SATA

• AfterMath Carolrhoda Books (Minneapolis, MN), 2021
• The Color of Sound Carolrhoda Books (Minneapolis, MN), 2024

1. The color of sound LCCN 2023011572 Type of material Book Personal name Isler, Emily Barth, author. Main title The color of sound / Emily Barth Isler. Published/Produced Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Books, [2024] Projected pub date 2401 Description 1 online resource ISBN 9798765612026 (epub) Item not available at the Library. Why not? 2. Aftermath LCCN 2020012554 Type of material Book Personal name Isler, Emily Barth, author. Main title Aftermath / Emily Barth Isler. Published/Produced Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Books, [2021] Description 1 online resource ISBN 9781728432397 (epub) 9781728417400 (ebook) (library binding) CALL NUMBER Electronic Resource Request in Onsite Access Only Electronic file info Available onsite via Stacks. https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/cip.2020012554

• Emily Barth Isler website - https://emilybarthisler.com/about

  Emily Barth Isler has been telling stories for as long as she can remember.
  Emily Barth Isler has been telling stories for as long as she can remember. As a child actress, she traveled all over the world to perform in musicals, film, and television, from network TV to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the Clinton White House. At Wesleyan University, she earned a BA in Film studies while also taking all the creative writing, religion, and theatre classes she could.

  Emily has worked many jobs that required storytelling-- in PR for the Baltimore Orioles for two seasons (day one found her in the locker room getting post-game quotes from naked MLB players), as a writer for a web sitcom, as an undercover restaurant reviewer/spy, as an actor in a theatre troupe that taught sex ed in NYC public schools, as a diner waitress on popular daytime soap opera One Life to Live, and as a standardized patient training doctors to be more empathetic-- but her favorite job to date is writing stories for kids. Emily also writes regularly about sustainability, organic/eco-friendly skincare, and healthy beauty products for Oprah Quarterly, Allure, Organic Spa, and many other publications. Her recent 8-page feature for Oprah Quarterly Magazine (now also available on Oprah Daily): What "Clean Beauty" Means Now, investigates the science and ethics of sustainability, consumption and beauty.

  Emily and her husband have two fun, funny kids, who are partly the inspiration for some of her books. They LOVE making up songs around the house, but no one else besides Emily wants to take the Family Band pro-- go figure! Their family moved from New York City to Los Angeles in 2019, and while they miss the Big Apple, Emily gets to swim laps outside year-round, drag the kids on too-long hikes, and complain about how "cold" it is when it's 60 degrees, like all the other Angelenos.

  Emily is a passionate advocate for gun control in America, and has written extensively on the topic for publications like Publisher's Weekly, Today.com and Kveller.com, as well as donating a portion of proceeds from her debut novel, AfterMath, to gun violence prevention organizations such as Everytown, Moms Demand, Teachers Unify, Survivors Empowered, and March for our Lives. AfterMath was chosen as a Nate's Reads bookclub pick by Nate Berkus, a Mighty Girl's Books of the Year winner for 2021, and won the Mathical Book Prize in 2022 (awarded in partnership with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and in coordination with the Children’s Book Council (CBC).) Comedian and activist Amy Schumer calls AfterMath "A gift to the culture," and author Judith Viorst pronounced it "pretty close to perfect." AfterMath was positively reviewed in Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist, and many more. You can see more press and reviews here.

  Emily loves writing about the things that people need to talk about more, hard topics, sensitive subjects, and does so from the perspective of her own intersectional identities: as a Jew with progressive/inclusive values and as a neurodivergent person. Emily's second book, The Color of Sound, features a character who, like Emily, has synesthesia, and Emily also writes and speaks often about life with OCD. She loves writing for kids because she wants her kids and all their peers to grow up in a world that is kinder and more inclusive and representative of what life really looks like. She's actively involved with The StatesProject.org in effort to raise money to support democracy in local and state governments all over the U.S.

  Aside from writing, Emily loves country music (but not the racist kind!!), fighting the patriarchy, math for kids, baseball, things that smell good, swimming laps, chocolate and peanut butter together, watching television, and watching television. (She knows she included watching television twice, but that's how much she loves it.)

• VoyageLA - https://voyagela.com/interview/check-out-emily-barth-islers-story/

  LOCAL STORIESJANUARY 21, 2022Check Out Emily Barth Isler’s Story
  Avatar photoLOCAL STORIES
  SHARETWEETPIN

  Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Barth Isler.

  Hi Emily, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
  I have always been obsessed with stories. My father and my grandfather were both journalists, and I knew I had to be some kind of storyteller. I started acting professionally in musical theater when I was five years old and spent most of my childhood in at least two or three plays or musicals at any given time! I loved being on stage in an ensemble. I went to college (Wesleyan University) and studied Film and TV, planning to go into writing then, but got swept back into the acting world for a few years– moving to New York to appear on soap operas (I had a small, recurring role on One Life to Live and guest-starred on Days of our Lives in LA briefly!) and other TV shows like Saturday Night Live. It was hard and fun and fascinating, but my true love of writing was always calling to me. In my late 20s, I decided it was time to really take writing seriously. I worked on the writing staff of a web series with Emmy-Award-winning PhoebeTV and also started writing novels for teens and tweens.

  My first book, AfterMath, was published in September 2021. It’s a middle grade book for tweens and their parents about what happens years after the TV crews and media disappear following a school shooting. I wanted to explore questions like, “How do the survivors find their way back to some kind of “normal” life, with crushes and sports and math tests?” And what is it like to enter this world as a new kid in town, with a big secret of your own? AfterMath explores the grief and resilience left behind after the traumatic incidents we only see on the news. It’s about kids finding hope and friendship despite tragedy and learning that, while grief is infinite, love and friendship are, too.

  I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
  The road to publishing AfterMath was very long and challenging! It was important to me to write about the topic of gun violence and to write about it for kids who are middle school-aged, but the publishing industry was resistant to this for a long time. I’ve been an activist for gun safety for years– in fact, my grandfather, Alan Barth, was an editorial writer for the Washington Post and wrote literally thousands of editorials about the need for common sense gun legislation during his career there– so this issue is one I’ve been passionate about my whole life. I’ve always felt that, in order to see real change, in addition to legislation, we need to reach hearts and minds and talk about gun violence. That includes talking about it with kids! But it’s hard to know how to start these conversations in age-appropriate ways. I did a lot of research– talked to pediatricians, psychologists, activists, experts, educators, etc.– and wrote AfterMath in the hopes that it would be a conversation starter for kids and their families or educators to read together.

  A lot of publishers were hesitant to take on such a scary, divisive, dark topic, and I get it. I got a few offers on the book that were contingent on my changing the school shooting in the past of the story to a different traumatic incident, like a bus accident or a hurricane, but I felt really strongly about holding out for a publisher and editor who understood how important the topic is, not only to me but to the world. And I luckily found that in my publisher, Lerner Books, and my editor, Amy Fitzgerald.

  Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
  I’m a writer in two different fields.

