#Karuna Riazi

[the-final-sentence]

She didn't turn around.

Karuna Riazi, from "Plus One"

[anicarissi]

So glad to get my hands on this beautiful book 💙🌸 Karuna Riazi’s A BIT OF EARTH is the story of a prickly orphan, a locked garden, and a chance for the heart to bloom. It’s THE SECRET GARDEN reimagined for a new generation, and I’m so excited to read it

[darkliterata]

Lovely haul for the New Books shelf!

[bookcoversonly]

Title: A Bit of Earth | Author: Karuna Riazi | Publisher: Greenwillow Books (2023)

[transbookoftheday]

The Grimoire of Grave Fates by Hanna Alkaf & Margaret Owen

Crack open your spell book and enter the world of the illustrious Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary. There's been a murder on campus, and it's up to the students of Galileo to solve it. Follow 18 authors and 18 students as they puzzle out the clues and find the guilty party.

Professor of Magical History Septimius Dropwort has just been murdered, and now everyone at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect.

A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome—but there are some who aren't so happy with the recent changes. That includes everyone's least favorite professor, Septimius Dropwort, a stodgy old man known for his harsh rules and harsher punishments. But when the professor's body is discovered on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his lifeless hand, the Academy's students must solve the murder themselves, because everyone's a suspect. 

Told from more than a dozen alternating and diverse perspectives, The Grimoire of Grave Fates follows Galileo's best and brightest young magicians as they race to discover the truth behind Dropwort's mysterious death. Each one of them is confident that only they have the skills needed to unravel the web of secrets hidden within Galileo's halls. But they're about to discover that even for straight-A students, magic doesn't always play by the rules. . . .

Contributors include: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Hafsah Faizal, Jessica Lewis, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Díaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Méndez

[thesecretdollgarden]

Jamie and Mei’s Library Trip

Jamie, Mei, and Chester the beagle made it to the library bright and early this morning to stock up for the weekend. After a long month of grey skies with only the barest teasings of sunlight to be had, they were happy to take the long way back on the bridge to soak up all of the Vitamin D.

Jamie picked up another Nancy Drew mystery for Emily, “The Quest of the Missing Map.” She also snagged a copy of “Robin Hood” that she’s planning to buddy-read with Kit. Mei has more of a tendency to enjoy non-fiction, especially paired with audiobooks. She grabbed a book on astrology because Christine (TM #23) informed her that Mei is a triple Scorpio and she needs to know what she’s in for.

As there have been more and more challenges to the intellectual freedom of public libraries in recent years, they also made sure to put in book purchase requests while they were there for minority voices typically targeted by conservative groups according to the American Library Association. Jamie requested “Abeni’s Song” by P. Djèlí Clark and “A Bit of Earth” by Karuna Riazi. Mei ordered “Skating on Mars” by Caroline Huntoon and “We Are Your Children Too” by P. O’Connell Pearson. This can be especially fun to do throughout Black History Month when reading lists are plentiful. Chester didn’t request anything but he did promise not to eat any books that looked especially tasty.

The public library is a place for all voices. Jamie and Mei plan to do their part to keep it that way.

[richincolor]

We have three books on our radar this week! Which ones are you interested in?

Forty Words for Love by Aisha Saeed Kokila

In this luminous young adult novel by New York Times bestselling author Aisha Saeed, two teen protagonists grow from friends to something more in the aftermath of a tragedy in their magical town. Moonlight Bay is a magical place—or it was once. After a tragic death mars the town, the pink and lavender waters in the bay turn gray, and the forest that was a refuge for newcomers becomes a scourge to the townspeople. Almost overnight, the entire town seems devoid of life and energy. The tourists have stopped coming. And the people in the town are struggling. This includes the two teens at the heart of our story: Yasmine and Rafay. Yasmine is a child of the town, and her parents are trying and failing to make ends meet. Rafay is an immigrant, a child of Willow Forest. The forest of Moonlight Bay was where people from Rafay’s community relocated when their home was destroyed. Except Moonlight Bay is no longer a welcoming refuge, and tensions between the townspeople and his people are growing. Yasmine and Rafay have been friends since Rafay first arrived, nearly ten years ago. As they've gotten older, their friendship has blossomed. Not that they would ever act on these feelings. The forest elders have long warned that falling in love with "outsiders" will lead to devastating consequences for anyone from Willow Forest. But is this actually true? Can Yasmine and Rafay find a way to be together despite it all? -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Writing in Color: The Lessons We've Learned edited by Nafiza Azad and Melody Simpson Margaret K. McElderry Books

