Tag: Clara Kumagai

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Holiday Spotlight: Tundra Books Young Adult 2023

Here at Penguin Random House Canada, we’re lucky to work with so many different imprints and children’s book lists. This holiday season, we’ll be highlighting each one with a dedicated post to help you find the perfect gift (or your next read). Today’s post is all about young adult books from Tundra Books, our very own Canadian publisher!

Catfish Rolling
By Clara Kumagai
432 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882764 | Penguin Teen Canada
There’s a catfish under Japan, and when it rolls, the land rises and falls. At least, that’s what Sora was told after she lost her mother to an earthquake so powerful that it cracked time itself. Sora and her father are some of the few who still live near the most powerful of these “zones” – the places where time has been irrevocably sped up, or slowed down. When high school ends, and her best friend leaves for university, Sora finds herself stuck and increasingly alone. She begins secretly conducting her own research, tracking down a time expert in Tokyo. She also feels increasingly conflicted in her quasi-romantic feelings for her best friend – and for the time expert’s assistant, a striking and confident girl named Maya, another hafu (half-Japanese, half-non) girl with whom Sora forms an instant bond. But when Sora’s father disappears, she has no choice but to return home and venture deep into the abandoned time zones to find him, and perhaps the catfish itself . . .

Friends Like These
By Meg Rosoff
208 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9781774881101 | Tundra Books
New York City. Summer 1983. A summer internship in New York was meant to be everything Beth wanted. But from the moment she arrives in the city she feels wrong: wrong hair, terrible clothes, defective smile, too obviously a virgin. Sharing a hot, cockroach-filled apartment with a couple falling out of love completes the dream picture. Then she meets her fellow interns: ambitious out-of-towner Dan, preppy rich boy Oliver, and Edie – a beautiful, brittle, magnetic, instant best friend. Irresistible people are like gravity. You can’t help being pulled towards them – can you?

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls
By Cherie Dimaline
280 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735265639 | Tundra Books
Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium all her life, close to her mother’s grave. With her sixteenth birthday only days away, Winifred has settled into a lazy summer schedule, lugging her obese Chihuahua around the grounds in a squeaky red wagon to visit the neglected gravesides and nursing a serious crush on her best friend, Jack. Her habit of wandering the graveyard at all hours has started a rumor that Winterson Cemetery might be haunted. It’s welcome news since the crematorium is on the verge of closure and her father’s job being outsourced. Now that the ghost tours have started, Winifred just might be able to save her father’s job and the only home she’s ever known, not to mention being able to stay close to where her mother is buried. All she has to do is get help from her con-artist cousin to keep up the rouse and somehow manage to stop her father from believing his wife has returned from the grave. But when Phil, an actual ghost of a teen girl who lived and died in the ravine next to the cemetery, starts showing up, Winifred begins to question everything she believes about life, love and death. Especially love.

House of Ash and Bone
By Joel A. Sutherland
336 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880968 | Tundra Books
Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger is a talented writer with special abilities she doesn’t fully understand. Over the years she has developed methods to cope with the voices she hears in her head, but the old house her family has inherited in Vermont makes Josephine question what’s real and what’s not more than anything she’s ever encountered before. It’s filled with shadows, and whispers, and the unshakable feeling of being watched. Josephine then catches her first glimpse of a shadowy woman with long hair, pale skin, an impossibly wide smile and hollow pits for eyes. Her name is Dorcas, the ghost of a witch who died three hundred years ago. She has summoned the family to Vermont to ensnare them – then consume them – in order to rise from the grave and live again . . .

Murtagh
By Christopher Paolini
656 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882962 | Penguin Teen Canada
The world is no longer safe for the Dragon Rider Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn. An evil king has been toppled, and they are left to face the consequences of the reluctant role they played in his reign of terror. Now they are hated and alone, exiled to the outskirts of society. Throughout the land, hushed voices whisper of brittle ground and a faint scent of brimstone in the air – and Murtagh senses that something wicked lurks in the shadows of Alagaësia. So begins an epic journey into lands both familiar and untraveled, where Murtagh and Thorn must use every weapon in their arsenal, from brains to brawn, to find and outwit a mysterious witch. A witch who is much more than she seems. In this gripping novel starring one of the most popular characters from Christopher Paolini’s blockbuster Inheritance Cycle, a Dragon Rider must discover what he stands for in a world that has abandoned him. Murtagh is the perfect book to enter the World of Eragon for the first time . . . or to joyfully return.

