Enjoy recent author events, interviews, and bookseller series. Visit our website to learn more: www.skylightbooks.com
Episodes
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Amy Spalding, "WE USED TO BE FRIENDS"
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Monday Jan 20, 2020
At the start of their senior year in high school, James (a girl with a boy’s name) and Kat are inseparable, but by graduation, they’re no longer friends. James prepares to head off to college as she reflects on the dissolution of her friendship with Kat while, in alternating chapters, Kat thinks about being newly in love with her first girlfriend and having a future that feels wide open. Over the course of senior year, Kat wants nothing more than James to continue to be her steady rock, as James worries that everything she believes about love and her future is a lie when her high-school sweetheart parents announce they’re getting a divorce.
Amy Spalding delicately explores the breakup of childhood best friends. Told in dual timelines—half of the chapters moving forward in time and half moving backward—We Used to Be Friends is funny, honest and full of heart.
Monday Nov 25, 2019
Addie Tsai, "DEAR TWIN" w/ C.B. Lee
Monday Nov 25, 2019
Monday Nov 25, 2019
Poppy wants to go to college like everyone else, but her father has other ideas. Ever since her mirror twin sister, Lola, mysteriously vanished, Poppy’s father has been depressed and forces her to stick around. She hopes she can convince Lola to come home, and perhaps also procure her freedom, by sending her twin a series of eighteen letters, one for each year of their lives.
When not excavating childhood memories, Poppy is sneaking away with her girlfriend Juniper, the only person who understands her. But negotiating the complexities of queer love and childhood trauma are anything but simple. And as a twin? That’s a whole different story.
Dear Twin author Addie Tsai is in conversation with C.B. Lee, a Lambda Literary Award nominated writer of young adult science fiction and fantasy.
Friday Oct 18, 2019
R. Zamora Linmark, "THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING WILDE AT HEART"
Friday Oct 18, 2019
Friday Oct 18, 2019
From accomplished poet and author R. Zamora Linmark comes his debut YA novel, The Importance of Being Wilde At Heart (Delacorte Press / On sale August 13, 2019 / $17.99; Ages 12+), about a seventeen-year-old boy's journey through first love and first heartbreak, guided by his personal hero,
Oscar Wilde.
Words have always been more than enough for Ken Z, but when he meets Ran at the mall food court, everything changes. Beautiful, mysterious Ran opens the door to a number of firsts for Ken: first kiss, first love. But as quickly as he enters Ken's life, Ran disappears, and Ken Z is left wondering: Why love at all, if this is where it leads?
Letting it end there would be tragic. So with the help of his best friends, the comfort of his haikus and lists, and even strange, surreal appearances by his hero, Oscar Wilde, Ken will find that love is worth more than the price of heartbreak.
Wednesday Oct 09, 2019
Jacqueline Woodson, "RED AT THE BONE" w/ Kara Brown
Wednesday Oct 09, 2019
Wednesday Oct 09, 2019
As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the soundtrack of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony-- a celebration that ultimately never took place.
Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Jacqueline Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives--even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.
Woodson is in conversation with Kara Brown, writer, speaker and co-host of Crooked Media's pop culture podcast, Keep It!.
Monday Sep 16, 2019
Emma Steinkellner, "THE OKAY WITCH" w/ Barbra Dillon
Monday Sep 16, 2019
Monday Sep 16, 2019
Thirteen-year-old Moth Hush loves all things witchy. But she’s about to discover that witches aren’t just the stuff of movies, books, and spooky stories. When some eighth-grade bullies try to ruin her Halloween, something really strange happens. It turns out that Founder’s Bluff, Massachusetts, has a centuries-old history of witch drama. And, surprise: Moth’s family is at the center of it all! When Moth’s new powers show up, things get totally out-of-control. She meets a talking cat, falls into an enchanted diary, and unlocks a hidden witch world. With that revelation, Moth’s adventure truly begins – an adventure that spans centuries, generations, and even worlds – as she unravels the legacy at the heart of her life.
The Okay Witch author Emma Steinkellner is in conversation with Barbra Dillon, the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Fanbase Press, an award-winning publishing company that seeks to produce new and distinctive works that give voice to the themes, ideals, and people that make “geekdom” so exceptional.
Tuesday Aug 13, 2019
INTERSECTIONALLIES
Tuesday Aug 13, 2019
Tuesday Aug 13, 2019
In poetic stanzas, IntersectionAllies introduces the stories of nine kids from diverse backgrounds. Authors Carolyn Choi, LaToya Council, and Chelsea Johnson use each character’s story to explain how children’s safety concerns are shaped by their intersecting identities, such as class, sexuality, dis/ability, race, religion, and citizenship—what is known in academic and activist circles as “intersectionality."
