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ENTRY TYPE: new
WORK TITLE: My Fairy God Somebody
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BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.charleneallen.com/
CITY: Brooklyn
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COUNTRY: United States
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RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:J.D.; M.F.A. (writing for children and young adults).
ADDRESS
CAREER
Attorney, advocate, educator, writer. Northeastern University’s Domestic Violence Law Clinic, instructor; Common Justice, Director of Partnerships; Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, executive director.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
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Allen is an attorney, advocate, and educator who has worked in victim services, domestic violence coalitions, and abuse counselling. Combining restorative justice, activism, and writing young adult novels, she aims to make the world a safer place.
Allen’s debut novel for young adult readers, Play the Game, presents a contemporary mystery, coming-of-age story, and commentary on social justice. After Black teenager Ed Hennessey is fatally shot in front of a restaurant in Brooklyn, his friends Jack and VZ grieve for him and for a system that never charged his white killer, Philip Singer. But after Singer is found dead at the same restaurant, the police’s primary suspect is Jack, who promptly goes on the run. Meanwhile, VZ uses the help of his main crush and coder, Diamond, to debug the adventure video game Ed had been working on. But the game now starts to eerily tie into the real murder investigation, and VZ tries to solve the mystery of Jack’s disappearance. VZ also has to heal and struggles to admit that he was a good friend to Ed, even though he couldn’t bring himself to go to Ed’s funeral.
On her homepage, Allen described restorative justice as presented in Playing the Game: “Like any good tool for addressing the hard things that happen between people, the foundation of restorative practices is to build strong and durable relationships among people, so that they’re better equipped to handle painful conversations and difficult decision-making. A central theme of restorative practices is that they recognize the humanity of all people.”
In the book, reflecting real-life structural racism and oppression, and “the author’s experience as a restorative justice advocate, Allen compassionately examines themes of community and criminal justice reform” in this noirish debut, reported a Publishers Weekly reviewer. “Problems with rushing to judgment—both in the criminal system and among friends—are also thoughtfully examined,” according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor, who added that the restorative justice process is examined in a nuanced way, and the book offers “a compelling look” at ways to deal with grief and injustice.
Allen’s next book, My Fairy God Somebody, follows high school senior Clae Mitchell who desperately wants to know more about the father that left the family when she was a baby. She also feels out of place as one of the only Black girls in her hometown of Gloucester, Massachusetts. An opportunity opens up when she’s accepted to a summer journalism program in New York. There she starts receiving clues about her family history from someone she calls her fairy god somebody. With the help of new friends Joelle and Nze who call themselves “the Black girl contingent,” Clae uncovers the truth about her past.
The novel “captures Clae’s turbulent inner struggles, particularly her thorny feelings about her persistent longing for genuine kinship and community,” according to a Kirkus Reviews critic. With an intricate plot and tight prose, Allen offers “an engaging story for readers who want to see characters find themselves,” declared Abby Hargreaves in Booklist. Hargreaves added that the dramedy story includes family twists, a strong sense of place, and the importance of friendship.
In an article in School Library Journal, Allen explained what makes a good transition story: “I love a good transition story. When I was a teenager, I realized that the best coming of age books captured more than one transition, as the characters wrestled with adulthood in the context of other major challenges. I came to understand that transitions, whether the ones we choose, or the one’s life demands of us, are profoundly internal processes, often requiring that we learn to love, trust, or forgive ourselves, to get to the other side.”
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, November 2024, Abby Hargreaves, review of My Fairy God Somebody, p. 73.
Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2022, review of Play the Game; October 15, 2024, review of My Fairy God Somebody.
Publishers Weekly, November 28, 2022, review of Play the Game, p. 54;
ONLINE
Charlene Allen website, https://www.charleneallen.com/ (May 1, 2025).
Nerd Daily, https://thenerddaily.com/ (February 5, 2023), “Q&A: Charlene Allen, Author of ‘Play The Game.’”
School Library Journal, https://teenlibrariantoolbox.com/ (January 25, 2023), Charlene Allen, “The Key Is Self-love: Powerful Transitions in YA Books.”
Charlene is the Director of Partnerships at Common Justice, innovative victim service and alternative-to-incarceration program based on restorative justice principles. She has worked with survivors of crime and trauma for more than twenty years as an attorney, advocate, and educator. She led one of the first statewide domestic violence coalitions as lobbyist/organizer for Jane Doe, Inc., and held the position of executive director at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. After graduating from law school, she taught and provided clinical supervision at Northeastern University’s Domestic Violence Law Clinic. Serving as legal director of Emerge, Inc., she led abuser education groups and designed and implemented a model program placing abuse counselors in Probate/Family Court.