Of Light and Shadow
By Tanaz Bhathena
448 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271432 | Penguin Teen Canada
When they don’t give us our birthright, we steal it. Roshan Chaya is out for justice. Abandoned by her parents at birth and adopted by the kingdom of Jwala’s most notorious bandit before his brutal murder, she is now leader of the Shadow Clan, a gang of farmers-turned-bandits impoverished by the provincial governor’s atrocities and corruption. Roshan’s goal: to avenge her adoptive father and earn back rights and dignity for her people. Prince Navin has always felt like an outcast. Second in line for the throne, he has never been close to his grandmother, Queen Bhairavi of Jwala. When a night out drinking with friends leads to his capture by the infamous Shadow Clan, Navin schemes to befriend Roshan and use her as a means to escape. His ploy, however, brings Navin closer to the corruption and poverty at the heart of Roshan’s province, raising questions about its governor and Navin’s own family. To further complicate things, the closer Roshan and Navin get, the harder it becomes to fight their growing attraction. But how can they trust each other when the world as they know it starts to fall apart? Set in a magical world inspired by the badlands of 17th century India, this standalone epic fantasy novel by Tanaz Bhathena is packed with political tensions, dangerous schemes, and swoon-worthy romance that asks the age old question: can love conquer all?

Someone Is Always Watching
By Kelley Armstrong
368 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270923 | Tundra Books
Blythe and her friends – Gabrielle, and brother and sister Tucker and Tanya – have always been a tight friend group, attending a local high school and falling in and out of love with each other. But an act of violence has caused a rift between Blythe and Tucker . . . and unexpected bursts of aggression and disturbing nightmares have started to become more frequent in their lives. The strange happenings culminate in a shocking event at school: Gabrielle is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no memory of what happened. Cracks in their friendship, as well as in their own memories, start appearing, threatening to expose long-forgotten secrets which could change the group’s lives forever. How can Blythe and her friends trust each other when they can’t even trust their own memories?

Stateless
By Elizabeth Wein
400 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9781774881538 | Penguin Teen Canada
Europe, 1937. Stella North, who has learned to fly planes as a teen, has the opportunity to participate in a race across Europe for a hefty sum of prize money. The race is billed by its eccentric organizer, Lady Frith, as the “Circuit of Nations Olympics of the Air” and is designed to promote peace and sport among Europe’s young pilots; entrants must be under the age of 21. Europe pre-WWII is an unsettled and dangerous place: civil war is raging in Spain, Hitler is in power in Germany, Italy has embraced Fascism, and in the Soviet Union, anyone who speaks out against the government is ruthlessly imprisoned and executed. The air race is going to be an unusual propaganda event for many of the participants. Stella needs to be careful as she navigates her way across Europe’s troubled skies, not least because of her own family background (her parents were murdered during the Russian Revolution, and her aunt and uncle fled to Britain with her when she was only three.) Nevertheless, she is shocked when she witnesses one of the race’s participants using his plane to ram another pilot out of the sky. Early evidence points to the sullen and enigmatic French pilot, Tony Roberts, but he also claims that his own plane has been sabotaged. As events unfold, further evidence points to Stella herself – to outside eyes, it appears that she may be attempting to get rid of a competitor and pushing the blame onto her fellow racers. It’s up to Stella to unravel the mystery before she becomes the assassin’s next victim.

The Everlasting Road
By Wab Kinew
272 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269033 | Tundra Books
Devastated by the loss of her beloved older brother to cancer, Bugz returns to the place where she can always find solace and strength: the Floraverse. Over the past year, she has gained back all that she had lost in that virtual world, and while the remaining ClanLess members still plot against her, she is easily able to overcome their attacks. Even better, she’s been secretly working on a bot that will be both an incredible weapon and a source of comfort: Waawaate. With the Waawaate bot looking exactly like the brother she misses so much – even acting so much like him – Bugz feels ready to show him off to Feng, who has become a constant companion in the Verse, and she cannot wait to team up with both friend and bot to secure her dominance once and for all. But Feng has his own issues to deal with, especially when news that his parents are alive and want to contact him threatens to send his new life on the Rez into upheaval. As they work through their complicated feelings of grief and loss, Feng and Bugz find themselves becoming ever closer. But disturbances in the Floraverse cannot be ignored, especially when Bugz realizes that her Waawaate bot is growing in powers beyond her control . . . 

Who Owns the Clouds?
By Mario Brassard
Illustrated by Gérard DuBois
100 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880210 | Tundra Books
Even though Mila is no longer a child, she is overcome by memories – memories of a childhood halfway between reality and dreaming, and not knowing which is which. In her dreams, Mila and her family leave their bombed village to stand in line for weeks on end, suitcases in hand, hoping to move on to better lives. But the memories of her uncle’s disappearance, and the approach of looming clouds, keep blurring the lines between past and present, real and unreal. How can Mila move forward? Perhaps if the clouds can remind her of where she’s from, they can also show her where to go . . . Winner of a Governor General’s Award, Canada’s most prestigious literary prize, and the Bologna Ragazzi Award, this stunningly evocative book about experience, trauma and healing will stay with readers from beginning to end.

