Alan Gratz | Chapter 16

Anything So Dangerous and Painful as Hope

Alan Gratz’s Ground Zero contrasts the terrors of 9/11 with a day in war-torn Afghanistan

By Tina Chambers | February 2, 2021

In Ground Zero, possibly his most heart-wrenching middle-grade book yet, Knoxville native Alan Gratz weaves the terror of 9/11 and the pain of the ongoing war in Afghanistan into a story whose relentless pace and nonstop suspense ensure readers feel every bit of it. Gratz will discuss Ground Zero at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 12.

To Every Reader Her Book

In Ban This Book by Alan Gratz, a timid bookworm comes out of her shell

By Kathryn Justice Leache | November 1, 2017

Alan Gratz’s new middle-grade novel, Ban This Book, is a powerful primer on the dangers of censorship and a heartwarming tribute to libraries and intellectual freedom, all in a fun-to-read package.

See Us. Hear Us. Help Us.

In his new middle-grade novel, Alan Gratz illuminates the universal plight of refugees

By Tina Chambers | August 8, 2017

Alan Gratz has distilled the horrors of Nazi Germany, Castro’s Cuba, and the Syrian refugee crisis into a beautifully written, heart-wrenching balancing act between three pre-teen protagonists separated by decades but united by courage. Gratz will discuss Refugee at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.

Tender Headed (National Poetry Series)

By Olatunde Osinaike
Akashic Books
80 pages
17.95

“In Tender Headed, Olatunde Osinaike asks the question, what makes a man, and what makes a man like me? As he interrogates the inner and outer workings of masculinity in all its sharp and tender parts, and the way a Black man meets the world, his poems strut and duck and weave across their pages. These poems unpack the ingredients of being and make a meal of language.”

~ Camille Rankine, author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses