Embedded Research in New YA Novels

 Embedded research is information that is embedded so seamlessly into the story that it enriches the detail and realism in the story without seeming didactic. After introducing students to novels with embedded research, I would ask them to research a topic of interest and have them embed it in their own story. This month I am recommending three new novels that are enhanced by embedded research. Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley (The Firekeeper's Daughter) explores the issues of repatriation of Indigenous artifacts, as well as murdered Indigenous women.  One with the Waves by Verzna Andrews introduces a grieving teen who experiences the healing power of surfing. Gilded Mountain by Kate Manning is an adult crossover book about the unionization of miners in early 20th century Colorado as seen through the eyes of a teenage daughter of one of the miners. 

In Warrior Girl Unearthed Perry Firekeeper-Birch, a bi-racial (Black and Anishinaabe) teen whose twin Pauline is the achiever, hopes to spend her summer fishing and slacking off.  However, after trashing her aunt's car, she finds herself working with Pauline in the Sugar Island Ojibwe Tribe's summer internship program to pay for damages. She is assigned to work at the tribal museum where she discovers remains and artifacts from deceased Anishinaabe tribe members are being claimed by the local university.  Determined to return them to the tribe, she comes up with a heist plan and in doing so uncovers a mystery involving missing Indigenous women.  Always headstrong, Perry gets into trouble by acting before she thinks.  Adding first love, sexual harassment, and colorism issues to this thriller makes for an engaging and thought-provoking read.  The author, who is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, includes a great deal of information about repatriation of cultural artifacts and human remains, as well as missing Indigenous women, both pressing issues for Native Americans.

One with the Waves is set in South California in the 1980s.  Following her father's death from cancer, Ellie Brzozowski's mom, a NYC gallery curator, sends her to live with her Aunt Jen and Uncle Charlie in California.  She doesn't fit in with the preppie girls at her new high school, who bully her and call her a beach rat.  Both avid surfers, Jen and Charlie foster her interest in surfing, which becomes her passion and her refuge.  Her magical encounters with dolphins, whales and sea lions, as well as other accomplished surfers who befriend her, aid in the healing process. When her mom arrives for the summer, Ellie recognizes her mom is an alcoholic and fears that she will force her to move back to NYC.  Ellie navigates the challenges at school and with her mother, employing the newfound strength and confidence she has developed through surfing.  The author, who is a "soul surfer mom," fills the novel with authentic details about surfing, beautifully capturing the solitude and healing power of being a one with the ocean. 

Gilded Mountain introduces teenage Sylvie Pelletier who moves from Vermont to Moonstone, Colorado, in the early 20th century, after her father Jacques loses his mining job over unionizing issues. She and her mother and brother join her father who is now mining marble in Colorado.  Leaving her family's shanty in Quarrytown, Sylvie takes a job in Moonstone with K.T. Redmond, a female socialist newspaper editor who champions the labor cause and is critical of the Padgett family who own the mine.  When at K.T's urging, Sylvie takes a job as secretary to "Countess" Inge Padgett,  she is exposed to their opulent lifestyle and deplorable labor practices, secretly reporting back to K.T. Meanwhile, Jacques and outside labor organizers attempt to unionize the miners with dire consequences.  Sylvie finds herself drawn to Jasper Padgett, the heir to the Padgett fortune and sympathetic to the Gradys, former slaves who are  now the Padgett's' servants but dream of starting a utopian Black community in Eastern Colorado.  Sylvie struggles to find her way amid conflicting loyalties toward the vastly differing worlds she is inhabits. Drawn from true stories of Colorado history, this is a coming-of-age tale infused with love and loss, as immigrants and robber barons develop the American West. 

YA Crime Thrillers - Firekeeper's Daughter, The Project, and Pride and Premeditation

 Mysteries, arguably the most popular genre, take many different forms. From the detective novel to the romantic thriller, suspense-filled mysteries keep readers anxiously turning pages to solve the puzzle. This month I am recommending three wildly different thrillers encompassed by this genre.  Firekeeper's Daughter, a debut novel by Angeline Boulley, is a Native American crime thriller focusing on an FBI investigation into meth overdoses in an Anishinaabe community. The Project by Courtney Summers (Sadie) is a psychological thriller, in which Lo, a young woman who works for an investigative magazine, examines a cult that her sister disappeared into after their parents' deaths in a devastating car accident. Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price is a reimagining of the Jane Austen favorite as a murder mystery. 

Firekeepers' Daughter introduces Daunis Fontaine, an 18-year-old native American hockey player, who struggles to reconcile her Anishinaabe father's culture with her white mother's relatives' prejudice.  Although she loves her tribal community, she is denied official citizenship in the Sault tribe due to her mixed parentage.  Her plans to head off to college to pursue a medical degree are put on hold when her uncle overdoses on meth and her grandmother has a stroke.  As meth related deaths continue to mount, Daunis is recruited by the FBI to work undercover to investigate a deadly new form of meth being distributed in the community. Using her knowledge of chemistry and traditional plants, she partners with Jamie, an agent posing as a hockey player new to her brother Levi's team, to source the drug and discover its dealers. The author, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, shares key teachings from her culture, including Ojibwe language and a look at the corruption that has led to the meth plague on reservations across the country.  This compelling look at Native American culture woven into a complex criminal investigation is not to be missed!

In The Project Lo Denham is involved in a car accident that killed her parents and leaves her near death.  Her sister Bea prays for a miracle and when Lev Warren, the supposedly divine leader of a cult known as The Unity Project intervenes with a "healing," Lo survives. Bea,  overwhelmingly grateful, joins the cult and disappears from Lo's life. While working for an investigative magazine, Lo witnesses the suicide of one of the cult's members. She begins investigating the cult, hoping to discredit it and reconnect with her sister. However, Lo, who is granted an exclusive interview with Lev Warren, finds her sister is no longer a member, and she is slowly lured into joining the cult herself.  The story moves back and forth in time with Lo narrating the present and Bea flashbacks from her past. Suspense builds as subtle clues about what really happened are revealed, until the horrifying truth is unveiled.  This gripping psychological thriller focuses on what happens when downtrodden and vulnerable people, who are searching for identity and belonging, are preyed upon by opportunistic groups offering healing and salvation.

Pride and Premeditation, the first book in a trilogy which reworks Jane Austen novels as murder mysteries, finds Lizzy Bennet aspiring to a position in her father's law firm.  When the head of a local shipping firm, Charles Bingley, is accused of murdering his brother-in-law, Lizzy attempts to prove him innocent to prove herself to her father.  Although his best friend Fitzwilliam Darcy is Bingley's lawyer, Lizzy searches London for clues and they end up working together to free Bingley and find the real killer. This Regency era mystery will especially delight Jane Austen fans.  The extensive cast of original characters appear in differing roles but still retain their personalities. For instance, Collins is set to inherit the law firm, but is woefully inept as a lawyer, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh is a powerful woman but has devious ties to the shipping world.  In an author's note Price discusses being inspired by Austen and Agatha Christie and acknowledge the liberties she has taken with class and gender roles.  This imaginative suspenseful adaptation will appeal to both murder mystery and Austen fans alike.  It comes out April 6, 2021.