September 17, 2015 Trip Westbrook did not expect his world to fall apart just because he asked his housekeeper’s son to play football in the front yard. Yard War, a new middle-grade novel by Taylor Kitchings, takes place in segregated Mississippi, and what follows this game of pickup ball surprises and confuses young Trip. Kitchings will appear at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on September 24, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

July 15, 2015 Jesse’s Girl by Miranda Kenneally is a girl-meets-boy romantic romp through a star-crossed high-school Career Day in a story that quickly calls to mind Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Kenneally, a Manchester native, will read from her new YA novel at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 26, 2015, at 2 p.m.