  I write books for kids — my debut novel, AfterMath, came out in September 2021 from Carolrhoda/Lerner Books.

  AfterMath is the story of 12-year-old Lucy, who moves to a new town following the death of her younger brother, Theo, from a congenital heart condition. The town where she and her parents move to suffered a very different tragedy– a school shooting– four years earlier, and Lucy is starting seventh grade with classmates who all survived the shooting. It’s hard to be the new kid at any school, but Lucy struggles with how to fit into this community and decides to keep her own recent loss a secret. Through an incredible math teacher, a mysterious new friend, and an after school mime class, Lucy learns hope, resilience, and that, while grief can feel infinite, love and friendship can be, too.

  I also write for magazines, blogs, and websites about sustainable and ethically sourced beauty and skincare products!

  I have been writing for outlets such as Allure.com, Popsugar, Organic Spa Magazine, This Organic Girl, and many others since 2010. As a freelancer in this field, I get to pick and choose the indie brands I write about, and like to focus on small-batch, handmade, and/or family-owned companies who are sourcing ingredients in ways that are beneficial to the earth, to their employees, and to the consumers’ health. I love to shine a light on women-owned and LGBTQ-created brands whenever possible and adore researching ingredients. I look for products made as thoughtfully and minimally as possible, with maximum efficacy. I used to call this field “green beauty” or “clean beauty,” but in the past few years, my focus has shifted away from fear-mongering about “toxins” or “chemicals” and into lifting up the brands and companies who are leading the way to create the most powerful, effective products while also benefiting the environment and the lives of everyone who works to make the product, and those who use it. Sustainable Beauty might be a better term for this industry, but I’m not just referring to sustainable ingredients. A product must be affordable to be sustainable. It must be crafted in a way that ensures a fair wage for everyone who works to make it. It must be in packaging that isn’t harmful to the planet. And it must contribute to the health and goals of the person who eventually uses it. Sustainability is the next big thing, and it urgently needs to be!!

  Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
  I wrote AfterMath because I love writing books for middle-school aged kids about things going on in the world. I think kids that age really want to talk about hard things but don’t always know the best way to start doing so, and oftentimes, parents and educators are at a loss to begin, too! I wanted AfterMath to be a conversation starter between kids and their families and teachers. And it truly has been and is just getting started!

  But the topic of gun violence within the story– though not portrayed graphically or in detail– is an issue that is very important to me. My grandfather was a gun control activist in the 1960s and 70s through his writing for the Washington Post, and it has always been really important to me to carry on this work. Gun violence has become a more frequent and pervasive problem in America, unlike in other developed, wealthy countries, and I’m proud to try and assist the organizations out there doing amazing work to change that.

  I’m donating some of my proceeds from AfterMath to a few different gun violence prevention organizations I admire and hope that readers will feel inspired to get involved somehow with the movement to end gun violence and create common-sense gun laws.

  Here are a few orgs I love:

  Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America https://momsdemandaction.org/
  Everytown for Gun Safety https://www.everytown.org/
  The Ana Grace Project https://anagraceproject.org/
  Survivors Empowered https://www.survivorsempowered.org/
  Sandy Hook Promise https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/

  Pricing:

  AfterMath hardcover $17.99 https://bookshop.org/books/aftermath-9781541599116/9781541599116
  AfterMath audiobook (read by me, the author!) $6.99 https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/AfterMath?id=AQAAAEA85zenGM&hl=en_US&gl=US
  AfterMath e-book $8.50
  emilybarthisler.com/aftermath for links to buy
  Contact Info:

  Email: authoremilybarthisler@gmail.com
  Website: emilybarthisler.com
  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilybarthisler/
  Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilyBarthIsler
  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6nynLBpGMA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUlYcRT0qtE

• Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb - https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2021/12/q-with-emily-barth-isler.html

  Sunday, December 19, 2021
  Q&A with Emily Barth Isler

  Emily Barth Isler is the author of the new middle grade novel AfterMath. She is a sustainability/beauty journalist and former child actress, and she lives in Los Angeles.

  Q: In your Author's Note, you write that the idea for your novel came from the San Bernardino mass shooting in 2015. Can you say more about that, and about how you created your character Lucy?

  A: I used to balk at this idea when other writers said things like this, but I have to admit that Lucy “arrived” fully formed in my head. AfterMath is the third complete novel I wrote (the first one that I sold), but the writing process was so different from the first two manuscripts I wrote. Much of it came to me in one piece, as if in a dream.

  I was watching and reading the news immediately following the San Bernardino shooting and was so struck by the narratives about the “lucky survivors.”

  Of course, I’m happy for every single life that is spared, but the way the media was talking about the people who were present for this shooting and made it out alive was really interesting.

  Somewhere, someone said how fortunate it was that these people could “go on with their lives as if nothing happened,” and I was just shocked. No one can-- or should have to-- walk away from such a traumatic event and just “go back to normal” right away, and yet many people expect this of survivors.

  I began thinking about all of the ways that our society doesn’t support survivors--war veterans, cancer survivors, people who go through all kinds of abuse, etc. Our culture likes a tidy narrative, a “happily ever after,” which is sometimes pretty unrealistic.

  Instead, as many of us know, the path following a hard illness or long deployment or battle of any kind--or even a joyous yet stressful event like becoming a parent or moving to a new place--is full of ups and downs, moments of triumph, and times of deep sorrow. It’s a lonely thing to go through.

  Though I’m not a survivor of a school shooting myself, I am the survivor of a different traumatic event, and know firsthand how unique every healing journey is, and how lonely, even when you have great support.

  It wasn’t a far leap to imagine putting myself in the shoes of those who survived the San Bernardino shooting, or any of the school shootings that I had watched unfold via the news in horror--Sandy Hook, Columbine, Virginia Tech.

  Yet I knew that I was not the person to write a first-person narrative about surviving a shooting. I created Lucy to be an outsider to this experience, just as I and the majority of AfterMath readers are.

  Like the Rudine Sims Bishop quote about books being windows and/or mirrors for readers, I wanted Lucy to be a stand-in for all of us who continue to experience trauma and grief from hearing about mass shootings in America, but haven’t experienced them firsthand.

  I also knew that Lucy had to have a grief of her own, that she could relate to her new classmates in some way that both distanced and united them. I came up with the idea for her brother, Theo, in honor of a little boy I knew of, the godson of a dear friend of mine, who had recently died of a heart condition.

  Q: What kind of research did you do to write the book?

  A: Like a lot of things related to AfterMath, the research for this book found ME at first. It was unavoidable. I’m an avid newspaper reader, and there were so many stories about school shootings, of course, but then there were also other stories that were more about what happened after the tragedy.

  I started collecting articles--mainly from the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and New York Times--and a lot of that coverage became the foundation for the book.

  Twitter was also a great resource (that’s a sentence that I don’t type a lot!) for the book. After writing the first draft, I started following several gun violence prevention advocacy groups, survivors, parents of kids lost in school shootings, and journalists who were covering the topic.

