New Releases by A.S. King

A new edition of Michael L. Printz Award winner A.S. King''s stunning portrait of a life lived on reality TV. "A.S. King is one of the best Y.A. writers working today."—New York Times Book Review Gerald Faust knows exactly when he started feeling angry: the day his mother invited a reality television crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he’s still haunted by his rage-filled youth—which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle—and his anger issues have resulted in violent outbursts, zero friends, and clueless adults dumping him in the special education room at school. Nothing is ever going to change. No one cares that he’s tried to learn to control himself, and the girl he likes has no idea who he really is. Everyone’s just waiting for him to snap…and he’s starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that.

A new edition of Michael L. Printz Award winner A.S. King''s brilliant and bizarre story of teenage trauma and standardized tests. "Kurt Vonnegut might have written a book like this.”—New York Times Book Review Four accomplished teenagers are on the verge of explosion. The anxieties they face at every turn have nearly pushed them to the point of surrender: senseless high-stakes testing, the lingering damage of trauma, the buried grief and guilt of tragic loss. They are desperate to cope—but no one is listening. So they will lie. They will split in two. They will turn inside out. They will build an invisible helicopter to fly themselves far away from the pressure…but nothing releases the pressure. Because, as they discover, the only way to truly escape their world is to fly right into it. A.S. King reaches new heights in this groundbreaking work of surrealist fiction; it will mesmerize readers with its deeply affecting exploration of how we crawl through traumatic experience—and find the way out.

From Michael L. Printz Award winner A.S. King, a weird and insightful new novel about a girl intent on picking the lock of her toxic family. Jane Vandermaker-Cook would like her mother back. As Jane''s mother tours the world to support the family, Jane lives and goes to school in a Victorian mansion with her younger brother and their mendacious father who confines Jane’s mother to a system of pneumatic tubes whenever she’s at home. And then there''s weirdly ever-present Aunt Finch, Milorad the gardener, and his rat, Brutus. For Jane, this all seems normal until she suddenly gains access to the files for a lifetime of security-camera videos—her lifetime. A.S. King''s latest surrealist masterpiece follows Jane’s bizarre and brilliant journey to reconnect with her mother by breaking out of her shell and composing a punk opera.

Winner of the 2024 Michael L. Printz Award A National Bestseller From Michael L. Printz Award winner A.S. King and an all-star team of contributors including Anna-Marie McLemore and Jason Reynolds, an anthology of stories about remarkable people and their strange and surprising collections. From David Levithan’s story about a non-binary kid collecting pieces of other people’s collections to Jenny Torres Sanchez''s tale of a girl gathering types of fire while trying not to get burned to G. Neri''s piece about 1970''s skaters seeking opportunities to go vertical—anything can be collected and in the hands of these award-winning and bestselling authors, any collection can tell a story. Nine of the best YA novelists working today have written fiction based on a prompt from Printz-winner A.S. King (who also contributes a story) and the result is itself an extraordinary collection. M. T. Anderson, e. E. Charlton-Trujillo, A.S. King, David Levithan, Cory McCarthy, Anna-Marie McLemore, G. Neri, Jason Reynolds, Randy Ribay, and Jenny Torres Sanchez have each penned a surprising and provocative tale. (Cover art may vary.)

A surreal and timely novel about the effects of isolation and what it means to be connected to the world from the Printz Award-winning author of Dig. Time has stopped. It''s been June 23, 2020 for nearly a year as far as anyone can tell. Frantic adults demand teenagers focus on finding practical solutions to the worldwide crisis. Not everyone is on board though. Javelin-throwing prodigy Truda Becker is pretty sure her "Solution Time" class won''t solve the world''s problems, but she does have a few ideas what might. Truda lives in a house with a switch that no one ever touches, a switch her father protects every day by nailing it into hundreds of progressively larger boxes. But Truda''s got a crow bar, and one way or another, she''s going to see what happens when she flips the switch.

Winner of the Michael L. Printz Medal ★“King’s narrative concerns are racism, patriarchy, colonialism, white privilege, and the ingrained systems that perpetuate them. . . . [Dig] will speak profoundly to a generation of young people who are waking up to the societal sins of the past and working toward a more equitable future.”—Horn Book, starred review “I’ve never understood white people who can’t admit they’re white. I mean, white isn’t just a color. And maybe that’s the problem for them. White is a passport. It’s a ticket.” Five estranged cousins are lost in a maze of their family’s tangled secrets. Their grandparents, former potato farmers Gottfried and Marla Hemmings, managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions and now they sit atop a million-dollar bank account—wealth they’ve refused to pass on to their adult children or their five teenage grandchildren. “Because we want them to thrive,” Marla always says. But for the Hemmings cousins, “thriving” feels a lot like slowly dying of a poison they started taking the moment they were born. As the rot beneath the surface of the Hemmings’ white suburban respectability destroys the family from within, the cousins find their ways back to one another, just in time to uncover the terrible cost of maintaining the family name. With her inimitable surrealism, award winner A.S. King exposes how a toxic culture of polite white supremacy tears a family apart and how one determined generation can dig its way out.

The first book from LA Times Book Prize and Printz Honor winner A.S. King--a witty, snarky tale of love and family, revenge and reincarnation, and pirates. In the late seventeenth century, famed teenage pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping the pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with "the dust of one hundred dogs," dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body-with her memories intact. Now she''s a contemporary American teenager and all she needs to escape her no-good family and establish a luxurious life of her own is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica...

A heartbreaking and mindbending story of a talented teenage artist''s awakening to the brokenness of her family from acclaimed Printz award-winner A.S. King. Sixteen-year-old Sarah can''t draw. This is a problem, because as long as she can remember, she has "done the art." She thinks she''s having an existential crisis. And she might be right; she does keep running into past and future versions of herself as she wanders the urban ruins of Philadelphia. Or maybe she''s finally waking up to the tornado that is her family, the tornado that six years ago sent her once-beloved older brother flying across the country for a reason she can''t quite recall. After decades of staying together "for the kids" and building a family on a foundation of lies and domestic violence, Sarah''s parents have reached the end. Now Sarah must come to grips with years spent sleepwalking in the ruins of their toxic marriage. As Sarah herself often observes, nothing about her pain is remotely original—and yet it still hurts. Insightful, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful, this is a vivid portrait of abuse, survival, resurgence that will linger with readers long after the last page. “Read this book, whatever your age. You may find it’s the exact shape and size of the hole in your heart.”—The New York Times “Surreal and thought-provoking.”—People Magazine ★ ”A deeply moving, frank, and compassionate exploration of trauma and resilience, filled to the brim with incisive, grounded wisdom.” —Booklist, starred review ★ ”King writes with the confidence of a tightrope walker working without a net.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review ★"[King] blurs reality, truth, violence, emotion, creativity, and art in a show of respect for YA readers."—Horn Book Magazine, starred review ★ “King’s brilliance, artistry, and originality as an author shine through in this thought-provoking work. […] An unforgettable experience.” SLJ, starred review

A collection of forty crime and thriller short stories, with all profits from the sale of this book to be donated to Hospice UK and Sophie’s Appeal. Do you think you know darkness? Think again. Bloodhound Books presents Dark Minds—a collection of stories by authors who have come together to produce an anthology that will lure, tantalise and shock its readers. What took place “By the Water?” What goes on behind “A Stranger’s Eyes?” And what is so special about “Slow Roast Pork?” From master authors such as Lisa Hall, Steven Dunne, Louise Jensen and Anita Waller, readers can expect a one hell of a ride . . . All profits from the sale of this book will be donated to Hospice UK and Sophie’s Appeal. Dark Minds is a collection of forty crime and thriller short stories from authors including; Louise Jensen, L.J. Ross, Lisa Hall, Steven Dunne, Betsy Reavley, Alex Walters and Anita Waller, plus many more. For the complete table of contents, look inside.

In this masterpiece about freedom, feminism, and destiny, Printz Honor author A.S. King tells the epic story of a girl coping with devastating loss at long last--a girl who has no idea that the future needs her, and that the present needs her even more. Graduating from high school is a time of limitless possibilities--but not for Glory, who has no plan for what''s next. Her mother committed suicide when Glory was only four years old, and she''s never stopped wondering if she will eventually go the same way...until a transformative night when she begins to experience an astonishing new power to see a person''s infinite past and future. From ancient ancestors to many generations forward, Glory is bombarded with visions--and what she sees ahead of her is terrifying: A tyrannical new leader raises an army. Women''s rights disappear. A violent second civil war breaks out. And young girls vanish daily, sold off or interned in camps. Glory makes it her mission to record everything she sees, hoping her notes will somehow make a difference. She may not see a future for herself, but she''ll do anything to make sure this one doesn''t come to pass.

Astrid Jones desperately wants to confide in someone, but her mother''s pushiness and her father''s lack of interest tell her they''re the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours lying on the backyard picnic table watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn''t know the passengers inside, but they''re the only people who won''t judge her when she asks them her most personal questions . . . like what it means that she''s falling in love with a girl. As her secret relationship becomes more intense and her friends demand answers, Astrid has nowhere left to turn. She can''t share the truth with anyone except the people at thirty thousand feet, and they don''t even know she''s there. But little does Astrid know just how much even the tiniest connection will affect these strangers'' lives--and her own--for the better. In this truly original portrayal of a girl struggling to break free of society''s definitions, Printz Honor author A.S. King asks readers to question everything--and offers hope to those who will never stop seeking real love.

Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to? Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.

Lucky Linderman didn''t ask for his life. He didn''t ask his grandfather not to come home from the Vietnam War. He didn''t ask for a father who never got over it. He didn''t ask for a mother who keeps pretending their dysfunctional family is fine. And he didn''t ask to be the target of Nader McMillan''s relentless bullying, which has finally gone too far. But Lucky has a secret--one that helps him wade through the daily mundane torture of his life. In his dreams, Lucky escapes to the war-ridden jungles of Laos--the prison his grandfather couldn''t escape--where Lucky can be a real man, an adventurer, and a hero. It''s dangerous and wild, and it''s a place where his life just might be worth living. But how long can Lucky keep hiding in his dreams before reality forces its way inside? Michael L. Printz Honor recipient A.S. King''s smart, funny and boldly original writing shines in this powerful novel about learning to cope with the shrapnel life throws at you and taking a stand against it.