By Alan Gratz
Scholastic Press
272 pages
$16.99
“Gratz ably conveys Yanek’s incredulity (‘Not long ago, all these half-dead creatures around me had been people’), fatalism, yearning, and determination in the face of the unimaginable.”
—Publishers Weekly
By Rosemary Zibart
Artemesia Publishing
188 pages
$24.95
“Forced Journey: The Saga of Werner Berlinger… is not only an interesting read but there were many times in the story when I felt that what happened to Werner was what happened to me.”
—Henry Frankel, President, One Thousand Children
August 9, 2013 Franklin novelist Kristin O’Donnell Tubb takes readers on a madcap quest through the streets of New Orleans in her zodiac-themed thriller, The 13th Sign. On the day Jalen Jones turns thirteen, she pays a visit to the French Quarter emporium of voodoo priestess Madame Beausoleil and leaves the shop with a small leather book called The Keypers of the Zodiack. She hopes reading it will shed some light on her future. Instead, by opening the book, she unleashes ancient forces of chaos and finds herself in the fight of her life to regain the world she knows and protect the people she loves. Tubb will read from the novel at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All festival events are free and open to the public.
August 7, 2013 Art teacher and Nashville resident Jessica Young’s debut picture book for children encourages young readers to look at familiar colors in a new way, urging them to define the world around them according to their own experience. Young will discuss My Blue is Happy at Parnassus Books on August 13, 2013, at 6:30 p.m., and at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. Both events are free and open to the public.
July 22, 2013 “I was an eleven-year-old kid standing on a street corner in Memphis in short pants,” observes the narrator of Vince Vawter’s Paperboy. “I felt like I was so small that I would be blown away if the slightest puff of wind came up. But you didn’t have to worry about any kind of a breeze showing up on a late July afternoon in Memphis.” Paperboy is a rare treat: a gentle coming-of-age story that manages to be smart, funny, poignant, and original—the perfect marriage of style and substance—with a narrative voice that rings true. Vawter will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All festival events are free and open to the public.
July 12, 2013 Even before Between Shades of Gray hit shelves, it was obvious that Ruta Sepetys’s debut novel was about to take the literary world by storm. Earning four starred reviews—one from every pre-publication review site in the country—is practically unheard of, even for veteran novelists. Between Shades of Gray, pronounced Kirkus, “deserves the widest possible readership.”
