BTW Interviews

“In gorgeous and fiery language, Chambers invites us into Diamond Newberry’s world. The only Black person left in Swift River after Pop’s mysterious disappearance. Diamond thinks she stands out for all of the wrong reasons. Getting her license will solve one of those problems, but it's also one more thing Diamond and her mother disagree on. As Diamond gains confidence through driving and learns more about the history of her family and Swift River, she begins to imagine something different for herself,” said Lisa Swayze of Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, New York.

“A delicately told account of the Rarámuri, a native people of Mexico, that honors their history, traditions, and culture while recounting one family’s story as they adapt to modern Mexican life. Out of the Sierra emphasizes the small resistances of the family and their community as they fight to preserve their traditional way of life in an often hostile world," said Luis Correa of Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia.

“Cactus Country is all about landscape: of Arizona and the hot desert, of childhood and its constant developments, of gender and its fluidity. Zoë Bossiere is sharing a much-needed story of a childhood outside of the gender binary in a world built to misunderstand," said Frances Metzger of Country Bookshelf in Bozeman, Montana.