William C. Morris YA Debut Award finalist Leah Thomas crafts a wholly unique and compelling story about the aftermath of a family’s alien encounter.

* "A nuanced exploration of human nature." --Booklist, starred review * "For fans of Patrick Ness and Lauren Oliver, this is a must buy." --SLJ, starred review When the Vasquez siblings' father left, it seemed nothing could remedy the absence in their lives . . . until a shimmering figure named Luz appeared in the canyon behind their house. Luz filled the void. He shot hoops with seventeen-year-old Hank's hands. He showed fourteen-year-old Ana cinematic beauty behind her eyelids. He spoke kindly to eight-year-old Milo. But then Luz left, too, and he took something from each of them. As a new school year begins, Hank, Ana, and Milo must carry on as if an alien presence never altered them. But how can they ever feel close to other people again when Luz changed everything about how they see the world and themselves? In an imaginative and heartfelt exploration of human--and non-human--nature, Leah Thomas champions the unyielding bonds between family and true friends. Because You'll Never Meet Me A William C. Morris YA Debut Award finalist

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie. Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

Told in a series of vignettes from multiple viewpoints, Kekla Magoon's Light It Up is a powerful, layered story about injustice and strength—as well as an incredible follow-up to the highly acclaimed novel How It Went Down. A girl walks home from school. She's tall for her age. She's wearing her winter coat. Her headphones are in. She's hurrying. She never makes it home. In the aftermath, while law enforcement tries to justify the response, one fact remains: a police officer has shot and killed an unarmed thirteen-year-old girl. The community is thrown into upheaval, leading to unrest, a growing movement to protest the senseless taking of black lives, and the arrival of white supremacist counter demonstrators.

From French author-illustrator duo Richard Marnier and Aude Maurel comes a captivating picture book about creativity, diversity, and self-expression. This is my town, simple and typical. Each house has a door, two windows, a red roof —all so predictable But then one night… someone leaves on their light! And in the morning, what a shock! The shutters are sealed tight! Who is that who lives next door? We’ve never seen anything like this before! In a town where everyone follows the rules, one neighbor’s decision to leave the light on at night completely disrupts the neighborhood, sparking a creative revolution. Vibrant, poetic, and fun, Who Left the Light On? playfully teaches the powerful lesson that diversity, creativity, and individuality should be celebrated.

If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...

Jessica Jacobs' In Whatever Light Left to Us is about how a great love for another woman got her to write it; poems infused not only with a serious and, at times, satiric and erotic understanding of the world facing intimacy, but poems that also look at nature and earthly landscapes with a new kind of longing, which makes the book feel invigoratingly restless and the descriptive power of that restlessness knocked me out. -Michael Klein, author of When I Was a Twin