My new book, My Fairy God Somebody, is out now, and you can order it here! It's about a girl’s search for belonging in a forest of secrets, lies and family ties. I can’t wait for you to read it!
Play the Game is a different kind of whodunnit - more like, who didn't do it - about friendship and first love, and what it means to name and claim justice. And it's also about video games!
I have an MFA in writing for children and young adults, which means I got to go to school to read and write all day, a truly fantastic experience. On the activist side, I do a lot of work to promote restorative justice and end mass incarceration, because I believe those things can truly change the world.
One of the reasons I write is that when I do, I find out what’s on my own mind. Like my best friend from elementary school, for instance, who loved my jokes even when I didn’t think they were that funny. Or my grandpa, who raised a family in tough times, and kept them all together. Or the time I ran away from home, and I had that rare experience where, for one quick moment, I knew exactly what I wanted out of life – which wasn’t to run away!
While we’re on the subject – my grandpa, who everyone called Papa, was a very cool guy. He owned and worked his own farm and, in his spare time (which he can’t have had much of with nine children), he ran the molasses mill in the town, where he turned stalks of sugar cane into hot molasses for anybody who brought him their crop. When my mom and her siblings grew up, most of them became a part of the great migration, in which thousands of Black people fled the segregated South to start new lives in the North. Papa missed his children sorely and made sure that all nine of them visited often and brought their own children with them. He didn’t ask much when we visited– just a few quiet minutes sitting next to him under the carport. And like my favorite characters in books, he was always ready with a story.
I’ve always been a writer in one way or another, and I’ve always been an activist for social justice, fighting to end mass incarceration and create a safer world. One of the most exciting aspects of that work is in the growth and development of restorative practices, also known as restorative justice.
Restorative practices—as highlighted in Play the Game—are a set of principles that people and communities can use to address conflict and harm. Like any good tool for addressing the hard things that happen between people, the foundation of restorative practices is to build strong and durable relationships among people, so that they’re better equipped to handle painful conversations and difficult decision-making. A central theme of restorative practices is that they recognize the humanity of all people, which may seem simple, but tends not to be the case with systems that are based in punishment. Restorative practices, on the other hand, are about leading people to accountability and healing, rather than punishment.
Restorative practices are a way of life that’s older than my grandpa and, for most people in the United States today, fresh and new. Like so many important movements for justice, young people are providing important leadership in using restorative practices, and in shaping the way our country understands them.
Q&A: Charlene Allen, Author of ‘Play The Game’
Elise Dumpleton·Writers Corner·February 5, 2023·4 min read
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From debut author Charlene Allen comes Play The Game, a captivating YA contemporary mystery and coming-of-age story, celebrating the power of friendship, first love, and exploring the criminal justice system from the lens of restorative justice.
Hi, Charlene! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
In addition to being a writer, I’m an activist, a mom, a partner. And I like to play. I grew up playing cards and board games, and then married a serious gamer and gave birth to another one. Unfortunately, I don’t get to play as much as I’d like, these days. That’s one reason why my book, Play the Game has gaming as a central theme. It was so much fun to create a whole game! On the activist side, I do a lot of work around community-based restorative justice, which I think is a better way to respond to violence and conflict than prisons or other forms of punishment.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I didn’t write a lot when I was a kid. I really loved reading, then. And I played stories – I played “pretend,” and made up stories and characters all day long with my sisters and any friend I could get to do it. It wasn’t until much later that I found the courage to write down the stories, and the worlds and characthers, that were always forming in my head.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
It was a picture book called The Contented Little Pussycat. No lie. It was the most zen book – all about how this cat knew better thatn to worry about things ahead of time, so it was always happy while the other anmals were lost in clouds of worry and impending doom. It delighted me every single time I read it, and yes, I still think about it!
Your debut novel, Play The Game, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Fast
Fun
Surprising
Honest
Healing
What can readers expect?
I hope they can expect the unexpected. There’s a lot of action and also a lot of emotion in the book. It’s a different kind of mystery, where the characters aren’t so much figuring out who did it, as who didn’t do it. And I think what they discover makes for an interesting twist.
Where did the inspiration for Play The Game come from?
