Children & YA | 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.

The Glorious Pastime: Alan Gratz

Bestselling kids’ author Alan Gratz talks about his love of detective novels and a book that surprised him

By Maria Browning | August 28, 2020

Knoxville native Alan Gratz takes on tough subjects in his fiction for young readers, as in his 2019 novel, Allies, set during World War II. Resist, a companion novella to Allies, will be released as an ebook and audiobook in September. In response to our Glorious Pastime questionnaire, Gratz tells Chapter 16 what he’s been reading lately and recommends an underappreciated book series.

Bringing Justice to Young Readers

Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor talks with Chapter 16 about her two new books for children

By Julie Danielson | July 3, 2020

In an interview conducted prior to her visit to the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, discussed her books for young readers, Turning Pages: My Life Story and The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor.

Serious Funnies

Comic artist Gene Luen Yang talks with Chapter 16 about getting graphic in school

By Joe Nolan | July 2, 2020

In this 2013 interview, artist and author Gene Luen Yang discusses the evolution of the graphic novel. Yang’s own autobiographical book, American Born Chinese, was the first graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young-adult literature.

Fake It Till You Make It

A junior entrepreneur and a budding drag queen set their sights on stardom

By Tracy Barrett | February 5, 2020

In Greg Howard’s second middle-grade novel, Middle School’s a Drag: You Better Werk!, entrepreneurial pre-teen Mikey Pruitt thinks his new talent agency can’t miss, now that he’s representing an eighth-grade aspiring drag queen. Readers won’t be surprised to find out that things don’t go as smoothly as Mikey anticipates. Howard will discuss the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 11, at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on February 13, and at the SE-YA Book Fest in Murfreesboro on March 12-14.

The World Would Never Be the Same

Alan Gratz’s new novel for young readers sensitively portrays multiple perspectives on D-Day

By Tina Chambers | October 17, 2019

In Allies, his latest novel for young readers, New York Times bestselling author and Knoxville native Alan Gratz returns to a favorite subject: World War II depicted through the eyes of young people. Gratz will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on October 23.

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning