Writers Tricks of the Trade Issue 2 Volume 8 | Page 22

cubines, Bak and Ngan consulted with
sexual assault survivors. This title “ex-
tends beyond race” to include LGBTQ con-
tent.
Sara Goodman, editorial director at St.
Martin’s/Wednesday Books, predicted
that Sadie by Courtney Summers, a book
about survival, poverty, abuse cycles, and
unconditional love, “is gonna grab” its
readers. The book portrays the ways in
which our society “discounts teenage
girls” and their voices and shows the feel-
ing of impermanence that poverty and
abuse can imprint upon a person. This
story illustrates how learning, and caring
about, another person’s story can change
one’s perspective.
Hali Baumstein, associate editor at
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, empha-
sized that readers will fully understand
the motives of characters in Mimi
Yu’s The Girl King , a fantasy inspired by
East Asian history. The story builds a rela-
tional bridge between two distinct rivals
who “stand in direct opposition” to one
another. The book also challenges gender
stereotypes Inspired by “epic narratives”
from the author’s childhood and offers so
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE
many female representations, all equally
empowered.
Sourcebooks Fire editorial director
Annette Pollert-Morgan two things she
looks for, a “consuming reading experi-
ence” and “relatable and diverse and
complicated” characters, in Rebecca Han-
over’s The Similars . Amid a story that
“asks big questions about nature vs.
nuture” and community, clones join an
elite academy, Layered characters re-
spond to opposing motivations.”
Dial Books for Young Readers associ-
ate editor Dana Chidiac said she had nev-
er seen a book about “having roots in a
place you’ve never been—especially a
place that is... embattled in the American
imagination like Darius the Great Is Not
Okay by Adib Khorram, A half white, half
Persian boy visits family in Iran for the
first time/ The author manages to “de-
mystify Iran” while creating a “balancing
act of jokes and pathos, walking a line be-
tween friendship and romance. (Chidiac
has called it an “almost-coming-out sto-
ry”). The novel offers its protagonist a
message of kindness: “Everyone wants
you here.”
P AGE 17
S UMMER 2018