May 24, 2025
Title: A Split Second | Author: Janae Marks | Publisher: Quill Tree Books (2024)
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Title: A Split Second | Author: Janae Marks | Publisher: Quill Tree Books (2024)
✨NEW September Middle-Grade Novel✨
📖A Soft Place to Land
Janae Marks
Katherine Tegen Books
In this compelling and heartfelt mystery story, Janae Marks—author of the critically acclaimed bestselling From the Desk of Zoe Washington—follows a young girl reshaping her meaning of home.
Joy Taylor has always believed home is the house she lived in her entire life. But then her dad lost his job, and suddenly, home becomes a tiny apartment with thin walls, shared bedrooms, and a place for tense arguments between Mom and Dad. Hardest of all, Joy doesn’t have her music to escape through anymore. Without enough funds, her dreams of becoming a great pianist—and one day, a film score composer—have been put on hold.
Available Now👉🏿| Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
Go HERE for more September new releases by Black authors.
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We love Black Girl Greatness in Middle Grade! Done reading this week's WNDB Summer Reading pick, A GOOD KIND OF TROUBLE by Lisa Moore Ramée? Check out our discussion guides and activities for the book, along with the reads below:
For Black Girls Like Me by Mariama J. Lockington
From The Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
The Jumbie God’s Revenge by Tracey Baptiste
Just South of Home by Karen Strong
So Done by Paula Chase
The Only Black Girls in Town by Brandy Colbert
Two Naomis by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Ways to Make Sunshine by Renée Watson
New stack from Labyrinth Books
✍🏿Debut You: A 2020📖Debut Author Series: Janae Marks
Debut You is an interview feature on Our Stories Matter blog. Debut authors, who have released or have upcoming releases in 2020, are given five questions to answer about themselves and their book.
Read an👇🏿excerpt:
Understanding your audience is essential. What do you know for sure about the audience you are writing for?
My audience of young readers is smart and insightful and can handle more than you might think! From the Desk of Zoe Washington covers some tough topics, like systemic racism and incarceration. Some adults might think kids can’t handle reading about these subjects, but readers are really engaging with these topics through Zoe’s story, which has been great to see.….continue reading
Janae Marks has an MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Writing for Children from The New School. She grew up in the suburbs of New York City, and now lives in Connecticut with her husband and daughter. From the Desk of Zoe Washington is her debut novel.
📖From the Desk of Zoe Washington
Katherine Tegen Books
January 14, 2020
Middle-Grade
304 Pages
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🎉New January Book Release
From the Desk of Zoe Washington
Janae Marks
Katherine Tegen Books
Zoe Washington isn’t sure what to write. What does a girl say to the father she’s never met, hadn’t heard from until his letter arrived on her twelfth birthday, and who’s been in prison for a terrible crime?
A crime he says he never committed.
Could Marcus really be innocent? Zoe is determined to uncover the truth. Even if it means hiding his letters and her investigation from the rest of her family. Everyone else thinks Zoe’s worrying about doing a good job at her bakery internship and proving to her parents that she’s worthy of auditioning for Food Network’s Kids Bake Challenge.
But with bakery confections on one part of her mind, and Marcus’s conviction weighing heavily on the other, this is one recipe Zoe doesn’t know how to balance. The only thing she knows to be true: Everyone lies.
Ages: 8 and up
Grades: 3rd and up
Pages: 304 pages
Available at👉🏿| Amazon | IndieBound
Find more children’s and young adult books by Black authors here
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My biggest dream just came true, and I can't wait to go back and help Mom with hers.
Janae Marks, from "Convention Girl"
Title: A Soft Place to Land | Author: Janae Marks | Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (2021)