Featured Young Adult Novels for April

See You in the Cosmos, by Jack Cheng, is the author’s first YA literary venture. The novel’s protagonist is 11-year-old Alex, obsessed with space exploration. He has even named his dog Carl Sagan. Alex’s father has died, his mother has problems, and his older brother isn’t around much, so it’s Carl Sagan (the dog) who is Alex’s chosen companion on a road trip with a constantly changing destination that brings many surprises into the boy’s life.

I still have more to pack but I needed a break, so I came up to the roof of my house. I love lying down on the hood of a car like Dr. Arroway in the movie Contact but my mom doesn’t drive anymore, so I just come up on our ladder to the roof. I usually come up here at night so that way I’m closer to the stars, even though it’s only one story closer. 

The protagonist of American Street, by Ibi Zoboi, is a girl who has made a different kind of voyage. When Fabiola Toussaint, born in the United States, leaves familiar Port-au-Prince with her mother, she thought they would reach a new home together, but in the airport in New York her mother is detained, to be sent back to Haiti, and the frightened daughter must fly on to Detroit alone to meet her cousins in what feels like strange new land.

Darkness seeps into every crack and corner of this Detroit. Even with a few lampposts dotting the streets, I can’t see the breadth and depth of this city that is my birthplace, that is now my home. I squint to see if the big mansions I’ve seen on American TV will glow of sparkle in the dark. I hope to catch a glimpse of the very tops of the tall buildings, but the car is moving too fast—with its fancy seats, too-loud music, and the scent of shiny new things.
 

Ibi Zoboi’s American Street, then, is set in Detroit, while Jack Cheng, author of See You in the Cosmos, grew up in Michigan. I’ve given you a taste from the beginning of each story, with everything yet to come for Alex and Fabiola, in hopes you will want to journey along with them.

American Street, by Ibi Zoboi

Hardcover, 314pp, $16.99

See You in the Cosmos, by Jack Cheng

Hardcover, 324pp, $17.99