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Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. These titles are now available in stores and online!

Catfish Rolling
By Clara Kumagai
432 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882764 | Penguin Teen Canada
There’s a catfish under Japan, and when it rolls, the land rises and falls. At least, that’s what Sora was told after she lost her mother to an earthquake so powerful that it cracked time itself. Sora and her father are some of the few who still live near the most powerful of these “zones” – the places where time has been irrevocably sped up, or slowed down. When high school ends, and her best friend leaves for university, Sora finds herself stuck and increasingly alone. She begins secretly conducting her own research, tracking down a time expert in Tokyo. She also feels increasingly conflicted in her quasi-romantic feelings for her best friend – and for the time expert’s assistant, a striking and confident girl named Maya, another hafu (half-Japanese, half-non) girl with whom Sora forms an instant bond. But when Sora’s father disappears, she has no choice but to return home and venture deep into the abandoned time zones to find him, and perhaps the catfish itself . . .

Scaredy Squirrel Gets Festive
By Melanie Watt
88 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269613 | Tundra Books
In his third NUTTY ADVENTURE, Scaredy is getting ready for Christmas ahead of time . . . WAY ahead of time (June). When December finally rolls around, Scaredy has everything in place: perfect red-and-green decorations, a perfect get-together planned (no parties!), perfectly personalized gifts for each of his friends, all the required permits for gingerbread-house construction (perfectly filled out) and, of course, a perfectly secured premises with a perfect spot for Santa. Yup, nothing can possibly go wrong . . . until friends Rash and Tim break the decorations! But Scaredy is filled with the spirit of the holiday and happy to help his friends finish their Christmas shopping. (Unless they’re shopping for Gary the germ?!) Prepare to get festive this Christmas with Scaredy and friends!

The Only Way to Make Bread
By Cristina Quintero
Illustrated by Sarah Gonzales
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271760 | Tundra Books
A delicious exploration of all kinds of breads, from sourdough to bannock to bao, that will tickle your taste buds and warm your heart.
What’s the only way to make bread?
You might use white flour in your bread, or whole wheat flour or corn flour.
You might use water or milk, maybe an egg or two.
You’ll use a handful of this, a dash of that, a bit of this and a splash of that.
Some dough will rise, some dough will bubble. Sometimes it will be sticky, sometimes it will be shaggy.  
What’s the only way to make bread?
Your way!
This tasty celebration of all kinds of bread will tempt bread lovers big and small. No matter what kind of bread YOU like to make, this book is for you!

We can’t wait to see you reading these titles! If you share these books online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.

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Cover Reveal: Catfish Rolling and Rebel Skies + Q&A

We are excited to reveal the covers for two enchanting and action-packed YA debuts coming soon from Tundra Book Group: Clara Kumagai’s Catfish Rolling and Ann Sei Lin’s Rebel Skies!

Keep scrolling for the covers and as an exclusive treat, the authors interviewed each other!

Cover Design: Deena Micah Fleming and Sophie Paas-Lang
Illustration: Andrew Davis

Catfish Rolling
By Clara Kumagai
352 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882764 | Penguin Teen Canada
Release Date: October 3, 2023
There’s a catfish under Japan, and when it rolls, the land rises and falls. At least, that’s what Sora was told after she lost her mother to an earthquake so powerful that it cracked time itself. Sora and her father are some of the few who still live near the most powerful of these “zones” – the places where time has been irrevocably sped up, or slowed down.
When high school ends, and her best friend leaves for university, Sora finds herself stuck and increasingly alone. She begins secretly conducting her own research, tracking down a time expert in Tokyo. She also feels increasingly conflicted in her quasi-romantic feelings for her best friend – and for the time expert’s assistant, a strikingly weird and confident girl named Marina, the first other hafu (half-Japanese, half-non) Sora has ever met.
But when Sora’s father disappears, she has no choice but to return home and venture deep into the abandoned time zones to find him, and perhaps the catfish itself . . .

About the Author:
Clara Kumagai is from Canada, Japan and Ireland. Her fiction and non-fiction for children and adults has been published in The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Banshee, Room, The Kyoto Journal and Cicada, among others. She is a recipient of a We Need Diverse Books Mentorship, and was a finalist for the 2020 Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award. Catfish Rolling is her debut novel.

Ann interviews Clara

Ann: What inspired you to write Catfish Rolling?

