Although she grew up in a small town in rural New York State, D. J. Brandon has lived in four states, from the east coast to the Midwest. With a bachelor’s degree from Wright State University in Ohio, she devoted most of her life to working in child and family healthcare, while raising two children…
Teachers, administrators, and key team members like counselors and school psychologists can harness the power of reading to teach critical social-emotional skills to students in innovative ways: Does your school have an advisory program? Select one book and make it the basis for discussion over several weeks of advisory. Does your school have a pattern of incidents…
What inspired you to write Chiara in the Dark? I have OCD myself, though I put my main character Chiara into a different situation with different triggers. There are some great YA books about OCD like John Green’s Turtles All The Way Down, but I wanted to write a book that followed the main character…
West 44 Books’ forthcoming (April 2022) verse novel Chiara in the Dark received a starred review from Kirkus. The book, by author Maya Chhabra, is about how a vibrant, successful teenager copes with intrusive and disturbing thoughts through therapy. “An aspiring figure skater is shaken when she begins having violent and unwanted thoughts in this powerful novel…
Learning inductive reasoning is a key skill for upper elementary and middle school students. Unlike deductive thinking, which requires confirmation of fact and results in a conclusion that is either true or false, inductive reasoning allows for original thought as students develop explanations for the patterns they observe. Strong inductive reasoning skills are more essential…
Most writers and designers appreciate when a word or phrase has a double meaning, and getting that meaning into book cover art can help attract a casual browser’s attention among crowded library shelves. Annette Daniels Taylor’s newest verse novel, Shoot the Storm, is intense and explores the dual meaning of the word “shoot” in the…
Get a sneak peek of The Same Beat, a new YA novel from West 44 Books that will be available February 1, just in time for Valentine’s Day. One of six new YA, hi-lo titles for spring, the verse novel follows Teegan, a teen a bit adrift in thinking about her future plans after high…
ATTENTION BOOK LOVERS! These June titles are something really special. In Young Adult we’ve got: Knights of Suburbia And We Call It Love What we love about these YA titles: THE COVERS. If you are someone who judges a book by it’s cover, check out how nice these are: …
May is Mental Health Month and, as young adults are one of the groups most widely affected by mental illness, it is imperative to have literature that can help them not only understand others, but feel understood themselves. Here are some of our favorite titles to open up the discussion on difficult subjects and, hopefully,…
What inspired you to write Charlotte? I wanted a female protagonist who was tough just by nature, not because something terrible happened to her. Most strong women in fiction are also damaged. I wanted to break that trope. Also, I wanted a tomboy who unabashedly liked and was liked by boys. This was my experience and I…