I had a lot of inspirations for the book. The game idea was definitely one. I wanted to write something fun, and literally engaging, meaning the reader could actively play the game as they read. I also wanted to write something that would portray and be appealing to young Black men, because there isn’t enough literature that reflects their lives. And I wanted to write something that gave young people the chance to grapple with what it means to take control in their lives, even when the odds, and the sysems that are supposed to protect them, are working against them.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
There are moments in Play the Game when the main character feels let down or betrayed by his friends and he has to decide what to do about it; confront, let go, pretend? Trust anyway? I love to write moments like that because we all have them, but in real life they go by quickly, and we may not have time to really think them through. Books can give us the chance to slow down and conider what it means to make that kind of choice.
What do you hope readers take away from Play The Game?
See also
Q&A: Nikki Barthelmess, Author of ‘Quiet No More’
I want readers to walk away remembering – or realizing – that they can change the rules of the game, sometimes, when the rules aren’t fair. This can happen in big ways, like taking on systems that try to control us, or small ones, like insisting on authenticity in our relationships. I also want readers to walk away satisfied, because they’ve experienced a good story and they’ve felt a range of emotions along the way.
Can you tell us a bit about your journey of getting Play The Game published?
I finished Play the Game a year before I sold it. After an unsuccessful round of submissions to literary agents, I took a break, then revised the manuscript with fresh eyes. When I submitted again, I promised myself I woulnd’t get discouraged after a handful of rejections, as I had the first time. I created a spreadsheet with more than seventy relevant agencies and their guidelines, then reached out, one by one, until I found a fantastic agent. After that, the process moved quickly. I got a wonderful editor and have really enjoyed working with him to make the book stronger. It’s important to mention, I had help. I got an amazing mentor from the Author Mentor Match program, and had family support for spreadsheet development and handholding!
What’s next for you?
I’m working on my second YA novel, which is due out from HarperCollins in 2024. It’s realistic fiction, but very different from Play the Game. The protagonist in the new novel is a girl from small town New England who’s searching for her long lost, and deliberately hidden, family, in New York City. Like Play the Game, it’s been a lot of fun to write.
Lastly, are there any 2023 book releases our readers should look out for?
I’m currently reading This is Not A Personal Statement by Tracy Badua, which just came out in mid January. I’m loving it and highly recommend!
Will you be picking up Play The Game? Tell us in the comments below!
The Key is Self-love: Powerful Transitions in YA Books, a guest post by Charlene Allen
January 25, 2023 by Amanda MacGregor Leave a Comment
I love a good transition story. When I was a teenager, I realized that the best coming of age books captured more than one transition, as the characters wrestled with adulthood in the context of other major challenges. I came to understand that transitions, whether the ones we choose, or the ones life demands of us, are profoundly internal processes, often requiring that we learn to love, trust, or forgive ourselves, to get to the other side. Reading, and ultimately writing, diverse tales of transition has helped me deal with the inevitable turning points in my own life. And these stories continue to help me, as I discover more powerful YA books.
In my debut novel, Play the Game, VZ Brown is overwhelmed by grief after his best friend’s death at the hands of a white vigilante. Now, the man who killed Ed has been found dead, too, and VZ has to discover who killed the killer before another of his friends takes the fall. Though he’s considered himself the chill background guy all his life, VZ has to take the reins to get himself and his friends through this tough situation. And before he can lead, he has to heal.
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Transitioning through loss is a theme beautifully addressed In Turning, by Joy L. Smith. Genie, a ballet prodigy, has a terrible fall that leaves her unable to feel or use her legs. To come back from despair, she has to see the possibilities of who she can be without dance. She catches glimpses of a possible new Genie in the ways others see her and in the quiet moments when she sneaks up on herself. And this gives her the strength to face the less appealing parts of the old Genie; the ones she ignored when the lovely dancer took up all the space in her mirror. Through this consistently engaging book, we see Genie embrace her hidden gifts, forgive and improve the parts of herself she hasn’t loved, and emerge as her full self, with the dancer still inside, but no longer defining all of who she is.
In Play the Game, the loss of his friend Ed sends VZ into a depression that leaves him hiding in his room for months. To move through his grief, he has to see his way of grieving as legitimate and forgive himself for not going to Ed’s funeral or protesting in the streets to show his rage at how Ed was killed. That small step toward healing -achieved with the help of friends – allows him to acknowledge the times he wasn’t a good friend to Ed, when Ed was alive. And from there, he can finally see the ways he was an excellent friend.
Luckily, most coming of age protagonists also face positive transitions, the kind we choose but don’t really know how to make happen. The transition in my life that most fed Play the Game is when I moved to New York City as a teenager. At the time, I didn’t have many friends and home wasn’t much fun. Both of my sisters had left for college (deserted me in my opinion), and my parents were pretty unhappy with each other. Before moving to the city, I chose to ignore my life as much as possible by spending time in other people’s, through TV, movies, or books.