Clara: The first inspiration is the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and its aftermath – I was drawn into thinking about what life might look like after such a catastrophe, on the personal level of individual characters but also to a landscape. Because of the nuclear disaster at the TEPCO power plant, there are still exclusion areas in Tohoku where people can’t return to, and those deserted places were the inspiration not just for setting but for the time zones in the novel.

Ann: Where did you get the idea for fractured time and what inspired you to blend sci-fi with Japanese mythology?

Clara: The idea of time breakage came when I learned that the 2011 earthquake was so big that it shifted the earth on its axis – it actually began to spin faster – and as a result our day is a tiny bit shorter. (1.8 microseconds, to be precise.) It also caused Honshu, the main island of Japan, to move more than 6ft east. This seemed like science fiction to me when I learned it because it was pretty mind-boggling. So my idea of time breaking came from there, and on a bigger level it also fit in with being caught in the past or painful events. Trauma, grief and loss can catch and hold people in the past or in certain memories, and I wanted to explore how I could create a physical setting that conveyed that. The Japanese myth of the catfish is an old explanation for the cause of earthquakes, so as I researched I came upon the story and it just made sense to me. I’ve always loved myth and folklore, and they can simultaneously function as both entertaining stories and serious metaphors.

Ann: How did you first create Sora and is she your favorite character?

Clara: A lot of my writing is led by voice, and Sora’s voice just emerged as I began to write this story. I enjoy writing dialogue, and find it’s a good way to build a character, as well as exploring relationships and dynamics with other characters in a story. Once I have a feel for a character’s voice, I build up other elements like background, habits, actions . . . those details that make a character full and real. I don’t know if Sora is my favorite character (though I do love her!). My favorite may be Naomi because she is so smart and intimidating!

Illustration: Amir Zand

Rebel Skies
By Ann Sei Lin
352 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774883983 | Tundra Books
Release Date: February 13, 2024
Kurara has never known any other life than being a servant onboard the Midori, a flying ship serving the military elite of the Mikoshiman Empire, a vast realm of floating cities. Kurara also has a secret – she can make folded paper figures come to life with a flick of her finger. But when the Midori is attacked and Kurara’s secret turns out to be a power treasured across the empire, a gut-wrenching escape leads her to the gruff Himura, who takes her under his wing. Under Himura’s tutelage, and with the grudging support and friendship of his crew, Kurara learns to hunt shikigami – wild paper spirits sought after by the Princess of Mikoshima. But what does the princess really want with the shikigami? Are they merely enchanted figures without will or thought, or are they beings with souls and minds of their own? As fractures begin to appear both across the empire and within Kurara’s understanding of herself, Kurara will have to decide who she can trust. Her fate, and the fate of her friends – and even the world – may rest on her choice. And time is running out.

About the author:
Ann Sei Lin is an author and librarian with a love for all things fantasy. Although London is now her home, she spent several years living and working in China, Japan, and is originally from Singapore. She received an undergraduate degree in Japanese Literature and completed an M.A. in Creative Writing, for which she was awarded a Distinction. When not writing, she is studying, gaming or doing origami.

Clara interviews Ann

Clara: What inspired you to use origami as the basis of a magic system?

Ann: I love origami (although I’m not great at it myself!) and so I wanted to make a world that revolved around paper craft. I think it’s quite interesting to turn something usually seen as fragile and weak into an instrument of power.

Clara: Were you influenced/inspired by other media such as movies, books, art, etc.?

Ann: I was really inspired by Ghibli movies, particularly Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke. I think there might be a touch of Howl’s Moving Castle in the design of some cities too!

Clara: The sky cities and origami are so visually striking – do you make maps or draw while you’re world building?

Ann: I did! Actually, the maps and insets in the books are based on my own sketches, which were then passed onto my illustrator to make them look a lot better. I like to draw and initially I did sketches of the characters and places, as well as commissioned some artwork as well. I think my favorite is a commissioned piece of the Orihime!

Clara: Names are significant (especially in Rebel Fire) and I was wondering how you chose Kurara as the main character’s name? (Asking this because my first name in Japanese is basically the same, though written in katakana only: クララ!)

Ann: I can’t remember who said ‘your name is your parent’s hopes for you,’ but I thought it was a beautiful sentiment. During the Meiji era, we were just starting to see girl’s names written with kanji, so in my mind Kurara’s name would be 苦楽楽 which includes the character for suffering and the character for comfort. It’s a bit of a weird reading, I know, but even though Kurara was going to suffer through this series, I wanted her to come out of things alright in the end. I suppose her name represented my wishes for her!

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Our Senior Managing Editor: Meet Kate!

Hi, I’m Kate (she/her) and the Senior Managing Editor at Tundra.