  Organizations like TheTrace.org, Moms Demand, and Sandy Hook Promise were amazing resources for learning more about what life was like for the survivors and families of the victims of mass shootings.

  I learned so much from reading the tweets, blogs, and essays of survivors, families, and advocates. A few women I have especially enjoyed following and learning from are Lucy McBath, Nelba Márquez-Greene, and Shannon Watts.

  Q: The Publishers Weekly review of the book says, “Showing a keen understanding of loss, Isler’s compassionate debut is written with stark honesty, showcasing various responses to tragedy, including Lucy’s parents’ inability to talk about the past, the students’ collective need to share their stories, and encouragement of therapy.” What do you think of that description?

  A: I’m really proud of that review and think the description is pretty much everything I could have hoped for when I wrote the book!

  I think that “showcasing various responses to tragedy” is a great way to put what I set out to do. I wanted to show people dealing with loss in different ways. I wanted to show how grief gets compared.

  I wanted to showcase a less-common but more personal response to grief and trauma, which is Lucy’s classmates’ response--the almost compulsive need to get their stories and identities out when they first meet her.

  These are kids who experienced a horrific trauma at a young age, and then have all lived together in the years since. Lucy is the first new kid at their school, and they all feel the need to make sure she knows what they’ve been through. In contrast, Lucy has made the decision not to tell them that she’s recently lost her brother.

  The stark difference between their openness and her secrecy fascinated me, and also lent itself so well to the theme of math in the book and the way Lucy sees the world via equations and formulas.

  The other reason I wanted Lucy’s classmates to be so open about their trauma was that it closely mimics my own experience.

  I survived a violent attack at school in my senior year of high school, and many of my peers who witnessed it didn’t ever speak of it to me. In fact, many of them never spoke to me again, period. It was as if they didn’t know what to say, and thus decided to remain silent in my presence.

  I blocked out the incident for a while, but, like all traumatic things, it came bubbling back up to the surface eventually, and, much like Lucy’s classmates, I found myself telling anyone I met about the traumatic attack I had endured. It was part of my healing process to talk about it.

  I like to think there is a healthy medium in this regard--something between shoving feelings down and hiding them, and telling every stranger on the street about your trauma.

  I think this current generation of kids is much better off than my generation was at their age. Thanks to social media, the #MeToo movement, and the examples of many high-profile people, it’s getting more normalized to talk about therapy and trauma and recovery.

  In some ways, Lucy’s new classmates present an ideal version of recovery--they talk openly about going to therapy, they name their feelings and recognize their journeys, and those who suffer from PTSD or other long-term conditions aren’t embarrassed to talk about it.

  Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

  A: Both! I started out with two scenes that came into my head very clearly, both of which have remained in the book almost exactly as I originally wrote them six years ago.

  One was the fire at school, and the other was one of the opening scenes of Lucy in her new bedroom that once belonged to Bette, who was killed in the school shooting.

  I knew that the book would center around holding hands, and the different ways people can hold hands and the different things it can mean to them, so I did start out hoping that Lucy would get to hold hands with Joshua in the final scene, in a way that meant the same thing to both of them.

  I then wrote an outline of the story, and this is actually one of my favorite things about this writing process: I made a typo in the outline that ended up shaping the major arc of the book!

  I meant to write: “Lucy tells Mr. Jackson and Joshua about Theo, her brother who died.” But instead of writing Lucy’s name, I wrote Avery’s name there.

  And when I was working on the book and got to that part, I saw my mistake and then thought, wait a minute, that’s a far more interesting way for this secret to come out! Instead of Lucy disclosing her story, what if Avery tells her secret! What if it causes a big problem in their friendship? And that ended up being my favorite part of the story!

  So I did outline, but I always like to leave myself open to surprises, changes, and lucky typos!

  Q: What are you working on now?

  A: I am working on another middle grade novel, this one about mothers and daughters.

  I’m in the middle of that life-sandwich now--I have a daughter and I am a daughter--and while none of the three characters in this upcoming book are at all like my daughter, my mother, or me, it’s fascinating to think about these relationships from a different perspective.

  There’s also some time travel/magical realism in the book, so that’s new and fun and different for me!

  I also write regularly as a journalist about sustainability, specifically sustainable makeup, skincare, body care, and accessories. I love combining my interest in skincare with my passion for environmental activism.

  I’m particularly focused on ethical sourcing of ingredients, which can mean that they are procured in a way that is environmentally responsible and/or that the people who grow and harvest the crops are treated and compensated fairly (and, ideally, both!).

  So many indie companies are doing great work in this area, and it's fun to shine a light on them.

  Q: Anything else we should know?

  A: I’m donating some of my proceeds from AfterMath to a few different gun violence prevention organizations I admire, and hope that readers will feel inspired to get involved somehow with the movement to end gun violence and create common sense gun laws.

  Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America https://momsdemandaction.org/

  Everytown for Gun Safety https://www.everytown.org/

  The Ana Grace Project https://anagraceproject.org/

  Survivors Empowered https://www.survivorsempowered.org/

  Sandy Hook Promise https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/

  --Interview with Deborah Kalb

• JEWISH BOOKS FOR KIDS…AND MORE! - https://jewishbooksforkids.com/2021/12/21/interview-with-emily-barth-isler-author-of-aftermath/

  Interview with Emily Barth Isler, author of AFTERMATH
  December 21, 2021
  Emily Barth Isler is the author of AFTERMATH (Carolrhoda Books, 2021), a beautiful, honest novel about empathy, compassion, and the deepest kind of loss. In the story, Lucy grapples with her grief over her little brother’s death. But when her family moves to a new town that had experienced a school shooting, Lucy finds solace in an unlikely friendship. AFTERMATH is a multi-layered story that offers readers a serious but necessary insight. Lucy’s story, and the stories of her classmates, will stay with readers.

  It’s an honor to welcome Emily and learn more about this important book.

  AFTERMATH is a story of love, loss, and trauma. Lucy has lost a brother, and her new classmates have experienced a school shooting. As a writer, how did you balance these different experiences and perspectives?

  It was very important to me that the readers’ point of entry for the story was an outsider to the school shooting. Most of the people who read the book will, themselves, be outsiders, and I wanted them to have Lucy as their portal into the fictional world of Queensland, VA. However, as you said, Lucy has also experienced loss, though it is a different loss. One of my goals in writing AfterMath was to inspire the kind of empathy we all should have for every human we encounter. There’s that meme, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” (It’s been attributed to at least four or five different people, so I will leave it unattributed). I think this is a wonderful, important way to go through life, and something really valuable for kids to think about. Everyone you meet has a story.

  Although AFTERMATH is fiction, your characters and their experiences are realistic. Did you do any kind of research to help you create authentic characters?

  I read every article I could find about the ongoing gun violence crisis in America for a few years. Sadly, it felt like a daily occurrence that a new piece of journalism would come out that somehow gave me insight, empathy, and ideas about what life was like for the characters in my book. I have also consulted pediatricians, psychologists, and survivors themselves— really generous people who have shared their experiences with me, and graciously agreed to read the book— to make sure it was a sensitive and as helpful as possible.

