Cracking the Bell
By Geoff Herbach (Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins, $17.99)
For years, football has given Wisconsin teenager Isaiah his "singularity and purpose" after the death of his sister and his parents' divorce. But when a concussion sidelines him from the game, his behavior begins to spin out of control, just as a recruiter dangles a college scholarship. Mankato writer Geoff Herbach captures the joy of pummeling rivals on the field and the slow way Isaiah gathers his inner resources to find a path forward.
Lalani of the Distant Sea
By Erin Entrada Kelly, illustrated by Lian Cho (Greenwillow, $16.99)
On the island of Sanlagita, the villagers send their sons to sea to find a mythical island, but no one returns. Lalani has lost her father and now lives with an abusive stepfather and stepbrother. When her mother falls ill, she sets out at sea to chart a different future. Erin Entrada Kelly has written a tale, suffused with myth and poetry, that allows one girl to tap her resilience to break free of an insular community.
Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All
By Laura Ruby (Balzer + Bray, $17.99)
In the depths of the Great Depression, Frankie and her siblings are left in a Chicago orphanage when their Italian immigrant father finds a new family. In a second, braided story line, a ghost, Pearl, tries to understand the harsh reaction to her first love. "This is a story about how the world likes to punish girls for their appetites, even for their love," Hamline University instructor Laura Ruby says of her sprawling and ambitious novel.
Pet
By Akwaeke Emezi (Make Me a World, $17.99)
In the city of Lucille, a revolution has erased prejudice and abuses of power, and all knowledge of evil has been locked away. That is, until teenage Jam unleashes "Pet," from her mother's painting, a terrifying creature who has come to Lucille to hunt a monster. In their first young-adult novel, Akwaeke Emezi creates characters who "read" houses, speak in poetic tongues, and confront their deepest fears to set the world right.
