I’m passionate about these books and authors because I’m also a disabled author whose debut young adult novel is coming out this year. We formed the 2024 Debuts group in mid-2022, so we’ve been there for each other through many ups and downs along our individual and collective journeys to publication. Our disabilities add another layer of complexity to that, and we’ve found comfort and solidarity in each other. Many of them are friends, and I couldn’t be prouder to share their incredible books with you. As we approach Disability Pride Month, I hope you consider adding a book written by a disabled author to your TBR!
We’re back to me being a baby again. As soon as people start dying, I’m usually out. That wasn’t the case with Cindy Otis’ mystery. I loved the high stakes and the part that disability played in the novel.
It all felt like a thoroughly modern version of a classic murder mystery, with our hearts racing as we reached the end. Also, the fact that this YA novel was written by an actual former member of the CIA is just objectively cool.
Quinn Calvet was supposed to be having an epic year. She had all kinds of plans with her best friend, Ximena and sister, Ava, and to grow her following as an influencer on The Whine. Instead, Quinn finds herself third wheel to Ximena and her new boyfriend or getting ditched by Ava who has turned into an overachiever, obsessed with studying and joining every school club. It brings up Quinn's old feelings that her disability has her left behind. She tries to talk to Ava about it, but she's too busy with the newest club at school, Defend Kids, which…
C.S. Lewis famously said, “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally—and often far more—worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.” I love this sentiment, and it has had a profound influence on my writing.
Yes, I write books for children, and I hope they’ll love them, but I think adults should enjoy them, too. Some of the best books in the world are children’s books, and there’s no age limit for reading them. In fact, I believe the world would be a better place if more adults read children’s books regularly. Here are five of my favorites.
Sharon Creech is one of my all-time favorite writers. She crafts emotionally rich stories with a strong voice, unique characters, and plenty of humor.
Walk Two Moons is my favorite of hers. I love how Sal tells her story through someone else’s story. It’s like a 2-for-1 deal! My heart broke at times, yet nothing felt too maudlin or didactic. (I can’t stand emotional or moral overkill.)
The grandparents are my favorite characters and bring comedic relief to a weighty emotional journey.
Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins.
What is the meaning of this strange message left on the doorstep? Only Sal knows, and on a roadtrip with her grandparents she tells the bizarre tale of Phoebe Winterbottom, Phoebe's disappearing mother and the lunatic. But who can help Sal make sense of the mystery that surrounds her own story . . . and her own missing mother?
A coming-of-age love story between three best friends growing up in a small-town Wyoming neighborhood during the late 1960s, early 1970s.
If you are familiar with “The Wonder Years,” this is the wonder years out west. Smart-mouthed Maggie Moore is instantly smitten with the laid back, sometimes infuriating Bucky. Too…
It covered a bit of WWII I was unfamiliar with: the Japanese occupation in Batvia, East Indies. The main character Emmy makes some choices that have tremendous repercussions. Survival, finding one's voice, friendship, freedom...wonderful rich themes beautifully executed. I recorded quite a few passages in my reading notebook.
Emmy has the voice of an angel but hasn’t sung a note since a family tragedy. With war looming, her father plans to ship her off to a singing school in England for safety. But all Emmy wants to do is stay in Batavia with her best friend, Bakti, even if it means putting up with her snooty classmate, Violet. Then the Japanese army invades―and as war erupts in the Dutch East Indies, Emmy’s world falls apart.
When her own actions sabotage her chance to evacuate the island, Emmy is captured and confined in the…
I started in publishing at the Advocate magazine, twenty years ago in its heyday, then moved to Alyson Books, who first published Emma Donoghue among many others, offering a place for queer writers showcasing queer stories to find their audience. Afterwards, I became involved with Gertrude literary journal, a beloved, 25-year-old non-profit, LGBTQA journal that has now evolved to The Gertrude Conference. All the while, I read, wrote, and supported queer stories, like these gems!
James Hynes’ novel focuses on Jacob, nicknamed “Sparrow”, who’s a slave in a brothel in New Carthage at the end of the Roman Empire. Yum!
Although the book itself is too brutal for my taste, as it goes through development, perhaps they could add a thread of lightness, especially in the lives and friendships Sparrow develops with many of the “Wolves” (prostitutes). As a series, this could be a Gladiator-meets-Harlots, with a darkness and depth that would give us insight into the lowest rung of the Roman Empire, with the possibility of a dozen sub-stories to fill out as we trod through this dark time.
'A stunning work of historical imagination . . . masterful in its portrayal of love, sex and friendship' - The Observer 'Utterly engrossing, vivid and honest' - Emma Donoghue, author of Room
Meet Sparrow, a boy slave in the city of New Carthage in the twilight years of pagan Rome.