I love all things cozy and homey – housewares, big blankets, pillows, soft lighting, my cats (Cinder and Yuki), and watching Little Women every Christmas (the one with Winona Ryder). To me, there is nothing better than a good book with a cup of tea and a cat cuddle. I’m a Torontonian since birth and grateful for all the food options in all the pockets of the city. My favorite neighborhood is Kensington Market though I have never lived there.

I’ve worked in publishing for over ten years, and I’ve been with Tundra since 2019. I love to organize, streamline, and problem solve. Some people describe a managing editor as the traffic control center of the book’s production process. I love to see all the pieces come together to make a book.

5 Random Facts About Me

  1. I have participated in multiple guac offs and won.
  2. I speak French and was a tour guide in Quebec City.
  3. I have red hair and have dressed up as Anne Shirley for Halloween too many times to count.
  4. I love to bike indoors to 90s music, and I love to bike outdoors with open ears and a helmet.
  5. I was once on CBC’s Video Hits with my sister introducing Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love.” I held the host’s hand and said nothing. I was four. My dad has the clip on VHS.

Favorite Penguin Random House Titles

Mad about Meatloaf (Weenie featuring Frank and Beans)
By Maureen Fergus
Illustrated by Alexandra Bye
56 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735267930 | Tundra Books
Weenie loves his human, Bob. He loves his guinea pig friend Beans and his cat friend Frank. He loves naps, adventures and sharing. In fact, Weenie loves pretty much everything (except the mail carrier). But the thing Weenie loves and desires more than anything else in the world is meatloaf. And he’ll do anything to get it. Join Weenie, Frank and Beans on a laugh-out-loud meatloaf adventure, complete with a trench coat disguise, a wild meatloaf trap and even a hungry wolf.

On the Trapline
By David A. Robertson
Illustrated by Julie Flett
48 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266681 | Tundra Books
A boy and Moshom, his grandpa, take a trip together to visit a place of great meaning to Moshom. A trapline is where people hunt and live off the land, and it was where Moshom grew up. As they embark on their northern journey, the child repeatedly asks his grandfather, “Is this your trapline?” Along the way, the boy finds himself imagining what life was like two generations ago – a life that appears to be both different from and similar to his life now. This is a heartfelt story about memory, imagination, and intergenerational connection that perfectly captures the experience of a young child’s wonder as he is introduced to places and stories that hold meaning for his family.

The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt
By Riel Nason
Illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler
48 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735264472 | Tundra Books
Ghosts are supposed to be sheets, light as air and able to whirl and twirl and float and soar. But the little ghost who is a quilt can’t whirl or twirl at all, and when he flies, he gets very hot. He doesn’t know why he’s a quilt. His parents are both sheets, and so are all of his friends. (His great-grandmother was a lace curtain, but that doesn’t really help cheer him up.) He feels sad and left out when his friends are zooming around and he can’t keep up. But one Halloween, everything changes. The little ghost who was a quilt has an experience that no other ghost could have, an experience that only happens because he’s a quilt . . . and he realizes that it’s OK to be different.

Daughters of the Deer
By Danielle Daniel
344 Pages | Paperback
ISBN 9780735282087 | Random House Canada
1657. Marie, a gifted healer of the Deer Clan, does not want to marry the green-eyed soldier from France who has asked for her hand. But her people are threatened by disease and starvation and need help against the Iroquois and their English allies if they are to survive. When her chief begs her to accept the white man’s proposal, she cannot refuse him, and sheds her deerskin tunic for a borrowed blue wedding dress to become Pierre’s bride. 1675. Jeanne, Marie’s oldest child, is seventeen, neither white nor Algonquin, caught between worlds. Caught by her own desires, too. Her heart belongs to a girl named Josephine, but soon her father will have to find her a husband or be forced to pay a hefty fine to the French crown. Among her mother’s people, Jeanne would have been considered blessed, her two-spirited nature a sign of special wisdom. To the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful—a woman to be shunned, beaten, and much worse. With the poignant, unforgettable story of Marie and Jeanne, Danielle Daniel reaches back through the centuries to touch the very origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent disruption of First Nations cultures.

Greenwood
By Michael Christie
512 Pages | Paperback
ISBN 9780771024481 | McClelland & Stewart
They come for the trees. It’s 2038 and Jacinda (Jake) Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich-eco-tourists in one of the world’s last remaining forests. It’s 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, sprawled on his back after a workplace fall and facing the possibility of his own death. It’s 1974 and Willow Greenwood is just out of jail for one of her environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father’s once vast and rapacious timber empire. It’s 1934 and Everett Greenwood is a Depression-era drifter who saves an abandoned infant, only to find himself tangled up in the web of a crime, secrets, and betrayal that will cling to his family for decades. And throughout, there are trees: a steady, silent pulse thrumming beneath Christie’s effortless sentences, working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival.

