social justice, and desperate to forget her ex-boyfriend in New York City. When their family is the victim of a racial attack, Annalie tries to pretend it never happened but Margaret wants to fight back. Suddenly their relationship is hanging by a thread. And then a crushing secret threatens to tear them apart forever…

A beautiful and powerful story about family, identity and the secrets we keep.

Xixi (pronounced like two c’s) Tian was born in China and grew up in central Illinois. She attended the University of Illinois  and then Harvard Law School before becoming a tech lawyer. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, cat Umberto (see the Instagram post) and young baby. She has written on Instagram about contemporaneously becoming a new mother and a debut author. “Publishing, I guess, is a lot like motherhood. Great but also bad. I decided, like a major dumbass, to have a debut novel and a debut baby within 3 months of each other, thinking, how hard can it be? I’ll be on 6 months of maternity leave; it’ll be like a half year vacation with my baby; it’s a rollercoaster that only goes up!!!! Friends, I would not recommend. I’m begging y’all to wrap it up until WELL AFTER you’ve worked through your first book ennui.”

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This is Not the End by Molly Morris

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Part road-trip drama, part comedy and part romance.

Ever since the sudden deaths of his parents, seventeen-year-old Hugh has developed a serious preoccupation with endings. Things get a little complicated when he meets Olivia Moon, a high-school outcast who can’t die. But if he wants to learn more about her impossible power, he’ll have to drive Olivia to New York and help retrieve a stolen crate of her most treasured possessions. As his feelings for Olivia grow, Hugh embarks on a road trip he’ll never forget. Can she help him to accept that unsatisfying, messy endings are just a part of life? An unforgettable contemporary YA debut with a unique twist.

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Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert

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“Tension and terror mount as the intelligently crafted, viscerally plotted story lines converge. Atmospherically tense prose and vividly sketched, true-to-life characters add depth, resulting in a tale both spellbinding and bingeworthy.” Publishers Weekly
“Albert’s tale of mothers and daughters examines fraught choices and forgiveness against a cleverly insidious backdrop that will leave readers unable to see rabbits the same way again. While a romance is present, love in all its forms—platonic, parental, and romantic—is thoughtfully explored with gravitas and nuance… Riveting, creepy, and utterly bewitching; do not miss this one.” KIRKUS

Ivy’s summer kicks off with a series of disturbing events. As unnatural offerings appear on her doorstep, she’s haunted by fragmented memories from her childhood, suggesting there’s more to her mother, Dana, than meets the eye.

Dana’s tale starts the year she turns sixteen, when she embarks on a major fling with the supernatural. Too late she realizes that the powers she’s playing with are also playing with her.

Years after it began, Ivy and Dana’s shared story will come down to a reckoning between a mother, a daughter and the dark forces they never should have messed with.

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My Mechanical Romance by Alexene Farol Follmuth

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“Follmuth’s humorous debut lightly addresses discrimination faced by women of color in STEM, as well as issues of privilege and resource accessibility, set within an upbeat romantic comedy populated by a sympathetic and inclusive cast. The characters’ struggles are realistic, and the romantic chemistry is palpable, making this a joyful read.” Publishers Weekly

Nerds are so hot. Especially battle-robot-building nerds.

When Bel accidentally reveals a talent for engineering at school, she’s forced into joining the robotics club. Enter Mateo Luna, captain of the football team and the robotics club. He recognises Bel as a potential asset, even if they couldn’t be more different. And as the nights of after-school work grow longer, Bel and Teo realise they’ve made more than just a combat-ready robot for the championship: they’ve made a connection themselves.
But with graduation approaching, their differences and what they want for their futures, threatens what they’ve built together.

Can they survive Nationals without breaking their robots – or their hearts?

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Honest: Everything They Don’t Tell You About Sex, Relationships and Bodies by Milly Evans ill. Lucia Picerno

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A bare-all, refreshingly honest guide for teens.

Being a teen is tough enough without having to navigate the minefields of discovering sex, love and bodies. And sex education at school doesn’t always cut it. Sex educator and journalist Milly Evans is here to help. As a young adult who is still figuring life out, she knows exactly what teens are going through. And she’s here with answers to all those questions that aren’t in their school textbooks.

From orgasms to anatomy, gender identity to masturbation, positive relationships to first times, it’s all here, and in candid detail. With playful and informative black-and-white illustrations by Lucia Picerno throughout.

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@itsmillyevans Mini book vlog!! Technically it’s out on Thursday but I heard that it was already on the shelves in @Waterstones @Waterstones Brighton so had to pop in and see for myself ☺️☺️ #booktok #authorsoftiktok #debutauthor #newbook #waterstones #booktoker #lgbt #queerbook ♬ original sound – Milly Evans


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