  Emily Barth Isler
  Lucy and her family are Jewish. In what ways does their Judaism impact them throughout the novel?

  The first and most obvious of ways that we see Judaism impacting Lucy’s family is when her mother, Victoria, talks about her own grandparents who were Holocaust survivors. She makes the connection that they, much like Lucy’s new classmates, witnessed unspeakable horrors and tragedy, and yet still managed to go on and find meaning and joy in life. Sadly, most Jews have learned this lesson via their own relatives or through stories of Jewish persecution and suffering, but it has taught us that there is often another chapter, and hopefully a way to continue on and find that joy and meaning.

  Lucy’s forgiveness of Avery, when Avery tells Lucy’s secret, is inspired by Jewish teachings, too. The ideas of second chances, repentance, forgiveness, and trying again are things we learn when we all go to synagogue for Yom Kippur and collectively disclose our mistakes, vowing together to do better in the next year. We ask each other for forgiveness every year on that holiday, which is great practice for doing it in everyday life, as well as a reminder that it is necessary, and means that we’re human.

  I also think of the Passover Seder when I think about Lucy and Avery, like the phrase “Let all who are hungry come and eat.” There’s always a space at the table. Technically, in the book, it’s Avery’s table that Lucy sits down at, but in the more practical sense, it’s Lucy who invites Avery to be part of her life.

  I think Lucy’s whole friendship with Avery is very Jewish in that she is offering space at the table to someone who has historically been excluded. She welcomes the stranger, even when she, herself, is also a stranger. Even once she learns why Avery is an outcast, Lucy doesn’t let other kids’ actions change her feelings about being Avery’s friend. She sees that she’s in a unique position to offer friendship to someone who is so desperately lonely, and she does. And later, she forgives Avery’s mistakes and gives her a second chance. I can’t think of anything more inherently Jewish than that!

  I was certainly inspired by my own Jewish values and things I learned in my Jewish upbringing to write this book, and I think the idea of keeping loved ones alive after they die by remembering them and talking about them is a way that Lucy’s family is influenced by Jewish teachings. I actually named Lucy’s parents, Victoria and Beau, after two people who died before I started working on the book, the same way many of us name our children after relatives we’ve lost in the Jewish tradition. Victoria is for our family friend, Vickie Gelfman, and Beau was named for President Biden’s son, both of whom died of cancer in the year before I began writing AfterMath. I felt compelled to infuse meaning and remembrance into the story whenever I could. (The grandparents Victoria speaks of are named after my husband’s grandparents, to whom I was very close!)

  What do you hope young readers come away with after reading AFTERMATH?

  I hope that parents and kids alike will see AfterMath as a vehicle through which to have hard conversations. I know that AfterMath is not the answer to gun violence in schools— that situation is far more complex and requires moving bigger mountains than I can with my words. While I hope the book is a step in the right direction, I mostly hope it’s a conversation starter. School shootings are a taboo conversation for a lot of kids. Many don’t know of their existence yet. Others will see about them on the news or hear about them in school. Most kids in the United States participate in Active Shooter Drills of some kind, and even if the school calls them something else, kids will eventually figure out what they’re training for, huddled in closets and hiding under tables.

  I wanted to give them a chance to say the scariest things out loud, to read the words they’re too scared to imagine, to put themselves in the shoes of those they never hope to be or understand. I wrote AfterMath because losing someone I love is my greatest fear. Writing into my fears is one way I deal with them. Putting the words out there makes it all a little less scary. It takes some of the power back from the fear and gives it to me, the author.

  I want kids who read this book to know they have the same options. Writing about your scariest fears can help take the intensity out of them. Talking about your deepest worries might make them less powerful. Reading a book about something that scares you doesn’t make it any more or less likely to happen, it simply gives you the tools to talk about it with a grown up you trust. It takes away the mystery a little bit.

  And for parents who, like I do, sit helplessly by their child’s bed at night, hoping something awful like a school shooting never happens to their kid, I see you. But refusing to talk about it— in an age appropriate manner, of course— doesn’t help anyone. I want this book to give you a frame in which to see, feel, and talk about these fears we all have.

  The likelihood that each of us will encounter someone in our life who is directly affected by gun violence grows every single day. Every time a mass shooting happens, every time a child is tragically shot, the survivors of gun violence multiply. And every time one of these horrible events is covered by the news, as they must be, we are all affected.

  The truth is, we’re all victims of gun violence in some way. Not to say that we’re all equally affected— surely, those who live through incidents first-hand are not the same as those of us who observe from the outside— but any parent who has ever dropped their kid off at school and feared for their safety, every family who has ever worried on their way to temple or mosque or church that a shooting might occur, every one of us who hears a loud noise and worries it’s a gunshot, is a victim of this epidemic. We are all affected, and we must all deal with our collective trauma. I hope that reading AfterMath is part of that healing for the people who read it. I hope it starts some conversations that need to be had. I hope it makes some kid out there feel less alone.

  Thank you, Emily!

  Emily Barth Isler is the author of AfterMath, a middle grade novel about grief, resilience, friendship, math, and mime. Activist and comedian Amy Schumer calls the book “a gift to the culture.” Emily lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and their two kids. A former child actress, she performed all over the world in theatre, film, and TV. In addition to books, Emily writes about sustainable, eco-friendly beauty and skincare, and has also written web sitcoms, parenting columns, and personal essays. She has a B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, and really, really loves television. Find her at www.emilybarthisler.com

• JEWISH BOOKS FOR KIDS…AND MORE! - https://jewishbooksforkids.com/2024/04/07/interview-with-emily-barth-isler-author-of-the-color-of-sound/

  Interview with Emily Barth Isler, author of THE COLOR OF SOUND
  April 7, 2024
  Emily Barth Isler’s middle-grade book, THE COLOR OF SOUND (Carolrhoda Books, 2024), follows twelve-year-old Rosie, who has synesthesia. Although Rosie is a gifted musician, she refuses to play her violin. She also struggles with her mom and has issues with her best friend. Stuck spending the summer at her grandparents’ home, Rosie embarks on a surprising journey of self-discovery. Emily has done a remarkable job of creating an extraordinary character that readers will want to embrace. I’m excited to chat with her about her journey creating this wonderful story.

  Welcome back, Emily!

  Rosie is a gifted musician and she also has synesthesia, which allows her to see sound in unusual ways – in music, but also in emotions of others. On your website, you share that you also have synesthesia. How is Rosie’s experience with synesthesia different/similar to yours?

  I knew when I started writing this story that I really wanted Rosie to have synesthesia, but that I didn’t want her experience with it to be exactly like mine. First of all, there are so many ways to experience the world, and there are many, many types of synesthesia. This book is fiction, not an autobiography, so I decided to make Rosie’s synesthetic experience different from mine just to separate the story from my life. But it also made a lot of sense for Rosie’s type of synesthesia to be more connected to music and colors to better serve the story– I didn’t want it to just be a detail about her, but rather an ability that actually contributes to the storytelling in a meaningful way, so that was yet another reason to differentiate Rosie’s synesthesia and mine.

