author interviews – The Lerner Blog

Speaking Out Loud: The Voices Behind the New YA Nonfiction Ban This!

What would you do if your school removed books from the library—books that reflected your identity, your history, your reality? In Ban This!: How One School Fought Two Book Bans and Won (and How You Can Too), a powerful group of students and educators from Central York High School in Pennsylvania show exactly how they […]Read more

Author Interviews

Displaced: An Interview with Author Patrick Ochieng

Displaced is a story of everyday courage and unexpected community through the eyes of fourteen-year-old Kim. Post-election violence forces Kim and his family to flee their home in suburban Kenya. While staying in a camp for displaced persons, he struggles to adapt to his new reality. Kim gradually befriends other displaced kids, and they hatch […]Read more

Author Interviews

Trumpets of Death: A Herald of Change and Growth

For many, the forest is a place of refuge. In the new graphic novel, Trumpets of Death by debut author Simon Bournel-Bosson, the rolling hills and dense trees become a place of transformation and maturity. Read on to take a sneak peek at this stunning and contemplative exploration of intergenerational conflict and humanity’s broken bond […]Read more

Author Interviews

Weed: An Interview with Author Caitlin Donohue

Weed: Cannabis Culture in the Americas is a wide-reaching and inclusive collection of interviews which will satisfy young adult readers curious in the unique plant’s history and future. Culture writer and journalist Caitlin Donohue joins us today to discuss why a book like this is so important and what she hopes young readers will find […]Read more

Author Interviews

Men of the 65th: An Interview with Author Talia Aikens-Nuñez

Honor and Fidelity. That is the motto of the 65th Infantry Regiment, the only Puerto Rican unit in the United States Army. Discover their story in the new YA nonfiction Men of the 65th: The Borinqueneers of the Korean War. Today author Talia Aikens-Nuñez joins us on the Lerner blog to share her inspiration, a surprising […]Read more

Author Interviews

Indigo and Ida: An Interview with Author Heather Murphy Capps

In the brand new middle grade Indigo and Ida, Indigo is an eighth-grade investigative reporter, and she’s taking the world by storm. She breaks an important story, exposing an unfair school policy, she’s suddenly popular for the first time. But when she notices that the school’s disciplinary policies seem to be enforced especially harshly with […]Read more

Author Interviews

The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent: An Interview with Author Ann Jacobus

Hopeful and compassionate, The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent follows eighteen-year-old Del as she discovers she cannot fully value life without accepting the realities of death. She’s in a healthier place more than a year after a suicide attempt. She’s sober, getting treatment for her depression and anxiety, and volunteering at a suicide-prevention hotline. But […]Read more

Author Interviews

Torch: An Interview with Author Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Set in 1969 Prague, Torch explores the devastating impact of a totalitarian regime and the different ways young people carve out futures for themselves against impossible odds. The story is told from the perspective of three characters after 17-year-old Pavol fatally sets himself on fire to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Author Lyn Miller-Lachmann […]Read more

Author Interviews

Big Bear and Little Fish: An Interview with Author Sandra Nickel

Big Bear and Little Fish is a sweet story of unexpected friendship between Bear (who is very big!) and Fish (who is very little!), told in accessible prose that’s just right for beginning readers. Today on the Lerner blog, author Sandra Nickel joins us to discuss influential books, the emotive illustrations, and who she relates […]Read more

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