So, you’re thinking of writing a book. Or, maybe you’ve written one, and are wondering what to do with it. What does it take to publish a novel, or even a short story? If you’re a writer of color, these questions might multiply; after all, there’s a lot of writing advice out there, and it can be hard to know how much of it really applies to your own experiences. If any of this sounds like you, you’re in the right place: this collection of essays, written exclusively by authors of color, is here to encourage and empower writers of all ages and backgrounds to find their voice as they put pen to page. Perhaps you’re just getting started. Here you’ll find a whole toolkit of advice from bestselling and award-winning authors for focusing on an idea, landing on a point of view, and learning which rules were meant to be broken. Or perhaps you have questions about everything beyond the first draft: what is it really like being a published author? These writers demystify the process, sharing personal stories as they forged their own path to publication, and specifically from their perspectives as author of color. Every writer has a different journey. Maybe yours has already started. Or maybe it begins right here. Contributors include: Julie C. Dao, Chloe Gong, Joan He, Kosoko Jackson, Adiba Jaigirdar, Darcie Little Badger, Yamile Saied Mendez, Axie Oh, Laura Pohl, Cindy Pon, Karuna Riazi, Gail D. Villanueva, Julian Winters, and Kat Zhang. -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Actually Super by Adi Alsaid Knopf Books for Young Readers

A globetrotting novel that takes a determined teen from Japan to Australia and to Argentina and Mexico on a quest to prove that humanity is more good than bad from the author of Let’s Get Lost and Before Takeoff. Isabel is having an existential crisis. She’s three years into high school, and everything she’s learned has only shaken her faith in humanity. Late one night, she finds herself drawn to a niche corner of the internet—a forum whose members believe firmly in one that there are indeed people out in the world quietly performing impossible acts of heroism. You might even call them supers . No, not in the comic book sense—these are real people, just like each of us, but who happen to have a power or two. If Isabel can find them, she reasons, she might be able to prove to herself that humanity is more good than bad. So, the day she turns 18, she sets off on a journey that will take her from Japan to Australia, and from Argentina to Mexico, with many stops along the way. She longs to prove one— just one— super exists to restore her hope for the future. Will she find what she’s looking for? And how will she know when—if—she does? -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb: Crack open your spell book and enter the world of the illustrious Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary. There's been a murder on campus, and it's up to the students of Galileo to solve it. Follow 18 authors and 18 students as they puzzle out the clues and find the guilty party. Professor of Magical History Septimius Dropwort has just been murdered, and now everyone at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect. A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome—but there are some who aren't so happy with the recent changes. That includes everyone's least favorite professor, Septimius Dropwort, a stodgy old man known for his harsh rules and harsher punishments. But when the professor's body is discovered on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his lifeless hand, the Academy's students must solve the murder themselves, because everyone's a suspect. Told from more than a dozen alternating and diverse perspectives, The Grimoire of Grave Fates follows Galileo's best and brightest young magicians as they race to discover the truth behind Dropwort's mysterious death. Each one of them is confident that only they have the skills needed to unravel the web of secrets hidden within Galileo's halls. But they're about to discover that even for straight-A students, magic doesn't always play by the rules. . . . Contributors include: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Hafsah Faizal, Jessica Lewis, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Díaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Méndez

Review:

A professor has been murdered and everyone at the magical academy known as the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect. Eighteen students, 20 hours, and a murderer to catch. Told from 18 different students, along with evidence, interviews, and notes, the mystery and events unfold all leading up to who killed the despised professor Septimius Dropwart and how each of the students could be involved. This was such a fun and magical read, especially when you get to see the events fold bit by bit from each student’s perspective all leading up to the events of the professor’s death and who could be involved. The mystery is revealed in tidbits and overall, it was a fun mystery read told in a unique format that definitely was an undertaking. i would highly recommend this for fans of mystery and fantasy reads! The students all had possible motives and all of them had some connection to the event. With so many unique perspectives and personalities, all the students were interesting to get to know and the overall villain was a fun one to figure out. Seriously, what a fun read!

*Thanks Netgalley and Random House Children's, Delacorte Press for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[read-alert]

More anticipated releases!

We Can Never Leave by HE Edgmon

If We Survive This by Racquel Marie

The Unmapping by Denise S Robbins

Archive of Unknown Universes by Ruben Reyes Jr

Sabrena Swept Away by Karuna Riazi

Legendary Frybread Drive-In edited by Cynthia Lietich Smith

Defanged by HE Edgmon

When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee

[theobviousparadox]

Review: A Bit of Earth by Karuna Riazi

A Bit of EarthKaruna RiaziGreenwillow BooksPublished March 14, 2023 Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads About A Bit of Earth Maria Latif is used to not having a space of her own. But what happens when she feels the sudden urge to put down roots in the most unexpected of places? Growing up in Pakistan, Maria Latif has been bounced between reluctant relatives for as long as she can remember–first…

[hijab-described]

[ID: Book cover of The Gauntlet by Karuna Riazi. Three children run towards a tower in the middle of a round structure reminiscent of clockwork, with lots of gears and metallic parts. In the background looms a large metallic spider. ID 2: Portrait of the author. She’s a hijabi woman with medium light skin leaning an elbow on a table and smiling. She wears a beige sweater and orange-brown hijab. /end ID]

There’s a new fantasy book out starring Muslim kids! Click here to read an interview with the author (the source of the pic above, btw) in which she reveals some interesting tidbits about her experience getting published, including the fact that if you wind up getting a book deal while you’re in college, they might count it as your thesis!

