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Alice Oseman’s recent novel, I Was Born for This centers around the phenomenon of fandom. Jimmy Kaga-Ricci, Allister Bird (Lister), and Rowan Omondi are part of the boy band, The Ark. They are a musically talented group whose fame has sky-rocketed. From the outside looking in, the group has it all: fame, wealth, notoriety, and adoring fans. Fereshteh (Angel) Rahimi and Juliet Schwartz are two of those fans who met online. Initially attracted to one another because of their love for The Ark, they agree to meet up IRL and attend a concert together in London. All does not go as planned, and the pairRead More →

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Tired of watching life from the sidelines, Baylee Kunkel wonders who she would be if she weren’t wearing the body of a fat girl. Although Baylee projects a confident version of herself, she is wildly insecure, judging herself and holding on to negative feelings about her body image. When it comes to the way she looks and the way she presents herself to the world, Baylee lives by a strict fashion code: She does not tuck her shirt into her pants and she does not knowingly accessorize with something that will accentuate her adipose tissue. Yearning to be seen, to be wanted, and to beRead More →

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Being of mixed race makes it difficult to know which part of the self to defer to or which part takes precedence. This is Anna’s dilemma in Malia Maunakea’s middle grade novel, Lei and the Fire Goddess. Anna Leilani Kama’ehu is of both western and Hawaiian descent. She has struggled to believe that her grandmother’s traditional stories about gods and goddesses are anything more than just stories. Likewise, she isn’t sure she wants the responsibility thrust upon her: that she is the keeper of the family stories or móolelo. Now that’s she’s twelve, Anna thinks her visits with her grandmother in the Hawaiian town ofRead More →