The Boat People
By Sharon Bala
416 Pages | Paperback
ISBN 9780771024313 | McClelland & Stewart
When the rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and five hundred fellow refugees reaches the shores of British Columbia, the young father is overcome with relief: he and his six-year-old son can finally put Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war behind them and begin new lives. Instead, the group is thrown into prison, with government officials and news headlines speculating that hidden among the “boat people” are members of a terrorist militia. As suspicion and interrogation mount, Mahindan fears the desperate actions he took to survive and escape Sri Lanka now jeopardize his and his son’s chances for asylum. Told through the alternating perspectives of Mahindan; his lawyer Priya, who reluctantly represents the migrants; and Grace, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian adjudicator who must decide Mahindan’s fate, The Boat People is a high-stakes novel that offers a deeply compassionate lens through which to view the current refugee crisis. Inspired by real events, Sharon Bala’s stunning novel is an unforgettable and necessary story for our times.

Favorite Non Penguin Random House Titles

Anticipated Penguin Random House Titles

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#Penguin10 and #MiddleGrade5 2023

On June 1, 2023, we hosted our annual #PenguinTeenSocial where we talked about staff picks for summer, revealed our #Penguin10 of 2023 – the top ten books you need to read this fall, and introduced the #MiddleGrade5 – similar to the #Penguin10, but with middle-grade novels. Here are all 15 titles . . . sorry in advance for how long your TBR is about to get!

#MiddleGrade5

Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen
By Geri Halliwell-Horner
464 Pages | Ages 10+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593623343 | Philomel Books
Release Date: October 3, 2023
It’s time to find your power. Suddenly orphaned and alone, Rosie Frost is sent to the mysterious Bloodstone Island – home not only to a school for extraordinary teens, but also a sanctuary for endangered species. There, Rosie confronts a menacing deputy headmaster, a group of mean girls intent on destroying her, and shocking family secrets. She also discovers that history can come to life in ways she never could have imagined. When the island itself comes under threat, Rosie knows she must enter and win the Falcon Queen Games in a desperate bid to save it. But Rosie can’t do it alone. She finds that believing in herself – and her friends – is the first step to finding the power she never knew she had.

The Portal Keeper: The Misewa Saga #4
By David A. Robertson
256 Pages | Ages 10+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880258 | Tundra Books
Release Date: October 10, 2023
Eli and Morgan experience life-changing revelations in this new adventure in the award-winning, Narnia-inspired Indigenous middle-grade fantasy series.
While exploring World’s End, an area in Aski they’ve just discovered, Morgan and Emily delight in their developing relationship, while Eli struggles to understand his new-found power: the ability to locate a portal. A shocking turn of events leads them to a new village, Ministik, where the animal beings who live there are going missing. Horrified to discover who is responsible, the children vow to help and turn to friends, old and new. But it’s getting harder and harder to keep the two worlds separate, especially when details of a traditional legend change everything. Forever.

Project F
By Jeanne DuPrau
224 Pages | Ages 8–12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593643808 | Random House Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 10, 2023
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE. There are no cars, planes, television, or smart phones. Climate change wreaked havoc on Earth hundreds of years ago, and now people live a simpler life.
Then thirteen-year-old Keith uncovers a secret. It’s a mysterious mission known only as Project F. It’s advanced, it’s scientific, and it’s going to change the world. It’s exactly the kind of adventure Keith has always longed to be a part of. And what is adventure without a little danger, right? But how much danger is Keith willing to risk? For himself? For his family? For his community? For the entire world…? Jeanne DuPrau’s The City of Ember was an instant hit when it arrived on bookshelves. It has become a modern classic beloved by readers selling hundreds of thousands of copies a year! In her latest novel, she explores timely questions about the Earth and our use of its resources. A bold novel, Project F asks how much you are willing to risk to save the future.

Like a Charm
By Elle McNicoll
320 Pages | Ages 8 – 12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593649138 | Random House Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 10, 2023
After the death of her grandfather, neurodivergent tween Ramya uncovers a world of mystery and magic—and she’s the only one who can see it! From the award-winning author of A Kind of Spark. “Ramya, you have something this city needs. And it’s something that’s going to change everything.” Ramya Knox always knew she was different. Her dyspraxia makes her clumsy and prone to attracting the disapproval of her teachers. Ramya didn’t know she can see magic! But when a dog statue comes to life, Ramya follows the pup and discovers a world she thought existed only in fairy tales. Trolls, witches, kelpies, vampires, and more lurk in the shadows of Edinburgh, hiding from the most dangerous creature of all: sirens. These beautiful monsters use their persuasive voice to convince those around them to do their bidding—for better or worse. As the sirens rise in power, it’s up to Ramya to save the day—or the Hidden and mortal worlds might both be at risk.