And then came New York, where the teenagers did so many things I wanted to do. They rode subways and never had to ask their parents for a ride, ate at diners that looked out on Broadway theatres, and even knew neighborhood dance clubs where they didn’t “bother with checking IDs.” It was too much to believe. But if I wanted to be a part of this new universe, I had to adapt, rather than observe. Like VZ, I had to stop playing it safe.
In Emery Lee’s Meet Cute Diary, Noah is in his first three weeks of deciding to live as a boy, though he was assigned a female gender at birth and has lived as a girl for sixteen years. So far, one of the best parts of coming out as trans has been moderating the Meet Cute Diary, a blog that helps trans kids stay hopeful about finding love, through a constant flow of happy romance tales. Of course, Noah wants that picture perfect romance for himself, too. The lesson of Noah’s transition is that the romance he thought he wanted isn’t actually right for him. To get what he wants, he has to admit the superficiality of his dream, so that he can move on to something more real.
Similarly, in order to become a leader, VZ has to discard the part of himself that felt superior to Ed, so he can actually learn from Ed. And learning from Ed turns out to be critical in solving the mystery of who killed Ed’s killer.
A final key to transition, in Play the Game and other coming of age stories, is accountability.
In Matt de la Pena’s We Were Here, Miguel has done something he finds so terrible that he pretends it hasn’t happened. His healing journey starts when he learns to live with the knowledge of what he did. Like VZ and Genie, he has help, in the form of friends who recognize his value and reflect it back to him when he isn’t able to see it for himself. Slowly, along the route of a walk down the California coast, Miguel learns to take responsibility for what he did. And that brings him to the last crucial step in his transition – finding meaningful ways to make up for the hurt he caused. It’s this accountability that allows him to emerge, a young man who is able to choose happiness.
In Play the Game, VZ has to be honest with himself about the ways he hurt Ed. He can then move on to accountability, or as he puts it, doing right by Ed as best he can. For him, this means playing Ed’s game and helping their friend, Jack. And, it means taking back his own life, with Ed’s memory a permanent part of his power, humor, and joy.
Transitions are tough, and they never stop coming. It’s a good thing we have great books to help us through them.
Meet the author
Photo credit: Studio by Sehee
Charlene Allen works with community organizations to heal trauma and fight injustice, especially the beast called mass incarceration. She received her MFA from The New School, her JD from Northeastern University, and her BA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She lives in Brooklyn with her fabulous family and their very silly dog. Play the Game is her debut novel. You can visit her at www.charleneallen.com.
About Play the Game
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From debut author Charlene Allen comes a captivating YA contemporary mystery and coming-of-age story, celebrating the power of friendship, first love, and exploring the criminal justice system from the lens of restorative justice. Perfect for fans of Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, and Maureen Johnson.
In the game of life, sometimes other people hold all the controls. Or so it seems to VZ. Four months have passed since his best friend Ed was killed by a white man in a Brooklyn parking lot.
When Singer, the man who killed Ed, is found dead in the same spot where Ed was murdered, all signs point to Jack, VZ’s other best friend, as the prime suspect.
VZ’s determined to complete the video game Ed never finished and figure out who actually killed Singer. With help from Diamond, the girl he’s crushing on at work, VZ falls into Ed’s quirky gameiverse. As the police close in on Jack, the game starts to uncover details that could lead to the truth about the murder.
Can VZ honor Ed and help Jack before it’s too late?
ISBN-13: 9780063212794
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 01/31/2023
Age Range: 13 – 17 Years
Filed under: Guest Post
My Fairy God Somebody.
By Charlene Allen.
Dec. 2024. 272p. Harper, $19.99 (9780063212848). Gr. 9-11.
Clae has never felt like her family was complete since her father left the picture. When mysterious letters appear promising a link to the missing parts, she jumps at the chance and heads to New York City under the guise of a summer journalism program. But even with new friends Nze, who's struggling with increasing disability, and Joelle, who's contending with a difficult family situation of her own, the mystery of Clae's family is bigger than the sum of its parts. Allen (Play the Game, 2023) packs an intricate plot into tight prose, offering an engaging story for readers who want to see characters find themselves (and then some) amid complex families and real-life challenges. Clae's burgeoning independence in the city creates a solid foundation for this coming-of-age story and increases its appeal for readers of a similar age. Suggest to readers who enjoyed Robin Benway's Far from the Tree (2017) and other relationship-driven YA dramedies involving family saga twists, a strong sense of place, and the importance of friendship--even when it's complicated.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Hargreaves, Abby. "My Fairy God Somebody." Booklist, vol. 121, no. 5-6, Nov. 2024, p. 73. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A829739986/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f4ce32ed. Accessed 13 Mar. 2025.
