MY SEVENTH GRADE LIFE IN TIGHTS
Brooks Benjamin held his cover reveal over at Pop! Goes the Reader on May 4th to dizzee-ing acclaim!
LIVE IT. All Dillon wants is to be a real dancer. And if he wins a summer scholarship at Dance-Splosion, he’s on his way. The problem? His dad wants him to play football. And Dillon’s freestyle crew, the Dizzee Freekz, says that dance studios are for sellouts. His friends want Dillon to kill it at the audition—so he can turn around and tell the studio just how wrong their rules and creativity-strangling ways are.
WORK IT. At first, Dillon’s willing to go along with his crew’s plan, even convincing one of the snobbiest girls at school to work with him on his technique. But as Dillon’s dancing improves, he wonders: what if studios aren’t the enemy? And what if he actually has a shot at winning the scholarship?
BRING IT. Dillon’s life is about to get crazy . . . on and off the dance floor.
THE ABYSS SURROUNDS US
The action-packed cover for Emily Skrutskie ‘s debut was revealed on May 7th on YA Books Central.
For Cassandra Leung, bossing around sea monsters is just the family business. She’s been a Reckoner trainer-in-training ever since she could walk, raising the genetically-engineered beasts to defend ships as they cross the pirate-infested NeoPacific. But when the pirate queen Santa Elena swoops in on Cas’s first solo mission and snatches her from the bloodstained decks, Cas’s dream of being a full-time trainer seems dead in the water.
There’s no time to mourn. Waiting for her on the pirate ship is an unhatched Reckoner pup. Santa Elena wants to take back the seas with a monster of her own, and she needs a proper trainer to do it. She orders Cas to raise the pup, make sure he imprints on her ship, and, when the time comes, teach him to fight for the pirates. If Cas fails, her blood will be the next to paint the sea.
But Cas has fought pirates her entire life. And she’s not about to stop.
THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS
Marieke Nijkamp’s intensely powerful cover was revealed on B&N Teen Blog on May 11th.
10:00 a.m. The principal of Opportunity, Alabama’s high school finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.
10:02 a.m. The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.
10:03 The auditorium doors won’t open.
10:05 Someone starts shooting.
Told over the span of 54 harrowing minutes from four different perspectives, terror reigns as one student’s calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.
Marieke will be signing copies of THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS at Book Expo America! Find her in the Sourcebooks booth, Friday, May 29, at 2PM.
On May 13th, THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS was announced as one of the Publishers Lunch buzz books!
New Titles
Michelle Andreani’s YA contemporary is now THE WAY BACK TO YOU and is due out Summer 2016 from Kaherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins.
Erin L. Schneider’s YA contemporary is now SUMMER OF SLOANE and is due out on May 3, 2016 from Disney-Hyperion.
Audio & Rights
Listening Library will release audio editions of Traci Chee’s YA fantasy THE READER. Audio will be available simultaneous with the hardcover. THE READER is due out in Spring 2016 from Penguin Putnam.
Foreign rights to Kathleen Glasgow’s THE TENDER KIT have been sold to UK (Oneworld), Australia/New Zealand (HarperCollins), Spain (Penguin/Montena) and Poland (Jaguar). THE TENDER KIT is a YA contemporary releasing Fall 2016 from Random House/Delacorte.
Foreign rights to SUMMER OF SUPERNOVAS by Darcy Woods have sold to Fischer in a preempt. Spanish rights (with distribution in Latin America) have sold to Urano’s Puck Imprint. Release date is scheduled for April 5, 2016 by Crown.
A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE and its two sequels by Brittany Cavallaro have sold to Take Shobo in Japan. Brittany’s first poetry collection GIRL-KING is out and available for pre-order. It made a list on Refinery 29 of 30 of The Best Books Written By Millennials.
Pre-order, anyone?
SWORD AND VERSE by Kathy MacMillan will be available in hardcover and e-book on January 19, 2016. Set in a land where writing is the sacred privilege of a few, it is the story of a slave girl who gets the extraordinary chance to learn the language of the gods when she becomes a royal tutor. But her dreams are threatened by her forbidden love for the prince, and her loyalty is tested by the Resistance, who dare her to join in the fight for her people’s freedom. National Book Award finalist Franny Billingsley says of SWORD AND VERSE: “Fascinating and unique. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.” SWORD AND VERSE is available for pre-order at HarperCollins, Amazon and Indigo.
Other Awesomeness:
Kali Wallace will be doing a reading at WisCon 39, the feminist SFF convention in Madison, Wisconsin that’s happening May 22-25. The reading will be at 10:30pm on Saturday, May 23 in Conference 1. Also reading are Gregory Norman Bossert, John Chu, Jessica Hilt, Jennifer C. Hsyu, Leah Thomas and Tom Underberg. Kali’s short story, “The Proper Motion of Extraordinary Stars” has been published in Shimmer Magazine. An author interview to go with the ebook version of the issue is available for purchase.
Music by SYMPTOMS OF BEING HUMAN author Jeff Garvin’s former band was featured in an April episode of the CBS crime drama PERSON OF INTEREST.
Laura Shovan, author of THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY, is a poet-in-residence at Northfield Elementary School in Howard County, Maryland. This is an annual series of poetry workshops for the school’s 3rd grade. It’s paid for in part by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. Laura posts the 3rd graders’ writing on her blog. The students LOVE comments from fellow authors so stop by and check out their work!
Kate Hart, author of AFTER THE FALL, has profiled several YA/MG authors recently on her Badass Ladies You Should Know series, including Kirsten Hubbard, Aisha Saeed, I. W. Gregorio, Courtney Summers, Maya Rock, and Ellen Oh. Next week she’ll have newly minted NYT bestseller Sabaa Tahir.
The Sweet Sixteens 
Blown away by all the awesome. Another great update!