Billy and the Giant Adventure
By Jamie Oliver
Illustrated by Mónica Armiño
336 Pages | Ages 8 – 12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774884140 | Tundra Books
Release Date: November 14, 2023
One pinch of adventure, a dash of friendship, a sprinkle of mystery and a HUGE spoonful of magic . . . Jamie Oliver, bestselling author and internationally renowned chef, delivers the perfect recipe for a page-turning children’s fiction debut! Billy and his friends know that Waterfall Woods is out of bounds; strange things are rumored to have happened there and no one in their village has ventured past its walls for decades . . . But when they discover a secret way in, Billy and his best friends, Anna, Jimmy and Andy, can’t resist the temptation to explore! Only to quickly discover that the woods are brimming with magic and inhabited by all sorts of unusual creatures, including a whole community of sprites who need the children’s help! With magical battles, a long-lost mythical city, fantastical flying machines, epic feasts and one GIANT rescue — not to mention some mouth-watering recipes at the back — get ready for an adventure you’ll never forget!

#Penguin10

House of Marionne
By J. Elle
432 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593527702 | Razorbill
Release Date: August 29, 2023
BURY YOUR SECRET OR DIE FOR IT. 17 year-old Quell has lived her entire life on the run. She and her mother have fled from city to city, in order to hide the deadly magic that flows through Quell’s veins. Until someone discovers her dark secret. To hide from the assassin hunting her, and keep her mother out of harm’s way, Quell reluctantly inducts into a debutante society of magical social elites called the Order that she never knew existed. If she can pass their three rites of membership, mastering their proper form of magic, she’ll be able to secretly bury her forbidden magic forever. If caught, she will be killed. But becoming the perfect debutante is a lot harder than Quell imagined, especially when there’s more than tutoring happening with Jordan, her brooding mentor and— assassin in training. When Quell uncovers the deadly lengths the Order will go to defend its wealth and power, she’s forced to choose: embrace the dark magic she’s been running from her entire life or risk losing everything, and everyone, she’s grown to love. Still, she fears the most formidable monster she’ll have to face is the one inside.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth
By Andrew Joseph White
400 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593527702 | Peachtree Teen
Release Date: September 5, 2023
Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all. London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing. After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. When the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its guts to the world—if the school doesn’t break him first. Featuring an autistic trans protagonist in a historical setting, Andrew Joseph White’s much-anticipated sophomore novel does not back down from exposing the violence of the patriarchy and the harm inflicted on trans youth who are forced into conformity.

House of Ash and Bone
By Joel A. Sutherland
336 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880968 | Tundra Books
Release Date: September 5, 2023
Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger is a talented writer with special abilities she doesn’t fully understand. Over the years she has developed methods to cope with the voices she hears in her head, but the old house her family has inherited in Vermont makes Josephine question what’s real and what’s not more than anything she’s ever encountered before. It’s filled with shadows, and whispers, and the unshakable feeling of being watched. Josephine then catches her first glimpse of a shadowy woman with long hair, pale skin, an impossibly wide smile and hollow pits for eyes. Her name is Dorcas, the ghost of a witch who died three hundred years ago. She has summoned the family to Vermont to ensnare them — then consume them — in order to rise from the grave and live again . . .

Goddess Crown
By Shade Lapite
288 Pages | Ages 13–17 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781536226522 | Walker Books US
Release Date: September 12, 2023
Kalothia has grown up in the shadows of her kingdom, hidden away in the forested East after her parents were outed as enemies of the king. Raised in a woodland idyll by a few kindly adult caretakers, Kalothia can hunt and fish and fend for herself but knows little of the outside world. When assassins attack her home on her sixteenth birthday, she must flee to the king’s court in the West—a beautiful but lethal nest of poison, plots, and danger, overseen by an entrenched patriarchy. Guided by the Goddess herself, can Kalothia navigate this most worldly of places to find her own role? What if she must choose between her country and her heart? Excitement, romance, and a charismatic heroine shine in this first book set in the unforgettable kingdom of Galla.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods
By Rick Riordan
288 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781368098175 | Disney Hyperion
Release Date: September 26, 2023
After saving the world multiple times, Percy Jackson is hoping to have a normal senior year. Unfortunately, the gods aren’t quite done with him. Percy will have to fulfill three quests in order to get the necessary three letters of recommendation from Mount Olympus for college. The first quest is to help Zeus’s cup-bearer retrieve his goblet before it falls into the wrong hands. Can Percy, Grover, and Annabeth find it in time? Readers new to Percy Jackson and fans who have been awaiting this reunion for more than a decade will delight equally in this latest hilarious take on Greek mythology.