Allen, Charlene MY FAIRY GOD SOMEBODY Harper/HarperCollins (Teen None) $19.99 12, 3 ISBN: 9780063212848
A teenage girl begins a journey of radical self-discovery as she investigates her family history.
McCauley "Clae" Mitchell has always felt like a part of her was missing. Raised in the predominantly white town of Gloucester, Massachusetts, by a single mom, Clae has many questions about her estranged dad that her mom has repeatedly dismissed. Before Clae's uncle Wendell passes away, he gives Clae a class ring that belonged to her dad. The ring, inscribed with the name of the New York City high school he attended in the early 2000s, is the first clue to solving a perplexing mystery. The second is the Brooklyn address of an unknown benefactor who's been sending money to her mom for years--a person Clae believes is a paternal relative. When she earns a scholarship to a top summer journalism program, she trades New England for the Big Apple, and with the help of new friends Joelle and Nze, who form the rest of "the Black girl contingent," she slowly but surely uncovers the truth. Allen's sophomore novel effectively captures Clae's turbulent inner struggles, particularly her thorny feelings about her persistent longing for genuine kinship and community. The first-person narrative features spots of wholesome summer romance, but realistic themes of friendship, complicated relationships, and grief take center stage.
A richly drawn story that explores the precarious construction of identity and the pain of complex family dynamics.(Fiction. 13-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Allen, Charlene: MY FAIRY GOD SOMEBODY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A811898562/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=879bad82. Accessed 13 Mar. 2025.
Play the Game
Charlene Allen. HarperCollins/Tegen, $17.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-321279-4
Months after Black Brooklyn teenager Ed Hennessey is killed, Philip Singer-the white man who shot him and was not prosecuted--is found dead outside the same restaurant where the event occurred. The incident sparks a new wave of trauma and anger within the community, especially for Ed's friends, Jack and VZ, both 17, who are still reeling from his death. When the police target Jack as the most likely suspect in Singer's murder, he goes on the run, leaving VZ and his best friend, Chela, to clear Jack's name. Meanwhile, VZ, with the aid of his crush and skilled coder Diamond, attempts to finish debugging the puzzle adventure game Ed was working on, planning to submit it to a gaming contest to honor his memory. As the game's challenges and riddles begin inexplicably tying into VZ's real-life investigation, he's forced to reckon with his previously unexplored feelings of grief while desperately seeking closure and justice. Informed by present-day events surrounding structural racism and oppression, and the author's experience as a restorative justice advocate, Allen compassionately examines themes of community and criminal justice reform in this affecting, noirish debut. Ages 13--Up. Agent: Elizabeth Beuley. Sterling Lord Literistic. (Jan.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Play the Game." Publishers Weekly, vol. 269, no. 50, 28 Nov. 2022, p. 54. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A730115772/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=9be19aeb. Accessed 13 Mar. 2025.
Allen, Charlene PLAY THE GAME Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (Teen None) $17.99 1, 31 ISBN: 978-0-06-321279-4
A Black teen faces his grief over the murder of his best friend as he attempts to support his other friends.
VZ works at Yard, a Caribbean restaurant in Brooklyn where Eddie was shot and killed by a White man called Philip Singer. After Singer, who was never charged, is killed by a blow to the head in the restaurant's parking lot, Yard is closed by the police for their investigation. Meanwhile, Eddie's mother gave VZ her son's laptop, but VZ feels guilty because he never before paid much attention to the game Eddie was passionate about creating. To honor his best friend, VZ decides to finish the game and enter it in the upcoming JersiGame competition. He's hoping to work on it with his crush, Diamond, but when Jack, his friend and Yard co-worker who has been vocal about protesting Eddie's murder, goes missing, VZ tries to solve the mystery of what happened to him. He also supports classmate Chela in a restorative justice circle following an incident at school, all while working to make the deadline for the gaming contest. These various pressures force first-person narrator VZ to examine and deal with his grief, pulling readers into his experience. The restorative justice process is fleshed out in a nuanced way in this debut. Problems with rushing to judgment--both in the criminal system and among friends--are also thoughtfully examined.
A compelling look at different ways of approaching grief and justice. (Fiction. 13-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Allen, Charlene: PLAY THE GAME." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Nov. 2022. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A724445554/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bab1b527. Accessed 13 Mar. 2025.