May 5, 2023

My Dear Henry: A Jekyll & Hyde Remix

In the Remixed Classics series, authors from marginalized backgrounds reinterpret classic works through their own cultural lens to subvert the overwhelming cishet, white and male canon. This gothic young-adult remix of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde subverts the cishet white perspective of the original, starring a Black queer teen searching for the reason behind his best friend’s disappearance and the arrival of a magnetic stranger. Set in London, 1885, it features Gabriel Utterson, a 17-year-old law clerk who discovers that monsters of all kinds prowl within the London fog―and not all of them are out for blood. My Dear Henry […]
April 7, 2023

Knight of the Rails

Thirteen-year-old Billy Knight leaves home to “ride the rails” across Canada during the 1930s. His encounters with a wide cast of characters — including fellow drifters and grifters, kid gangs, crooks, idealists, ragtag philosophers and railroad bulls as well as everyday folk simply trying to get by — provide much more than he bargained for. And for the first time, he realizes that riding the rails is not just an adventure. It also speaks to the bravery of those drifting like tumbleweeds across the country and seeking a better life. An adventure both life-changing and unforgettable. It’s the dust-bowl Depression […]
April 7, 2023

Dreamer

This honest, engrossing graphic memoir tells the story of professional athlete and activist Akim Aliu’s incredible life as a hockey prodigy in Canada. Akim Aliu — also known as “Dreamer” — is a Ukrainian-Nigerian-Canadian professional hockey player whose career took him all around the world and who experienced systemic racism at every turn. Dreamer tells Akim’s incredible story, from being the only black child in his Ukrainian community, to his family struggling to make ends meet while living in Toronto, to confronting the racist violence he often experienced both on and off the ice. This is a gut-wrenching and riveting […]
April 7, 2023

Ghostlight

Rebecca Strand was just sixteen when she and her father fell to their deaths from the top of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse in 1839. Just how they fell—or were they pushed?—remains a mystery. And their ghosts haunt the lighthouse to this day. One teen’s summer job scaring tourists with ghost stories takes a terrifying turn when he accidentally summons the spirit of a dead girl—and she has demands. The award-winning author of Airborn delivers a roller-coaster ride of a story about the wakeful and wicked dead. “Rebecca Strand was sixteen the first time she saw her father kill a ghost.” […]
March 3, 2023

Houston, Is There a Problem?

Thirteen-year-old Houston Williams is smart. Very smart. So no one is surprised when he earns a scholarship to attend a prestigious NASA space camp. At the training facility he immediately bonds with his new team, including a girl named Teal. He also clashes with a girl on a rival team named Ashley, who matches or beats him in every exercise. The three of them impress the directors so much they are invited to join a top-secret research project that studies how space travel affects people of different ages. But only two of them will actually be going into space. Houston […]