  While my experience with synesthesia has more to do with numbers, letters, words, and time, as well as with music, I wanted Rosie’s to help illustrate her musical gift in a tangible way for the audience, to help show how her musical gift isn’t only part of her life when she’s playing the violin, but that her connection to music is so much a part of her brain all the time.

  Emily Barth Isler
  What challenges did you face creating an authentic voice for Rosie that embraced both her adult-like abilities and experiences as a musician, and her kid-like needs for love and friendship?

  In this particular way, Rosie is a lot like I was at her age. While I wasn’t a musical prodigy in the way she is, I was a “kid professional”– I worked as a professional actor, singer, and performer starting at age five, so I knew that feeling of existing in two separate worlds: the adult world of professional theater, and the kid world of school.

  Now I’m a parent of tweens, and while I am VERY careful to not write about my own kids or mine from their lives, it does help me keep the writing voice for MG in mind when I’m drafting!

  It was easy to slip back into the mindset of a kid who also exists in the adult world even though times have changed in the 30-some years since I was in Rosie’s shoes. The feelings and conflicting needs are still the same!

  When Rosie meets a younger version of her mom, the connection helps her understand her family in new ways. Can you tell me a bit about your creative decision to use magical realism in the novel?

  I didn’t originally set out to use magic in the book at all– it happened very organically and almost by accident, and I kind of went with it! It was really a lot of wish fulfillment on my part! What I wouldn’t give to meet my mom when she was the age I am now and have a real, honest talk with her in that moment! And also the reverse: the chance to bend time and talk to my kids as peers at their current ages would be so magical, too! In this case, the time glitch is a vehicle or metaphor for empathy– the literal opportunity to try and “meet someone where they are.”

  For a long time, I didn’t personally gravitate towards reading books with any kind of magic or time travel, but as I’ve gotten older and seen that there are some questions in the world we just cannot answer or reason, I’ve started to appreciate a little “unexplained” in fiction. And in this case, in particular, it felt like the best way to serve the story. I wanted Rosie to come to new levels of understanding for her mom, and I couldn’t think of a better way for her to see that her mom was once a somewhat struggling 12-year-old who was also not connecting with her parents, too, than to show it, both to the readers AND to Rosie!

  I think a lot of kids have a hard time picturing their parents as kids. We all know intellectually that everyone older than us was once our age and that some of the things we go through as tweens or kids are so universal, but actually imagining our parents as children is quite hard. So I wanted to take that and make it quite literal for two reasons: 1) so that Rosie could understand what her mom’s life was like at that age, but also 2) so that Rosie could see (and share with the reader) all of the ways Shanna had changed in the thirty years between them. It’s a great way to remind kids that parents and grownups are people, too– that they’re not perfect or all-knowing or always wise, that they have hurts and heartaches, too. That parents and grandparents make decisions and choices we sometimes can’t understand because they’re reacting to things we don’t know about. I hope it helps readers develop some empathy and compassion. They don’t need to forgive their elders’ mistakes, per se, but to understand them a little better.

  Rosie’s family has a lot of secrets, and only when they are shared can the family heal from past hurt, some that stems from the Holocaust. Why do you think it’s important for young readers to understand generational trauma?

  I think we are learning more and more how we both literally and figuratively are made up of all of the experiences and characteristics of our ancestors! When we think about genetics, we think blue eyes or brown, blond hair or big ears or a proclivity for sports or music. If our genetics hold all that code, what other gifts and traumas is it also conveying? Science has come so far in the last generation or two, and there’s still a lot we don’t understand about epigenetic inheritance.

  Regardless, our genetics are only part of the story– it’s the old nature vs. nurture debate, too. I think many parents– myself included– sometimes find ourselves parenting in reaction to the ways we were parented. We think we’re consciously picking and choosing the wisdom we want to impart to our kids and, if privileged enough to do so, carefully and methodically creating an environment and routines that will give our kids a certain feeling of security or responsibility or whatever it is we’re going for. But of course there are also the things we impart unconsciously, the things we carry with us that we don’t know we’re bringing into the picture, or maybe we do but we don’t understand how we’re repeating some of the same patterns.

  I loved delving into this line of thinking while writing the book, and hope that it resonates with both kids reading the book, and the adults– teachers, parents, etc., who will read and discuss it alongside them!

  Thank you, Emily!

  Emily Barth Isler is an author of essays and children’s books, including the middle grade novel AfterMath and the forthcoming picture book Always Enough Love. Emily writes regularly about sustainability, organic/eco-friendly skincare, and healthy beauty products for magazines and blogs. Her next book, The Color of Sound, features a character who, like Emily, has synesthesia. She has a BA in Film Studies from Wesleyan University and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children.

• Lerner Books - https://lernerbooks.blog/2021/09/aftermath-an-interview-with-emily-barth-isler.html

  AFTERMATH: AN INTERVIEW WITH EMILY BARTH ISLER

  In AfterMath, twelve-year-old Lucy is still grieving her little brother, Theo, who recently died from a congenital heart defect. Her parents are so intent on a “fresh start” that she doesn’t know how to talk to them anymore. And the other kids in her grade are survivors of a very different kind of tragedy: a school shooting that devastated their small town four years ago. Without the shared past that both unites and divides her classmates, Lucy feels lost. Even her love of math doesn’t offer the absolute answers she craves. But when an after-school mime class gives her a chance to forge new kinds of connections, Lucy finds that while grief can take many shapes and sadness may feel infinite, love is just as powerful.

  Debut author Emily Barth Isler shares her writing journey and the books that inspired her. Read on to find a book trailer, free discussion guide, and so much more!

  Book Trailer

  Author Interview

  What made you want to become a writer?
  I think I always wanted to be a writer— my father is a writer and his father, my grandfather, was as well, and in some ways it seemed inevitable to me that I would be a writer, too. But I took a big detour first! I worked as a professional actor from the age of 5 until my late 20s. I loved being a child actor, because it felt like an extension of play, a chance to be creative and work with amazing people. But as an adult, when I moved to New York after college to keep acting, it started to feel more like a job than a fun, creative thing. Of course, I had some great gigs, played fun roles, worked on soap operas, commercials, stage, and TV, but I started getting more interested in the scripts than I was in actually acting in them. Acting started to feel like a habit— I’d been doing it basically my whole life— rather than a choice. I got to the point where I didn’t want to say someone else’s words anymore… I wanted to write my own words!

  This is when I knew it was time to return to my true passion, writing. To me, writing felt more personal and more daunting than acting. Sure, acting puts your body and face on display, can make you feel vulnerable in front of a crowd, but writing means bearing a piece of your soul! This felt far more scary to me!! Luckily, I was ready to really embrace it around the time I was pregnant with my first child. I also knew I wanted a more flexible career, where I could decide what and when I wrote, and I started writing my first novel.

