Lerner Publishing Group Showcase Fall 2024

Fall 2024 is just around the corner, at least as far as all my recent book mail is concerned. I keep everything organized by publication dates on carts in my office and my fall lineup has already run out of room to go. This is good, as fall 2024 also means my kid moving to college, so I’ll need plenty to occupy my anxious brain. Thanks, publishers, for helping keep me a little bit calm.

Pull out your TBR lists or get ready to add to the orders for books that stock your library or classroom shelves. Today I’m sharing with you new and forthcoming titles from Lerner Publishing Group. All annotations are from the publisher. I can’t wait to check out these books!

The Rule of Three by Heather Murphy Capps (ISBN-13: 9798765608296 Publisher: Carolrhoda/Lerner Publishing Group Publication date: 08/06/2024, Ages 11-14)

When the rules no longer apply, how do you keep your head in the game?

Wyatt has a three-part Plan for Life, and it starts now, at the beginning of seventh grade, with tryouts for his local travel baseball team. A biracial kid in a mostly white town, he’s always felt like a bit of an outsider. The baseball field is the only place where he feels like he truly belongs. If he can just make the team, everything else will fall into place: school, friends, even his relationship with his often-distant dad.

But after upsetting incidents at tryouts, something inexplicable happens: wisps of smoke form around Wyatt.

As Wyatt tries to figure out what’s causing this mysterious smoke and how to control it, he discovers it’s connected to a painful family history. The more he learns, the more Wyatt begins to question the rules he’s always followed to fit in. With tensions rising at school and on the field, can he face the injustices of the past while keeping his cool in the present?

The Gender Binary Is a Big Lie: Infinite Identities around the World by Lee Wind (ISBN-13: 9781728414539 Publisher: Zest Books/Lerner Publishing Group Publication date: 08/06/2024 Series: Queer History Project, Ages 12+)

What if you discovered that the whole concept of a gender binary is an illusion?

While many people identify as men or women, that is not all there is. The idea that all humans fall into one of two gender categories is largely a construct created by those who benefit from that belief. The reality is that gender is naturally diverse, falling inside and outside of those boxes, and more expansive ideas of gender have always existed.

In the second book of the Queer History Project, The Gender Binary Is a Big Lie: Infinite Identities around the World, author Lee Wind uses historical evidence and primary sources—poetry, ancient burial sites, firsthand accounts, and news stories—to explore gender roles and identities. Gender identities and physical bodies are as diverse as the human experience. Get ready to shatter those preconceived notions of nothing but a gender binary and dive deep into expressions of gender—both past and present—that reveal the infinite variety and beauty of everyone’s gender.

They Thought They Buried Us by NoNieqa Ramos (ISBN-13: 9781728492322 Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab/Lerner Publishing Group Publication date: 09/10/2024, Ages 14-17)

orror fan and aspiring film director Yuiza gets a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

As one of the few students of color at Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy, Yuiza immediately feels out of place. A brutal work-study schedule makes it impossible to keep up with the actual classes. Every expense, from textbooks to laundry, puts Yuiza into debt. And the behavior of students and faculty is… unsettling.

Yuiza starts having disturbing dreams about the school’s past and discovers clues about the fate of other scholarship students. It’ll take all Yuiza’s knowledge of the horror genre to escape from Our Lady’s grasp.

Civic Minded: What Everyone Should Know about the US Government by Jeff Fleischer (ISBN-13: 9798765611494 Publisher: Zest Books/Lerner Publishing Group Publication date: 10/01/2024, Ages 14-17)

How do student loans work? What do sanctions do? Where does federal spending go, and who decides on the budget?

Author and established journalist Jeff Fleischer digs into these and other relevant civics topics to explain the history behind different processes and programs, what they look like today, and why it’s important to understand them.

Through engaging, well-researched text and related sidebars, this book will help you understand and join many ongoing political conversations in the US, from spending to citizenship to international relations and more.

Make a Little Wave by Kerry O’Malley Cerra (ISBN-13: 9781728493220 Publisher: Carolrhoda Books/Lerner Publishing Group Publication date: 10/01/2024, Ages 11-14)

Swim with the current, or go against the flow?

Savannah has been feeling out of place ever since her family moved to Sandy Dune, Florida. She finds it easier to make friends with animals than people. Plus, everyone in Sandy Dune seems to love spending time in the ocean, and Sav never feels comfortable leaving the shore.

When her classmate Tanner invites her to the opening of his family’s restaurant, Sav’s excited—until she’s served a bowl of shark fin soup. Sav has always been scared of sharks, but she’s horrified that they’re inhumanely killed for this expensive delicacy. Especially as she learns more about these surprisingly gentle creatures and discovers that some shark species are being hunted to the point of endangerment. Tanner’s family brushes off her concerns, but Sav resolves to stop them from serving the soup.

To do that, she’ll have to learn how to use her voice and face her biggest fears.

A Deathly Compendium of Poisonous Plants: Wicked Weeds and Sinister Seeds by Rebecca E. Hirsch (ISBN-13: 9781728493282 Publisher: Zest Books/Lerner Publishing Group Publication date: 10/22/2024, Ages 14-17)

“Should you encounter any of the plants in this book, do not treat them lightly. They can kill you. Or cause you unbearable agony. Or land you in jail. Consider yourself warned.”

Explore the strange and remarkable stories of poisonous and even deadly plants.

Science, history, and true crime converge in an informative and exciting look at Mother’s Nature’s ghoulish garden. From a hallucinogenic fungus linked to the Salem Witch Trials to the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln’s mother, learn how certain plants evolved toxicity to avoid being consumed by predators and became the predator on their own.

In A Deathly Compendium of Poisonous Plants: Wicked Weeds and Sinister Seeds author Rebecca Hirsch takes you on a wild journey to look at how toxic chemicals in the natural world have been used for medicine, warfare, and sinister acts of foul plan. Tread lightly as we explore these plants’ ominous deeds.

Here Goes Nothing by Emma K. Ohland (ISBN-13: 9781728487656 Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab/Lerner Publishing Group Publication date: 11/05/2024, Ages 14-17)

A fun yet thought-provoking modern reimagining of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Eighteen-year-old Beatrice has never been a fan of her neighbor Bennie, but when Beatrice’s beloved younger sister starts dating one of Bennie’s closest friends, Beatrice is drawn into their social circle. As Beatrice wrestles with increasingly confusing feelings for Bennie, her usually close relationship with her sister is fraying, her grief over their mother’s death is simmering in the background, and she’s overwhelmed by looming senior-year decisions about what she wants to do with her life. But after a crisis arises, Beatrice must figure out how to process past traumas and open up to the possibilities of the future.

Filed under: new books