Author Spotlight: Kim Purcell

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One evening, Jesse’s popular and good-looking boyfriend, Chris, disappears after a jog. Police think he has run away. Jesse worries about how Chris, one of the few black kids in the mill town, disappeared near an area where he’d been previously beaten up. Chris also vanished shortly after Jesse had said they should take a break from one another. Written in the form of a letter from Jesse to Chris, This is Not a Love Letter (Disney-Hyperion, January 2018) by Kim Purcell addresses racial tensions, class issues and how people can hide pain behind a smile. The storyline also is personal for Purcell, as she explained in our January issue of Growing Minds with this Q+A…

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Author Spotlight: Sarah Dessen

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When Sarah Dessen finished her 12th book, the critically acclaimed author of young adult fiction didn’t know if she had another novel in her. But while watching her two babysitters plan weddings, Dessen began to think about the different ways people come together in the world, and what it would be like, as she says, to see the process again and again, from a wedding planner’s perspective. That lead to her new novel, Once and for All (Viking Books for Young Readers, June 2017), a bubbly story about Louna, the cynical daughter of a wedding planner, and what happens when she meets a charming, serial dater who decides she’s the girl he wants. Baker & Taylor spoke with Dessen.

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