  Was it easy to become a writer?
  Writing that first book wasn’t the easy magic I hoped it would be; I didn’t immediately sell it overnight! In fact, I didn’t sell that first book at all! Being a writer means doing many things, and along the way, I wrote marketing content, sponsored entertainment for web companies, social media content, articles for magazines and websites, blogs, short stories, and even a sitcom! There are a billion ways to be a writer, which is what I love about it! If you’re writing, you’re a writer! You don’t need a crew or a set or fancy materials, you just need a story you want to tell and a way to put it on paper! You don’t even need a reader, at first. Writing is something you can do on your own time— an amazing creative outlet!

  I like to think of myself as more of a storyteller. I used to tell stories as an actor; then I translated my storytelling skills to the page. The goal is still the same: I want to make people think, feel things, and experience the world through someone else’s eyes.

  What kind of books do you like to write?
  I love to write contemporary stories, ones about people who could live right here and now. I write for a huge range of audiences, from picture books meant for babies and their families, to books for adults. I love love-stories of all kids, whether romantic or familial or friendship. I like writing about people and relationships, and I always want to make the audience feel something.

  What books did you read as a kid that influenced you?
  The Anne of Green Gables series and the Little House on the Prairie books are some of the earliest influences I can remember. My parents would read to us on long car trips and at night before bed, and our whole family would laugh and cry together over all those books.

  I read Lois Lowry’s The Giver when it came out in 1993, and it floored me. I read it again and again and again. I think it was one of the first dystopian stories I’d ever experienced, and it blew my mind in the best way— wide open! It offered a world where the parents couldn’t be counted on, where the “grownups” in charge weren’t all operating in everyone’s best interests, and I couldn’t believe a book could make me feel the way The Giver made me feel. It was sad and hopeful and inspiring and terrifying and lovely, all at once. (Bonus points if you noticed I reference it in AfterMath— it’s the book Lucy is reading at lunch the first time she talks to Avery!) I also loved Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars— I was later in a touring production of the play adaptation of it in my early teens! Really, I loved all of Ms. Lowry’s work— the Anastasia books were some of my favorites.

  Ann Rinaldi was a big influence on me. She wrote historical fiction, and she always wrote from the most unexpected perspectives. She told stories we all thought we knew, but from the point of view of someone witnessing it in a way we could never have imagined. I loved that, and will always be grateful to Ms. Rinaldi for her work.

  I loved to read a good series as a kid— Sleepover Friends and The Saddle Club were two that I particularly adored. I loved following the same, beloved characters across many books. I think that inspired my love of character development, and also television, since a great TV show is a lot like a book series!

  Caroline B. Cooney, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, and Katherine Patterson were some of the other authors I adored in childhood and beyond.

  Are any of the characters in the book modeled after people from your real life?
  Mr. Jackson is an amalgam of a two great teachers in my life, Terry Sullivan and Eric Ebersole.

  Mr. Sullivan was my middle school Gifted and Talented teacher— the first person (outside of my parents) who told me I was a writer and really encouraged me to write. My sixth grade year, he taught an after-school mime class much like the one in AfterMath, and the things I learned in that class are still with me to this day, 30 years later. Mr. Sullivan encouraged me to write a play, and then to enter it into a contest, which I won!

  Mr. Ebersole was my calculus teacher for two years in high school. He’s the teacher who, like Mr. Jackson does in the book, did the Zeno’s Paradox demonstration in class to explain infinity— obviously, that had a tremendous impact on me! Mr. Ebersole used to tell us all that there was no such thing as “not being a math-person.” You’d never say, “I’m not really an English Language Arts person” or “I’m not really a reader.” He taught me to find math applications in my every day life, and, when we needed a break from calculus, he’d take out his guitar and sing with us.

  Photo credit: Beja Grinage
  What is the most surprising thing you discovered while researching or writing the book?
  I really didn’t think that this story had anything to do with me, personally, other than my strong personal belief in gun sense laws, and my fear as a parent for the safety of my kids. But after I was done writing the book, I realized that the way the kids at Lucy’s new school talk frankly and bluntly about their trauma was really similar to the way I dealt with a trauma from my childhood.

  I survived a traumatic incident towards the end of high school, when I was seventeen. Beyond the immediate aftermath, I basically compartmentalized the incident, and buried my trauma. A year or so later, when I was away at college, I started dealing with the trauma I had experienced, and, once in therapy and confronting it, I went through a phase of several years when I would tell anyone I met about this traumatic incident. “Hi! Nice to meet you. I’m Emily. Want to hear this crazy, awful thing that happened to me?” Yes, it was a lot. I am sorry to all the people I met in those years, and for all the times I completely inappropriately shared my horrific story in really inopportune moments!

  But I am glad I was able to use this experience— however unconsciously!— in the writing of this book. Every character in AfterMath has gone through something traumatic. Every person we meet in life has, likely, been through something as well. One of my goals in writing AfterMath was to inspire the kind of empathy we all should have for every human we encounter. There’s that meme, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” (It’s been attributed to at least four or five different people, so I will leave it unattributed). I think this is a wonderful, important way to go through life, and something really valuable for kids to think about. Everyone you meet has a story. Many of those stories have sad or difficult elements. Not everyone will spill their deep, dark secrets to you when they first meet you, like I did in my late teens/early 20s! (Which is probably a really good thing, let’s be honest!). But know that everyone is working through something.

  What do you hope readers will learn or discover from reading your book?
  Even more importantly than realizing that everyone is fighting a battle is knowing that each one of those people has inherent value, beyond and separate from that trauma. Not every trauma survivor wants to be known by or because of what happened to them. Many don’t want to be defined by their most painful experiences. I wanted kids reading this book to see that there is life beyond trauma. Just because something horrible happens to someone doesn’t mean their life is over, or that the rest of their life has to be defined by this one thing. We are all books. Each event is just a chapter. It’s part of your story, but not the whole thing.

  How long did it take you to write the first draft of AfterMath?
  I never believed in “the muse” before— never thought that an idea could just come to you, fully formed, but this idea really did come to me, pretty much fully formed! I had two small children when I got the idea, so I wrote the book in five- and ten-minute chunks during naps and snack times. I often say that if I had had forty-eight uninterrupted hours, I think I could’ve written the first draft of this book in a single sitting. But I didn’t, so I wrote it in tiny pieces while taking care of my kids full-time, over the course of three weeks. But it was another five years of drafts and rewriting to become the book it is today. Some things have changed from the first draft— certainly, much has been added, but very little of the basic truths have changed. It has always been about Lucy and her parents, Lucy and Joshua, Lucy and Avery, and, of course, the teacher we all want in our lives, Mr. Jackson.

  I owe a debt of gratitude to my brilliant agent, Kari Sutherland, who then took this first draft and asked me the right questions to get to the heart of the story, producing a far more cohesive and compassionate second (and third, and fourth!) draft. Then, the incomparable Amy Fitzgerald, my editor, took the book even further, making the book all that it is with her thoughtfulness and insight.

  AfterMath Audiobook
  AfterMath is now available as an audiobook narrated by author Emily Barth Isler! Give your audio-readers this beautiful novel for only $6.99.

