Children & YA | Chapter 16

Hope is a Jagged Thing

Welcome Home, a collection of short stories by celebrated YA authors, focuses on adoption

By Tina Chambers | September 27, 2017

The stories in Welcome Home: An Anthology on Love and Adoption depict a wide range of themes, but most revolve around a common axis: being torn between two decisions, two families, two versions of oneself. Editor Eric Smith and Tennessee contributors Dave Connis, Helen Dunbar, C.J. Redwine, Courtney C. Stevens, and Jeff Zentner will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 7 at 2 p.m.

Memphis Reads

Markus Zusak talks with Chapter 16 about his YA classic, The Book Thief

By Peggy Burch | September 6, 2017

Australian author Markus Zusak, whose novel The Book Thief is the 2017 Memphis Reads selection, will speak at Christian Brothers University on September 11 at 7 p.m., and at Rhodes College on September 12 at 7 p.m. Both talks are free and open to the public.

All the Things We Didn’t Know

In Nina LaCour’s latest YA novel, a young woman faces her ghosts

By Tina Chambers | August 24, 2017

Nina LaCour’s We Are Okay gives up its terrible secrets slowly. College freshman Marin Delaney is haunted by the ghosts of her past—what she remembers, what she now knows to be the truth, and what she has yet to understand. LaCour will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.

Beautiful, Muddy Things

A teenager carves a small-town space for herself in Courtney Stevens’s latest YA novel

By Kathryn Justice Leache | August 21, 2017

Billie McCaffrey, narrator of Courtney Stevens’s latest YA novel, Dress Codes for Small Towns, must find a way to reconcile her square-peg place in a round-hole Kentucky town. Stevens will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 25 at 6:30 p.m.; at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Chattanooga on September 9 at 2 p.m.; and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.

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.

Boy, Interrupted

Martin Wilson’s We Now Return to Regular Life returns an abducted boy to his family

By Kathryn Justice Leache | August 7, 2017

Martin Wilson’s We Now Return to Regular Life is the powerful story of Sam Walsh, a fourteen-year-old boy who is reunited with his family after three years in captivity. With determination and strength, he surprises them all. Wilson will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 10.

Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones

By Dolly Parton with Holly George-Warren, curated by Rebecca Seaver
Ten Speed Press
336 pages
$50

“Featuring behind-the-scenes stories from Dolly Parton’s life and career, and the largest reveal of her private costume archive, this gorgeously photographed book spotlights her most unforgettable looks from the 1960s to now.”

~ the publisher