Raised in a brothel on the margins of a great empire, a boy of no known origin creates his own identity. He is Sparrow, who sings without reason and can fly from trouble. His world is a kitchen, a herb-scented garden, a loud and dangerous tavern, and the mysterious upstairs…
While The Hills of Estrella Roja is my YA debut, I’ve been a big fan of YA graphic novels for years. I think YA is such fertile ground for great storytelling, because of how intense things can feel at that age, you’re on the cusp of adulthood, figuring out what type of person you are/want to be and where you fit in the world. Then throw in queerness, which adds a whole other layer to the experience. As a queer cartoonist creating work for young people (and everyone, really!) during this distressing era of book bans, creating and supporting authentic and diverse queer stories feels more important than ever.
Friendship and navigating school social hierarchy is hard enough, but throw in a secret queer relationship and a bootleg anime dvd business? Yikes!
What I love about Forest Hills Bootleg Society is how messy it is; these girls have PROBLEMS. Of course they do, they’re teens. This graphic novel is so funny and relatable at times, while at other points, it’s heartbreaking.This especially speaks to me as a former anime-teen!
Set in 2005, this gorgeously illustrated, funny, and honest graphic novel follows four teens who stumble into an illicit anime DVD-burning business that shakes up their conservative small town…and their friendship.
When Brooke, Kelly, Maggie, and Melissa buy a bootleg anime DVD at a gas station, they get much more than they bargained for with Super Love XL, a risqué move featuring—among other things—a giant mecha who shoots lasers out of her chest. The four girls are horrified (and maybe a little fascinated). It’s so unlike anything they’ve seen, would probably shock everyone else in their town, and definitely would…
I love Aotearoa New Zealand books! Our writers are brave, feisty, original - and living in ‘the land of the long white cloud’ at the bottom of the globe gives us a unique take on the world that permeates through everything we write. But we struggle to get our voices heard internationally, so far from the rest of you! This is your chance to push out your boundaries and explore stories that derive from a culture very different from your own, while sharing the same human emotions that bring us all together. As one of these writers, I challenge you to check us out – you won’t be disappointed!
This book for younger YA’s has some of
the creepiest villains you’ll ever meet and knuckle-biting tension as the
heroes are chased by the evil Wilberforces, slug-like shapeshifters who live
under Auckland’s extinct volcanoes. Their goal is the destruction
of the world and only red-haired twins Rachel and Theo Matheson can stop them,
with the help of the strange Mr. Jones, who helps the twins unleash their
supernatural power.
Beneath the extinct volcanoes surrounding the city, giant creatures are waking from a spellbound sleep that has lasted thousands of years. Their goal is the destruction of the world. Rachel and Theo Matheson are twins. Apart from having red hair, there is nothing remarkable about them - or so they think. They are horrified to discover that they have a strange and awesome destiny. Only the Matheson twins can save the world from the terror of what is under the mountain. Also available as an eBook
The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman
by
Robin Gregory,
After his doting aunt dies, a special fourteen-year-old boy who has trouble fitting into a remote 1906 village goes against a powerful retired Army captain determined to eradicate his outcast kin.
I’m a public health professional, author, and reader. During part of my childhood and my subsequent career in international public health, I lived in Côte d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic; I’ve also worked throughout West and Central Africa, primarily in Francophone African countries. My experiences in these parts of the continent have not only influenced my fiction writing, but also what I read. While there are plenty of books by Anglophone African authors, few of their Francophone counterparts see their work translated into English. As a result, stories from French-speaking Africa are underrepresented in the literature available to English-speaking audiences. This list is an attempt to make a dent in this disparity.
Jean is an accomplished student at the University of Douala who sets off with his best friend, Simon, to find Jean’s older brother, who has run away to pursue his dream of becoming a soccer star in Europe. Their trip is paved with danger but Jean is willing to face any perils in order to spend time with Simon, on whom he has a secret, unrequited crush. Despite the novel’s heavy themes of terrorism, child abuse, authoritarianism, homophobia, and the plight of undocumented immigrants, Lobe pulls off an entertaining, rollicking story that provides a wonderful snapshot of his country.
On the trail of Roger, a brother who has gone north in search of football fame in Europe, Choupi, the narrator, takes with him the older Simon, a neighborhood friend. The bus trip north nearly ends in disaster when, at a pit stop, Simon goes wandering in search of grilled caterpillars. At the police station in Yaounde, the local cop tells them that a feckless boza who wants to go to Europe is not worth police effort and their mother should go and pleasure the police chief if she wants help! Through a series of joyful sparky vignettes, Cameroon life…
As a practicing clinical psychologist, teacher of psychotherapy theory and technique, and author (Barbarians at the PTA, Madmen on the Couch, Money Talks) who writes about the psychopathology of daily life for various online and print publications, I am a participant in/observer of mom culture. I love a juicy mother-child story.
One of my favorite novels is Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar, a coming of age story of Marjorie and Mrs Morgenster, a/k/a the original helicopter mom.
This Pulitzer Prize-winning author was male but managed to get into the head of both teenage girl and indomitable mother–and the results are funny and poignant. There’s all kinds of bonus detail about 1930s-1940s NYC: college, dating, and theater scenes.
As someone who is fascinated by mom culture, I like to recommend mother-daughter stories that illustrate how parenting styles and family relationships have changed over time. While it all started with Marmee, Louisa May Alcott (Jo’s) idealized supermom, I have a fondness for the ambivalently modern struggles between Mrs. Morgenstern and Marjorie, the female leads in Herman Wouk’s classic novel, Marjorie Morningstar.
This is a coming of age story that has it all: beautiful and ambitious heroine, handsome love interest, colorful best friend, and the…
"I read it and I thought, 'Oh, God, this is me.'" - Scarlet Johansson
Now hailed as a "proto-feminist classic" (Vulture), Pulitzer Prize winner Herman Wouk's powerful coming-of-age novel about an ambitious young woman pursuing her artistic dreams in New York City has been a perennial favourite since it was first a bestseller in the 1950s.
Sixteen-year-old Marjorie Morgenstern lives a quiet life in New York City. Her mother hopes for a glittering marriage to a good man, but Marjorie has other ideas.
When she falls desperately in love with Noel Airman, a musician as reckless as he is talented,…
Allan D. Hunter came out as genderqueer in 1980, more than 20 years before “genderqueer” was trending. His story is autobiographical: the story of a different kind of male hero, a genderqueer person's tale. It follows the author from his debut as an eighth grader in Los Alamos, New Mexico until his unorthodox coming out at the age of twenty-one on the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque.
In this autobiographical sketch, the author describes being assumed by people he meets on Grindr to be either a drag queen or a trans woman.
He is neither; Princess WaWa is femme. It’s different. The passion of his life is Derek Island, his romantic obsession. But caring about someone, or even caring about the outcome, is frightening when your primary way of coping with how life treats you is to refuse to care.
A loud-mouth, black, gay teenager struggles to find himself in rural America. After having realized his inability to attend his top-choice school, Waldell Goode embarks on a journey to reevaluate why the grand departure appealed to him in the first place. He learns that as much as he can control his nonexistent love life, there are other factors that aren’t as easily mutable. He comes to terms with his peculiar relationship with his mother, the inevitable heartbreak in store for him no matter how hard he’s tried avoiding it, and the voice of God, in all her beguiling glory.
Annie Kurtz joins the Marines, deploys to Afghanistan, and has to make a split-second decision. She can follow her orders. Or she can follow her conscience. Nick Willard is a journalist who has pined for Annie since they were in prep school together. While doing his job, he discovers what…
I was born and raised on the rugged island of Newfoundland and am enthralled by the ocean, its rhythm, its power. The setting of The Kerrigan Chronicles is the setting for my early life: same area, different era. As a child, I was unaware of the sacrifices and struggles of my ancestors. During cross-country telephone conversations with my aging father, I heard stories of poverty, illness, and war. When Dad described the earthquake and tsunami of 1929, I was hooked. I have written other novels, modern-day suspense that could quite frankly have been written by other people butThe Kerrigan Chronicles are mine and mine alone.
Set on a Canadian prairie plain in the 1930s, Who Has Seen the Wind tells the coming-of-age story of a young Saskatchewan boy, Brian O’Connal, as he seeks meaning in life, death, and God. I love this book for its lyrical use of the wind which constantly sweeps across the prairie and through every aspect of the story. This book influenced me as a writer because I hoped to personify the sea the way W.O Mitchell did the wind.
Hailed as “one of the finest Canadian novels ever written” by The Globe and Mail, W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind is a beloved mainstay of Canadian literature. This new, abridged audio edition is read by the author himself.
Mitchell’s novel follows Brian O’Connal, a young boy growing up in Depression-era Saskatchewan. Curious and eager to explore the impossibly vast Canadian prairie, Brian guides the listener through the inner workings of his small, rural town and its quirky characters. As Brian grows up, navigating faith, loss, and his relationships with his grandmother and his friends, we see him evolve…