  Teacher Resources
  Download this free discussion guide to start a conversation about the tough topics in AfterMath.

  AfterMath_DiscussionGuideDOWNLOAD
  In this activity guide you’ll find crosswords, writing prompts and more! Download this free resource and share with your students to encourage comprehension and creativity.

  AfterMath_Activities-and-Writing-PromptsDOWNLOAD
  Author Video

  Praise and Further Reading for AfterMath
  “It’s an honest and surprisingly hopeful story about the way love and joy can return to lives that grief has shaped.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

  “This book is a gift to the culture.” —Amy Schumer

  “Like Jewell Parker Rhodes’ Ghost Boys, Isler’s novel takes the timely and realistic topic of gun violence and turns it into an engaging story without sensationalizing it.”—Booklist

  “[T]his novel comes pretty close to perfect in its fearless and compassionate exploration of the sorrows, struggles, and hard-won maturing of a spunky twelve-year-old as she deals with the aftermath of loss.”—Judith Viorst, author of The Tenth Good Thing about Barney

  “AfterMath is gorgeously written, infinitely heart-wrenching, and tragically timely. Lucy’s voice is powerful and distinct. I loved this novel.” —Leslie Margolis, author of Ghosted, We Are Party People, and the Maggie Brooklyn Mysteries

  “Showing a keen understanding of loss, Isler’s compassionate debut is written with stark honesty, showcasing various responses to tragedy . . .”—Publishers Weekly

  “Isler nose-dives into the perhaps taboo topic of school shootings, yet breathes healing, change, and math into the emotional ­catharsis.”—School Library Journal

  Read Emily Barth Isler’s Soapbox article released in Publishers Weekly here!

  Jewish Women’s Archive also ran this article by Emily Barth Isler.

• Lerner Books - https://lernerbooks.blog/2024/03/the-color-of-sound-an-interview-with-author-emily-barth-isler.html

  THE COLOR OF SOUND: AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR EMILY BARTH ISLER

  In The Color of Sound violin prodigy Rosie desperately wants the chance to experience a “normal” life and refuses to play her instrument for a summer. Upset, her mother sends her to her grandparents’ house where she meets another girl her age hanging out on the property. The girl is familiar, and Rosie quickly pieces it together: somehow, this girl is her mother, when her mother was twelve. Rosie begins to understand her mother, herself, and her love of music in new ways.

  Today author Emily Barth Isler joins us to talk about her inspiration for this middle grade novel, her experience with synesthesia, and more! Read on to download the free discussion guide and watch the official book trailer.

  Where did you get the idea of a twelve-year-old talking to her mother as a twelve-year-old?
  This idea came from being a parent myself. I often wished that I could show my daughter, in particular, how much I’d been like her as a kid. I kept telling her that I had a lot of similar worries and thoughts when I was her age, and I think at one point I said, “I wish I could go back in time and talk to you as myself when I was your age!” So that was the seed of the story.

  How would you describe the process of writing this book?
  I pictured it like braiding a challah (the bread many Jews make and eat for Shabbat and other holidays). Unlike, say, a hair braid that generally has three strands, a challah can have six or more strands, and you just keep weaving them in. I remember watching my mom braid a challah when I was a kid and thinking, Gosh, the strands just keep coming out of nowhere—there are so many, and you have to just keep weaving them all in!

  Writing The Color of Sound was a lot like that. There were so many elements I wanted to weave into the story: music, synesthesia, time-bending glitches, family history, parent/child relationships, swimming, dogs… Every time I added an element, I worried, “Is this one too much?” But I kept weaving them in, like strands of challah, hoping everything would eventually coalesce into something like a tasty, meaningful loaf of bread.

  Why did you decide to write about a character with synesthesia? How did you decide how much of your own neurodivergent identity to disclose?
  I knew that if I chose to write this book, my own neurodivergence would inevitably come up. I weighed the pros and cons of talking openly about my own brain, my own way of thinking, and how it shapes my life. I think it’s important for authors to create boundaries. We’re telling stories, often about things we’ve experienced or things that have happened to us, but we don’t owe the world our innermost thoughts or intimate truths unless we want to share those.

  I made a conscious decision that Rosie’s synesthesia would be different enough from mine that I could keep some of my own experiences for myself. (There are around eighty different types of synesthesia—that researchers have identified so far—and even within one of those categories, individual experiences often differ.)

  When I was growing up, I didn’t feel I had the option to admit I had a pretty severe anxiety disorder and OCD. I was taught by society at large that these were things I should hide. I’m not sure what messaging I would’ve gotten related to my synesthesia when I was a kid, because I didn’t realize I had it until I was an adult. (This is common for people with synesthesia; many aren’t aware that their sensory experiences aren’t “typical.”) I think I would’ve realized I had synesthesia a lot sooner if it were more widely written about! I’d just assumed that the way my brain worked was the way everyone’s brain worked. In real life, we don’t have the opportunity to get inside other peoples’ heads, to see how they experience the world. So I love that books can provide a simulated peek into someone else’s thoughts—which can inspire curiosity, learning, and a greater understanding of ourselves and others. I want to provide that for kids who read this book.

  I feel so lucky that we’re living in a time when it’s becoming safer and more normalized to be open about neurodivergence, mental health, and conditions like OCD, anxiety, and depression. If my books help readers to gain language related to neurodiversity, start asking questions, and develop empathy, then I’ve done my job.

  What was your childhood like compared to Rosie’s?
  I wasn’t a child prodigy like Rosie, but I did experience early artistic success, which helps me understand some of the pressures Rosie faces. I started acting and singing professionally at the age of five. I worked steadily in local and regional theater, commercials, and industrial films for my entire school-aged years. My mom likes to say I went to kindergarten while “working nights,” and that’s not untrue. When I was in a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita four days a week, I would arrive at the theater by seven thirty, finish up a show around eleven, come home to sleep, and wake up in time for my afternoon kindergarten class. It was an unusual routine!

  As I got older, I got cast in other stage projects and in local TV spots, and I sang in the children’s choir at Baltimore’s prestigious Peabody Conservatory. I had the privilege to perform in settings like the White House, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and on tour with the stage adaptation of one of my favorite books, Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars.

  But all the while, my parents wanted me to have a normal childhood, so I also played soccer (not well!), danced (slightly better), went to Hebrew School, played three instruments (piano, viola, and harp), and—unlike Rosie—had fun with friends.

  The summer before I went to second grade, I had a chance to audition for a touring Broadway show. My parents gave me a choice: did I want to audition and then possibly travel around the country for a whole year, or did I want to go to second grade with my friends? I considered it and came quite easily to the answer: “I want to go to second grade.” And my parents listened to me and respected my gut instinct. Knowing I had the option to turn down opportunities gave me a sense of empowerment—and helped me feel that performing was fun, rather than a burden. I’m really grateful that my parents didn’t put the kind of pressure on me that Rosie’s parents put on her. I saw this happen with a lot of other kid performers. I’m not saying that any approach is all good or all bad—just that these experiences, both firsthand and observed, shaped my ideas for what Rosie’s life might be like.