On to my review: In The Gauntlet by Karuna Riazi, a Bangladeshi-American tween named Farah, And Her Two Friends, have to battle a sadistic, hidden game-master in order to rescue her brother from a board game. They have to play by his rules – showing up on time for each game, not making it too obvious they’re trying to bust out, and only looking for poor Ahmad during their few moments of free time. The games include, for example, life-size Mancala with holes big enough to fall into that are also full of bones, so the whole thing is very cinematic veering on kiddie-appropriate horror. My favorite characters were the other prisoners of the game, who populate what’s basically a timeless Bangladeshi city complete with souk and palaces. The tween MC’s meet a mysterious woman who keeps feeding them decadent lunches and then forgetting them entirely, a cute guy in a hot air balloon who’s been trapped in this world since he was their age (I don’t think he was described as cute in-text but he appealed to me and I liked the resolution of his storyline), and best of all–a Resistance composed entirely of lizards, led by Henrietta Peel. Yes, a female resistance captain who is also a lizard. I sure hope there’s fan art! The comparisons between the elevator pitches for The Gauntlet and that movie Jumanji are obvious, and possibly also to Labyrinth, but like JKR (who also built on the shoulders of MANY giants), Riazi shines most in all the bits that are completely new – the cultural setting, for example, and the surprise resolution. Warning for readers who are the type to get hungry for what they read – you are going to need snacks. There’s even a game about snacks–that was one of my favorite parts. Props to Riazi for a poignant bit of imagery in which we find out, when Farah gets the chance to drink moonlight, that it “tastes lonely.” I love concepts like that. Also, Farah’s from New York City and has just moved to a less diverse school where she’s the only hijabi, so when she sees others who look like her in the game-world’s marketplace, her reaction is “the feeling spread through her, a gulp of seltzer, bright and bubbly…” There are bits where I felt like the references to real life got too detailed–for example, at one point they have to do something reminiscent of riding a skateboard, and it’s not just “like riding a skateboard”, there’s an extra note thrown in there that it was her cousin who taught her to ride–but maybe these are there to give the audience a greater picture of Farah’s “regular” life since we only meet her the morning of her getting sucked into the game. I would highly recommend The Gauntlet as a book to hand the young person in your life who’s into the “kids getting into fantastical adventures” genre. I did have a good time reading it, but I guess I haven’t read very much Middle Grade lit in the past twenty years because it did feel a bit young for me (but it should! I am not the target audience; I’ll be thirty-six this fall.) TW for random blood and bones that don’t…. belong to any of the MC’s? Just used as horror elements.

[winningthesweepstakes]

A Bit of Earth by Karuna Riazi

A Bit of Earth by Karuna Riazi. Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins, 2023. 9780063098664  Rating: 1-5 (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 4.5 Format: Hardcover What did you like about the book? Maria Latif has been bounced around most of her life, shuffled from one family member to another even before the death of her parents traveling in Australia. Maria is not a bubbly, happy young woman.…

[anicarissi]

Middle grade books with big emotions ♥️

[the-final-sentence]

'Let's make this happen.'

Karuna Riazi, from “L(Train)iminal”

[timetravelbypen]

Hey, thanks for the tag @eriadu-in-the-wildwood​ :) :) Last song: Sustain - Luz

Currently watching: Ummm I rewatched the David Tennant and Catherine Tate Much Ado About Nothing while sewing today, does that count?

Currently reading: A Bit of Earth by Karuna Riazi

Current obsession: The Doctor Who brain rot continues, also I am just itching to buy more fabric for more historical sewing projects... want to make all the things....

No pressure tags: @highlyillogicalandroid​ @aleksandrachaev​

I was tagged by @randomfoggytiger thank you for the tag:)

Last song: listening to The Sky is Broken by Moby rn on my lunch break (all things feels)

Currently watching: I just finished s4 of What We Do in The Shadows ( awaiting s5!!) But I am currently rewatching Battlestar Galactica bc I just watch the same 5 shows over and over.

Current reading: just fan fiction at the moment

Current obsession: mango fruit jerky by Soley and That's it bars (they count as a serving of fruit right?) I am also highly engulfed in all things What We Do in The Shadows

Tagging: @teenie-xf @divine-feminine-etc @notnotafangirl @whovianelle @sculien @perpetually-weirdening @magical-hag

[publishedtoday]

All Signs Point to Yes - Cam Montgomery, Adrianne White, g. haron davis, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Mark Oshiro, Eric Smith, Emery Lee, Byron Graves, Karuna Riazi, Roselle Lim, Alexandra Villasante, Lily Anderson, Kiana Nguyen 

A YA anthology of love stories for each of the star signs that will showcase multicultural characters and celebrate the myriad facets of love, from meet-cutes to the lesser-explored love expressed by aromantic people, featuring 13 bestselling and award-winning multicultural authors.

tw: bullying, death, homophobia and biphobia, violence