by her mother, Beth. The girls usually
spend their summers hiding in the cool,
dark corners of the club eating snacks,
but this year is different. Evie begins to
secretly train to play tennis, and 16-year-
old Annabel Harper, the golden girl of
the club, is found murdered at the pool.
Determined to discover who could do
this to a young woman both girls
admired, Evie and Chelsea decide to help
the police solve the crime. Told from
Chelsea’s perspective in chapters that
alternate before and after Annabel’s
murder, debut novelist Hammel cleverly
disguises Chelsea’s true identity, leaving
that mystery for readers to solve just as
the girls pinpoint Annabel’s killer. Ages
10–14. Agent: Steven Chudney, Chudney
Agency. (May)
Lily and Dunkin
Donna Gephart. Delacorte, $16.99 (352p)
ISBN 978-0-553-53674-4
With humor and great sensitivity,
Gephart (Death by Toilet Paper) juxtaposes
the efforts of two eighth-graders—one
struggling with gender dysphoria, one
with mental illness—to establish new
identities for themselves. Determined,
gentle, and self-aware Tim was “born
with boy parts” but identifies as a girl,
preferring the name Lily; already “out” to
her family and best friend Dare, Lily is
both excited and terrified about reactions
to a more public transformation.
Meanwhile, mercurial newcomer Norbert
hates his name—but loves the nickname
Lily gives him, Dunkin, which alludes to
his favorite haunt—and keeps deep
secrets, even from himself. Their friendship develops slowly as Dunkin, desperate for acceptance, gets swept up by an
intolerant basketball-playing crowd.
Gephart sympathetically contrasts the
physical awkwardness, uncertainty, and
longings of these two outsiders during a
few tightly-plotted months, building to a
crescendo of revelation. Strong, supportive women accept these teens as they
are, while their fathers struggle mightily.
Despite an overly tidy resolution to
Dunkin’s story and Lily being a bit too
perfect, it’s a valuable portrait of two
teenagers whose journeys are just beginning. Ages 10–up. Agent: Tina Wexler,
ICM. (May)
★ Everland
Wendy Spinale. Scholastic Press, $17.99
(320p) ISBN 978-0-545-83694-4
Zeppelins dot the sky and Marauders
roam the bombed-out streets of Everland,
formerly London, in this darkly imaginative take on Peter Pan. Fifteen-year-old
Gwen Darling and her siblings Joanna
and Mikey are struggling to survive since
their parents failed to come home after the
war started. A virus set free when Capt.
Hanz Otto Oswald Kretschmer (aka
Hook) conquered London has moved
beyond its borders. Hook aims to find a
cure using children who are immune, but
Pete, his Lost Boys, and Lost Girl Bella
have no plans to get themselves captured.
When Joanna goes missing, Pete offers to
help find her. What follows is a fast-paced
adventure set in and under a ruined city
where steam-powered weaponry collides
with the ingenuity of the Lost Children.
In an exemplary debut, Spinale uses Gwen
and Hook’s voices to offer glimpses into
the psyche of a man desperate to please his
cruel mother and a girl intent on saving
the only family she has left. This is a magical, wondrous treat, with a conclusion
that’s nothing less than epic. Ages 12–up.
Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary
Agency (May)
The Language of Stars
Louise Hawes. S&S/McElderry, $17.99
(368p) ISBN 978-1-4814-6241-9
Hawes (Black Pearls: A Faerie Strand)
transforms carelessness into redemption
in a summer story that begins after a
group of teens break into and throw a
raging party at a beloved local poet’s cottage, trashing it and nearly burning it to
the ground. (A note explains that the
story is partly inspired by a similar 2008
incident involving Robert Frost’s summer
home.) Sarah, Hawes’s wide-eyed narrator,
has an innate poetic bent and only reluctantly took part in the break-in because of
her popular boyfriend, Fry. Though
Sarah’s relationship with Fry is central to
the plot, the real romance is one of words.
The teens are sentenced to restore the cot-
tage and take a poetry course—taught by
the house’s elderly owner, Rufus Baylor,
who becomes a mentor to Sarah. Full of
poetry and ideas, Sarah’s narration has an
exuberant innocence, bringing a fresh and
joyful quality to a story about a girl
learning to love the possibilities that
come with independence: the chance to
discover one’s true self and desires, while
forging a path forward that might fulfill
them. Ages 12–up. Agent: Ginger
Knowlton, Curtis Brown. (May)
The Only Thing Worse Than Me
Is You
Lily Anderson. St. Martin’s Griffin, $18.99
(352p) ISBN 978-1-250-07909-1
There’s a lot to enjoy in debut novelist
Anderson’s geek-positive update of Much
Ado About Nothing, including intense
comic book fandom, a cheating scandal,
student council drama, themed dances,
and two central characters engaged in an
epic love-hate relationship. Anderson sets
17-year-old narrator Trixie Watson among
a group of smart and quirky friends at the
Messina School for the Gifted, a “school for
geniuses” affectionately called the Mess.
For years, Trixie has raged against Ben
West, the boy she considers her arch-nem-esis—he’s nearly her equal in class rank,
has the same IQ, and even loves the same
comics, SF films, and more. Trixie’s face-offs with Ben showcase Anderson’s humor
and geek culture bona fides (“This was the
Doctor versus the Daleks. This was Ripley
versus the Xenomorphs. This was a real,
true, full-scale war”), and as the two shift
from sparring to feeling sparks, Trixie’s
shield of sarcasm gives way to heartfelt
interest and affection. Readers familiar
with the Shakespeare will enjoy
Anderson’s riffs on the original’s plot
points as Trixie and Ben get their nerd-ily-ever-after ending. Ages 12–up. Agent:
Laura Zatz, Red Sofa Literary. (May)
Outrun the Moon
Stacey Lee. Putnam, $17.99 (400p) ISBN 978-
0-399-17541-1
Lee (Under a Painted Sky) creates another
strong Chinese-American protagonist,
15-year-old Mercy Wong, in a novel set in
1906 San Francisco, where extreme discrimination against the city’s Chinese population flourishes. Mercy’s father runs a
laundry, her mother is a fortune-teller, and
six-year-old brother Jack is her treasure,
but Mercy dreams of becoming a successful businesswoman. Characterized by
her “bossy cheeks,” she bribes her way into
an elite girls’ boarding school, where she
poses as a wealthy heiress. Just as she is