IntersectionAllies features introductions by law professor Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality, and Dr. Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, author of Intersectionality: An Intellectual History, and artwork by illustrator Ashley Seil Smith. The stories in IntersectionAllies also suggest ways in which friends can support one another, or be an “ally,” despite different positions in life. The authors believe that forward-looking feminism must start with children, and IntersectionAllies shows that children’s literaturecan be the gateway to educating entire households.
Thursday May 30, 2019
Julie Buxbaum, "HOPE AND OTHER PUNCHLINES" w/ Kayla Cagan
Thursday May 30, 2019
Thursday May 30, 2019
Abbi Hope Goldstein is like every other teenager, with a few smallish exceptions: her famous alter ego, Baby Hope, is the subject of internet memes, she has asthma, and sometimes people spontaneously burst into tears when they recognize her. Abbi has lived almost her entire life in the shadow of the terrorist attacks of September 11. On that fateful day, she was captured in what became an iconic photograph: in the picture, Abbi (aka "Baby Hope") wears a birthday crown and grasps a red balloon; just behind her, the South Tower of the World Trade Center is collapsing.
Now, fifteen years later, Abbi is desperate for anonymity and decides to spend the summer before her seventeenth birthday incognito as a counselor at Knights Day Camp two towns away. She's psyched for eight weeks in the company of four-year-olds, none of whom have ever heard of Baby Hope.
Too bad Noah Stern, whose own world was irrevocably shattered on that terrible day, has a similar summer plan. Noah believes his meeting Baby Hope is fate. Abbi is sure it's a disaster. Soon, though, the two team up to ask difficult questions about the history behind the Baby Hope photo. But is either of them ready to hear the answers?
Hope and Other Punchlines author Julie Buxbaum is in conversation with novelist and playright Kayla Cagan.
Monday Apr 01, 2019
Samira Ahmed, "INTERNMENT" w/ Brandy Colbert
Monday Apr 01, 2019
Monday Apr 01, 2019
Set in a horrifying “fifteen minutes in the future” United States, spitfire main character Layla Amin is forced into an internment camp for Muslim citizens with her family. With the help of newly-made friends also trapped within the internment camp, and her boyfriend on the outside, Layla manages to start a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against Islamophobia and complicit silence against the internment camp's Director and his guards. Samira Ahmed can recall incidents of Islamophobia in her own life as early as age eight. But rather than be deterred, she let it fuel her writing and she is a vocal proponent for changes that need to be made in our society to fight against bigotry. With recent marches and protests led by teen activists, Internment also has the potential to resonate strongly with teen leaders who fight to make the change they want to see in their own communities.
Ahmed is in conversation with Pointe author Brandy Colbert.
Thursday Feb 21, 2019
Michelle Tea,
Thursday Feb 21, 2019
Thursday Feb 21, 2019
When Sophie Swankowski surfaces from the freezing waters in Michelle Tea's Castle on the River Vistula, she finds herself in an ancient castle in Poland—and in the center of an ages-old battle. Even with her magic powers, the strength and wisdom she learns from her companions in Warsaw, and the help of her gruff mermaid guardian, Syrena, how can one thirteen-year-old from scrappy Chelsea Massachusetts, really save the world?
Luckily, Sophie won’t be alone. As she connects to other girls around the globe who have been training, just like her, for this very fight, she begins to think she just may become the hero she’s meant to be. But when she has to face the pure source of evil alone, using all the strength she has to keep it from destroying everything, how easy it would be to simply give up and join the other side...
Tea is in discussion with actor, writer, and comic Brendan Scannell.
Friday Aug 31, 2018
Derek Milman, "SCREAM ALL NIGHT" w/ Naomi Grossman
Friday Aug 31, 2018
Friday Aug 31, 2018
Dario Heyward knows one thing: He’s never going back to Moldavia Studios, the iconic castle that served as the set, studio, and home to the cast and crew of dozens of cult classic B-horror movies. It’s been three years since Dario’s even seen the place, after getting legally emancipated from his father, the infamous director of Moldavia’s creature features.
But then Dario’s brother invites him home to a mysterious ceremony involving his father and a tribute to his first film—The Curse of the Mummy’s Tongue. Dario swears his homecoming will be a one-time visit. A way for him to get closure on his past—and reunite with Hayley, his first love and costar of Zombie Children of the Harvest Sun, a production fraught with real-life tragedy—and say good-bye for good. But the unthinkable happens—Dario gets sucked back into the twisted world of Moldavia and the horrors, both real and imagined, he’s left there.
