Hey YA Readers!
I lied about my time off. I’m actually here today, but Erica will be your all-things-YA guide the rest of the week. I am writing to you in the future from the past, bringing you a look at the latest in YA releases and a look at two upcoming Young Reader Adaptations of adult nonfiction titles you’ll want on your TBR.
Ready? Let’s dive on in.
Bookish Goods
Late Night Readers Club Shirt by YANovelDesigns
Are you or someone you love a member of the late night readers club? Get a shirt to honor that commitment. $18 and up, up to size 4XL, and the ’80s/’90s vibes of this one cannot be beat.
New Releases
Let’s look at two hardcover books hitting shelves this week. You can find the rest of this week’s new releases in the fall roundup of new hardcovers.
Strike The Zither by Joan He
The first in a new series that reimagines the Chinese classic story of the Three Kingdoms, we’re dropped into the year 414 during the Xin Dynasty. It is a time of chaos, with a puppet empress at the throne. The land has splintered into three different factions, and now, three warlordesses are itching to take control all for themselves.
Enter Zephyr.
Zephyr knows there’s no contest. She’s a strategist, a skill she’s developed after being orphaned and after studying under Xin Ren, a warlordess. Ren has loyalty to the empress only so much as it is strategic. When Zephyr infiltrates an enemy camp and meets an opposing strategist, she is taken aback. But in a world where everyone could be an enemy, is Zephyr setting herself and Ren up for disaster?
We Are All We Have by Marina Budhos
It’s 2019 and Raina is ready for the best summer of her life. But everything changes in an instant when ICE knocks at the door of her family’s Brooklyn apartment and takes her single mother away.
Alone with her brother, Raina has to figure out what to do and how to survive. She thought their asylum case was settled, but now, desperate for answers, she, her brother, and new friend Carlos, will take a road trip to find them.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
I love YA nonfiction, and if you’ve been here any amount of time, you know it’s a category of young adult literature I am conscious of regularly highlighting. It used to be that Young Reader Editions of adult books could…be a little underwhelming. They did not feel like their own unique thing so much as a condensed version of the adult book (and I remember as a librarian thinking that any teen who would want to read that book would just pick up the original).
Today, the world of young reader editions is so, so different. These books are incredible in their own right, and even for those of us who have maybe read the adult versions, the young reader editions offer new perspectives and insights making them worth picking up, too. These do not “dumb down” the original; they’re in conversation with them and make the topics relevant, timely, and valuable for today’s teens. As a bonus, the young reader editions make for great adult reading, particularly for those who might be intimidated by or do not have time for the original.
Here are two hitting shelves soon; you’ll want to make sure they are on your radar.
Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults by Robin Wall Kimmerer, adapted by Monique Gray Smith, illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt (November 1)
If you’re interested at all in nature, the environment, climate, and science, this is a must-read. It braids together Indigenous wisdom and “classroom science,” to highlight what we can learn from the world around us.
I read the original a few years back and it completely changed the way I engage with and see the world. The new young reader edition takes what is in the original and offers even more wisdom, alongside illustrations, sidebars, and exercises for applying what lies within the pages into the bigger world.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Adapted for Young Adults) by Isabel Wilkerson (November 22)
If ever there was a time to learn about race, racism, and the hidden (or not so hidden) systems of power at play in America, it is now. Wilkerson’s adaptation explores the hidden caste system in the country, exploring how those in power have exploited it for their own gain over and over.
But don’t be tricked into thinking this book is only heartbreaking and angering (and indeed, it is both). The book also offers ways forward and encourages ways to challenge and work toward destroying these systems.
As always, thanks for hanging out. Until next time, happy reading!
— Kelly Jensen, currently reading Scout’s Honor by Lily Anderson.