Catfish Rolling
By Clara Kumagai
432 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882764 | Penguin Teen Canada
Release Date: October 3, 2023
There’s a catfish under Japan, and when it rolls, the land rises and falls. At least, that’s what Sora was told after she lost her mother to an earthquake so powerful that it cracked time itself. Sora and her father are some of the few who still live near the most powerful of these “zones” – the places where time has been irrevocably sped up, or slowed down. When high school ends, and her best friend leaves for university, Sora finds herself stuck and increasingly alone. She begins secretly conducting her own research, tracking down a time expert in Tokyo. She also feels increasingly conflicted in her quasi-romantic feelings for her best friend – and for the time expert’s assistant, a striking and confident girl named Maya, another hafu (half-Japanese, half-non) girl with whom Sora forms an instant bond. But when Sora’s father disappears, she has no choice but to return home and venture deep into the abandoned time zones to find him, and perhaps the catfish itself . . .

The Spells We Cast
By Jason June
352 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781368089234 | Melissa de la Cruz Studio
Release Date: October 3, 2023
Nigel Barrett has spent his whole life preparing for the Culling, a spell-casting competition that determines which of the world’s teenage magicians will be stripped of their powers to preserve magical balance. But nothing could have prepared him to face Ori Olson, a broody rival whose caustic wit cloaks a painful past. From the moment Nigel and Ori meet, sparks fly. Their powers are stronger, more thrilling, the closer they get—not that they can risk becoming attached. Because as the field narrows and the Culling grows more dangerous, Nigel and Ori realize there’s more at stake than just their powers. The greatest threat to magic, their future, and all of humanity might be the connection growing between them. . . .

Sinner’s Isle
By Angela Montoya
384 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593643334 | Joy Revolution
Release Date: October 31, 2023
Rosalinda is trapped on Sinner’s Isle, an island filled with young women like her—Majestics, beautiful witches loathed by society for their dangerous magic yet revered by powerful men who want to use them. For years, she has been kept under the watchful, calculating eye of Doña Lucia. Now eighteen, Rosa will be the prized commodity at this year’s Offering, a fiesta for the wealthy to engage in drink, damsels, and debauchery. That is why she must flee—before someone forces the vicious phantoms within her to destroy everything she touches. Handsome, swashbuckling Mariano has long sailed the high seas as the Prince of Pirates. Then the king’s fleet attacks his father’s infamous ship, leaving him marooned on Sinner’s Isle with only an enchanted chain meant to lead him to his heart’s desire. Instead, he falls into the hands of a brazen (although) bewitching headache—Rosa.

Check & Mate
By Ali Hazelwood
368 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593619919 | G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Release Date: November 7, 2023
Mallory Greenleaf is done with chess. Every move counts nowadays; after the sport led to the destruction of her family four years earlier, Mallory’s focus is on her mom, her sisters, and the dead-end job that keeps the lights on. That is, until she begrudgingly agrees to play in one last charity tournament and inadvertently wipes the board with notorious “Kingkiller” Nolan Sawyer: current world champion and reigning Bad Boy of chess. Nolan’s loss to an unknown rook-ie shocks everyone. What’s even more confusing? His desire to cross pawns again. What kind of gambit is Nolan playing? The smart move would be to walk away. Resign. Game over. But Mallory’s victory opens the door to sorely needed cash-prizes and despite everything, she can’t help feeling drawn to the enigmatic strategist…. As she rockets up the ranks, Mallory struggles to keep her family safely separated from the game that wrecked it in the first place. And as her love for the sport she so desperately wanted to hate begins to rekindle, Mallory quickly realizes that the games aren’t only on the board, the spotlight is brighter than she imagined, and the competition can be fierce (-ly attractive. And intelligent…and infuriating…)

Murtagh
By Christopher Paolini
656 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882962 | Penguin Teen Canada
Release Date: November 7, 2023
The world is no longer safe for the Dragon Rider Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn. An evil king has been toppled, and they are left to face the consequences of the reluctant role they played in his reign of terror. Now they are hated and alone, exiled to the outskirts of society. Throughout the land, hushed voices whisper of brittle ground and a faint scent of brimstone in the air—and Murtagh senses that something wicked lurks in the shadows of Alagaësia. So begins an epic journey into lands both familiar and untraveled, where Murtagh and Thorn must use every weapon in their arsenal, from brains to brawn, to find and outwit a mysterious witch. A witch who is much more than she seems. In this gripping novel starring one of the most popular characters from Christopher Paolini’s blockbuster Inheritance Cycle, a Dragon Rider must discover what he stands for in a world that has abandoned him. Murtagh is the perfect book to enter the World of Eragon for the first time . . . or to joyfully return.