With only months to rescue the sinking studio and everyone who has built their lives there, Dario must confront the demons of his past—and the uncertainties of his future. But can he escape the place that’s haunted him his whole life?
Derek Milman's Scream All Night is a darkly hilarious romp about growing up and finding your place in the world.
Milman is joined in conversation by Naomi Grossman, star of American Horror Story.
Friday Aug 03, 2018
Marisha Pessl, "NEVERWORLD WAKE"
Friday Aug 03, 2018
Friday Aug 03, 2018
Once upon a time, back at Darrow-Harker School, Beatrice Hartley and her five best friends were the cool kids, the beautiful ones. Then the shocking death of Jim--their creative genius and Beatrice's boyfriend--changed everything.
One year after graduation, Beatrice is returning to Wincroft--the seaside estate where they spent so many nights sharing secrets, crushes, plans to change the world--hoping she'll get to the bottom of the dark questions gnawing at her about Jim's death. But as the night plays out in a haze of stilted jokes and unfathomable silence, Beatrice senses she's never going to know what really happened.
Then a mysterious man knocks on the door. Blithely, he announces the impossible: time for them has become stuck, snagged on a splinter that can only be removed if the former friends make the harshest of decisions. Now Beatrice has one last shot at answers...and at life.
And so begins Marisha Pessl's Neverworld Wake.
Friday Jul 27, 2018
MariNaomi, "LOSING THE GIRL"
Friday Jul 27, 2018
Friday Jul 27, 2018
In Losing the Girl, the first book in the Life on Earth trilogy, Eisner-nominated cartoonist MariNaomi looks at life through the eyes of four suburban teenagers: early romance, fraying friendships, and the traces of a mysterious—maybe otherworldly—disappearance. Different chapters focus on different characters, each with a unique visual approach.
Sunday Jul 15, 2018
Amy Spalding, "THE SUMMER OF JORDI PEREZ"
Sunday Jul 15, 2018
Sunday Jul 15, 2018
A hilarious, nuanced LGBTQ+ young adult novel about a teen trying to make waves in the fashion industry by running a plus-size fashion blog and rocking her dream internship—until she falls for her competition, Jordi.
Seventeen, fashion-obsessed, and gay, Abby Ives has always been content playing the sidekick in other people’s lives. While her friends and sister have plunged headfirst into the world of dating and romances, Abby’s been happy to focus on her plus-size style blog and her dreams of taking the fashion industry by storm. When she lands a great internship at her favorite boutique, she’s thrilled to take the first step toward her dream career. Then she falls for her fellow intern, Jordi Perez. Hard. And now she’s competing against the girl she’s kissing to win the coveted paid job at the end of the internship.
Sunday Jul 08, 2018
Kim Purcell, "THIS IS NOT A LOVE LETTER"
Sunday Jul 08, 2018
Sunday Jul 08, 2018
This Is Not a Love Letter, by award-winning author Kim Purcell, is a both intimate and immediate love story examining race, loss, and mental health in small town America.
Every Friday since they started dating, Chris has written Jessie a love letter. Then, days before graduation, popular, attractive, college-bound Chris vanishes. Now Jessie is writing Chris a letter of her own to tell him everything that’s happening while he’s gone. Jessie searches for answers. The police think he's run away, but she doesn't believe it. He disappeared while going for a run along the river—the same place where some boys beat him up just three weeks ago. Chris is one of the only black kids in a depressed paper mill town, and Jessie is terrified of what might have happened.
As the police investigate, Jessie and others speak up about the harassment Chris experienced and the danger he could be in. There are people in Jessie's town who are infuriated by the suggestion that a boy like Chris would be a target of violence. They threaten Jessie, and smear Chris’s character. As tensions escalate, Jessie must face her own fear and guilt. What really happened to Chris?
Tender and unflinching, This Is Not a Love Letter is an emotionally devastating examination of love, life, and the ties that bind, and what happens to those left behind when they break.
Friday Jul 06, 2018
Tavi Gevinson, "ROOKIE ON LOVE"
Friday Jul 06, 2018
Friday Jul 06, 2018
Tavi Gevinson returns to start the New Year off right with Rookie on Love, an anthology about the heart's most powerful emotion. Featuring exclusive, never-before-seen essays, poems, comics, and interviews from contributors like Jenny Zhang, Emma Straub, Hilton Als, Janet Mock, John Green, Rainbow Rowell, Gabourey Sidibe, and many more, this collection is the perfect reflection on love in its many forms.