May is Foster Care Awareness Month. The Northwest Passages YA selection is Jennifer Longo's "What I Carry," a powerful and heartwarming look at a teen girl about to age out of the foster care system. 

Register for this virtual event free of charge with The Spokesman Review.

JENNIFER LONGO is the author of Six Feet Over It and Up to This Pointe. She holds an MFA in Writing for Theater from Humboldt State University. Jennifer lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter and writes about writing at jenlongo.com. You can also find her on Twitter @JenLiaLongo.

"A deeply touching story about survival, hope, and love." --Kathleen Glasgow, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces

For readers of Robin Benway's Far from the Tree, a powerful and heartwarming look at a teen girl about to age out of the foster care system.

Growing up in foster care, Muir has lived in many houses. And if she's learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light. Carry only what fits in a suitcase.

Toothbrush? Yes. Socks? Yes. Emotional attachment to friends? foster families? a boyfriend? Nope! There's no room for any additional baggage.

Muir has just one year left before she ages out of the system. One year before she's free. One year to avoid anything--or anyone--that could get in her way.

Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean. And everything changes.
 

Join us for a Zoom event with local author Trent Reedy and fellow author Jawad Arash to discuss their new release, "Enduring Freedom." To register for this event, click here.

About the Book:

On September 11, 2001, the lives of two boys on opposite sides of the world are changed in an instant.
Baheer, a studious Afghan teen, sees his family's life turned upside down when they lose their livelihood as war rocks the country.
A world away, Joe, a young American army private, has to put aside his dreams of becoming a journalist when he's shipped out to Afghanistan.

When Joe's unit arrives in Baheer's town, Baheer is wary of the Americans, but sees an opportunity: Not only can he practice his English with the soldiers, his family can make money delivering their supplies. At first, Joe doesn't trust Baheer, or any of the locals, but Baheer keeps showing up. As Joe and Baheer get to know each other, to see each other as individuals, they realize they have a lot more in common than they ever could have realized. But can they get past the deep differences in their lives and beliefs to become true friends and allies?

Enduring Freedom is a moving and enlightening novel about how ignorance can tear us apart and how education and understanding can bring us back together.

About the Authors:

Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a year's tour of duty in Afghanistan, where he befriended Jawad Arash. Based upon his experiences there, he wrote his debut middle-grade novel, Words in the Dust, which won the Christopher Medal and was chosen for Al Roker's Book Club for Kids on the Today show. His novels Stealing Air, If You're Reading This, and the Divided We Fall trilogy were Junior Library Guild selections. His seventh novel, Gamer Army, was published in late 2018. Trent also writes a weekly military life column for the Washington Examiner. He lives with his family outside Spokane, Washington.

Jawad Arash's home country of Afghanistan has been at war throughout his entire life. Nevertheless, Jawad remained optimistic for his future. Despite challenges imposed by war or harsh Taliban regulations, he developed a love for learning and wanted to help build a new and better Afghanistan through educating people. He began teaching English while he was still in high school. Later, he earned a B.A. in English and his master's in Linguistics/TESL. Enduring Freedom is his debut novel. 

A Meeting of the Medusas: Readings in Mythic and Oceanic Magic, featuring award-winning writers Kathryn Nuernberger and Kathryn Smith and their respective and lauded new books, THE WITCH OF EYE and SELF-PORTRAIT WITH CEPHALOPOD. Novelist and Wishing Tree bookseller Sharma Shields will moderate this discussion of environmental collapse, animalia, witches, language, mythology, and transformation.

-> See the recorded event here. <-



About the Authors:

Kathryn Nuernberger writes about the history of science and ideas, renegade women, plant medicines, and witches. Her latest books are The Witch of Eye, a collection of essays about witches and witches trials, and RUE, poems about plants historically used for birth control.  She teaches poetry and nonfiction in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota.

Kathryn Smith is a Spokane-based poet and mixed media artist. Her latest poetry collection, Self-Portrait with Cephalopod, won the 2019 Jake Adam York Prize and was published in February by Milkweed Editions. She is also the author of Book of Exodus (Scablands Books, 2017) and the chapbook Chosen Companions of the Goblin (Open Country Press, 2019). More at www.kathrynsmithpoetry.com.

Please join us for the next Spokesman Review's Northwest Passages Young Adult event. Mandy Manning, 2018 National Teacher of the Year, will be in discussion with Sabina Kahn, whose newest novel is a timely, intimate look at what it means to be an immigrant in America today, and the endurance of hope and faith in the face of hate.

-> NW Passages event page here! <-

About the Book:
Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant, Zara Hossain, has been leading a fairly typical life in Corpus Christi, Texas, since her family moved there for her father to work as a pediatrician. While dealing with the Islamophobia that she faces at school, Zara has to lay low, trying not to stir up any trouble and jeopardize their family's dependent visa status while they await their green card approval, which has been in process for almost nine years.

But one day her tormentor, star football player Tyler Benson, takes things too far, leaving a threatening note in her locker, and gets suspended. As an act of revenge against her for speaking out, Tyler and his friends vandalize Zara's house with racist graffiti, leading to a violent crime that puts Zara's entire future at risk. Now she must pay the ultimate price and choose between fighting to stay in the only place she's ever called home or losing the life she loves and everyone in it.

"Daisies seem so simple on the surface, but when you look closely you see their hidden beauty."
That's what Daisy the warthog's mom always says, and it's the reason she got her name. But when Daisy goes to school, she doesn't feel like her name. The other kids, Rose, Violet, and Petunia, make fun of her and call her "Thistle."

Some readers may feel that the mean girls are let off the hook or wish that Daisy was more defiant in the face of exclusion. But Bagley, always the soul of empathy, doesn’t focus on fixing Daisy or her situation. The story’s power—and genuine hope—comes from an author acknowledging and validating her protagonist’s feelings.
Ages 4–8.

Order today! We still have signed bookplates for books purchased at WTB!

-> Check out the recorded event here. <-
 

YA books aren't just for young adults. In her debut novel, "This Is My America,"  Kim Johnson explores racial injustice against innocent Black men who are criminally sentenced and the families left behind to pick up the pieces. The book - an NPR Best Book of the Year and 2021 Pac Northwest Book Award Winner - is the start of a new partnership between The Spokesman Review's Northwest Passages and Wishing Tree Books.  

Spokane NAACP President Kiantha Duncan moderated this virtual event February 16. 

-> Link to view recorded event here. <-