  What other experiences shaped the story?
  Swimming! While writing this novel, I started swimming laps regularly—something I’d never thought I could do—and it has brought me so much joy. I’m by no means a fast or graceful swimmer. My mantra is “my job is to move my body from one side of the pool to the other,” and it’s so incredibly peaceful. I swim because it feels good, not to punish or shape or change my body. I swim because to me it’s meditation—I tune out all the noise, since I can’t listen to podcasts or audiobooks like I do when I walk or drive or do laundry.

  I essentially wrote most of The Color of Sound while swimming. I do my best thinking while in the pool, and I keep my phone with my notes app handy so I can jot down whole plot lines and swathes of dialogue. Swimming actually became a fairly big plot point in the novel as a result!

  This has been a lesson for me: It’s never too late to try something new, something you assumed wasn’t for you. And it might have unexpected benefits, the way swimming has helped my writing.

  What was the biggest change you made in the story over the course of writing and revising?
  The specific role of Rosie’s family history—particularly the impact of the Holocaust and its aftermath on the family’s relationship to music—evolved as I wrote the story. In my original outline, I knew there needed to be some way to track the influences of previous generations on Rosie’s life, but I didn’t exactly know how I was going to convey that when I started writing.

  While I was writing, my sister was contacted by a distant cousin whom we’d never met. They tentatively exchanged details and eventually found that they had photographs of each other’s ancestors from before World War II. It also turned out that the Holocaust echoes inside us in similarly distinctive ways—the stories we grew up hearing, the things our grandparents and their families endured, the ways that later generations (us!) were driven to strive, to fear, to protect, to believe.

  It was so exhilarating to discover this long-lost cousin—to feel a sense of connection with a stranger from across the globe who happened to share genetics with us. It made me think about all the different ways we can be connected to other people. I wanted to capture some of that in this book. I’m always conscious of what is whose story to tell and who gets to control what narrative, but I hope I was able to infuse those feelings of connection into Rosie’s story, sharing some of these present-day Jewish experience with readers.

  How was the process of writing The Color of Sound different from the process of writing AfterMath?
  These two processes were polar opposites—night and day! AfterMath was the third book I wrote but the first that was published. The Color of Sound was the tenth book I wrote and the second published. But I don’t think that the primary difference in writing experiences has much to do with whether a book was written third or tenth—or probably even twentieth—as much as timing and circumstances.

  I sold The Color of Sound to my editor, Amy Fitzgerald, as an outline and three chapters. We talked through a lot of the ideas and themes early in my writing process, which was incredibly helpful! And since the project had already sold, writing it was not an optional project. I had the advantage (and sometimes disadvantage, honestly!) of knowing that this book was going to be published—that people were definitely going to read it! This meant it was more of a job than writing AfterMath, which had no guarantee of being published when I was drafting it.

  There’s also something about writing a book after having (finally!) published another one. You can’t help but think of all the things you learned from the publication process of that first book: the comments you got along the way, the reviews, the chatter from readers and social media, the marketing efforts that worked and those that didn’t pan out, etc. It would be really easy to let all that noise get in the way of, well, ever writing anything else again!

  But I chose to channel that toward inspiration rather than fear. And this time, I had the support of my editor, Amy, and the whole Lerner team, from the very beginning of the process.

  Official Book Trailer
  Share this short trailer with your middle grade readers!

  Free Educator Resource
  Download the free discussion guide to engage students after reading. This can be found below or on the Lerner website.

  The-Color-of-Sound_DiscussionGuideDOWNLOAD
  Praise for The Color of Sound
  ★ “Intricately entwining interpersonal growth with each character’s relationship to their Jewish faith and culture, Isler highlights the role of family history in identity formation through metaphorical time travel. Color-centric imagery rendered in immersive prose translates Rosie’s synesthesia in this salient celebration of family, music, and neurodiversity.” — starred, Publishers Weekly

  ★ “Isler crafts an exceptionally honest portrayal of complicated mother-daughter dynamics, and a protagonist whose independence and kindness is a stunning solo. . . a perfect book club pick and a reminder to all that patience and understanding can change lives.” — starred, School Library Journal

  “A moving and pensive read. . .” — Booklist

  “This beautifully written book presents a protagonist who learns to love music, color, religion, friendship, acting, and all the possibilities inherent in a brighter future. Readers will identify with Rosie and her extended family as they march into the years ahead — years that are suddenly filled with the promise of joy and accomplishment.” — The Jewish Book Council

  Connect with the Author

  Emily Barth Isler is an author of essays and children’s books, including the middle grade novel AfterMath and the forthcoming picture book Always Enough Love. Emily writes regularly about sustainability, organic/eco-friendly skincare, and healthy beauty products for magazines and blogs. Her next book, The Color of Sound, features a character who, like Emily, has synesthesia. She has a BA in Film Studies from Wesleyan University and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children.

• Publishers Weekly - https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/94471-four-questions-with-emily-barth-isler.html

  Four Questions for Emily Barth Isler
  By Diane Debrovner | Feb 29, 2024
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  In Emily Barth Isler’s second middle grade novel, The Color of Sound,12-year-old Rosie’s synesthesia causes her senses to intermingle. Frustrated by being known as only a violin prodigy, she goes on a music strike. Instead of going to music camp, she spends the summer with her mother visiting her grandmother who has Alzheimer’s. She learns more about her family history during the Holocaust and the generational trauma that has shaped her mother’s controlling personality. As in her debut, Aftermath, Isler explores how neurodivergence shapes her characters’ perspectives in unique ways. She spoke with PW about brain differences and the tension between wanting to both blend in and stand out.

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  Your descriptions of how Rosie sees sounds in color are so vivid, they practically jump off the page. As you state in your author’s note, this was a very personal book. How did your own synesthesia impact your writing?

  This was the first time I’d tried to put the experience of having synesthesia into words, and once I opened that door, it just flowed. I was able to be as open and authentic as I wanted because it served this character and the story. But I also felt pressure to get it right and not misrepresent any piece of it. That’s why I chose to make Rosie’s type of synesthesia similar to mine but different. There are more than 80 types of synesthesia that we know about. It was very freeing to be able to say I relate to this, but it’s not my exact experience.

  For a long time, people didn’t take synesthesia seriously. It’s very real, but it’s also a great metaphor for the ways in which we each have our own subjective human experience—and that can feel lonely, especially for adolescents. Like Rosie, you may think you’re the only person who’s ever felt a certain way. I wasn’t diagnosed with synesthesia until my early 30s. When I first learned what synesthesia was, it was a strange and beautiful experience to realize that so many of the things that I’d thought were just me were actually part of a larger brain type.

  Both of your books explore the experience of being neurodivergent. How would you like us to think of that term more broadly than we typically do?

  After I wrote Aftermath, many people asked me whether the main character Lucy has OCD. In retrospect, I realized that she does, but I wasn’t thinking about that when I wrote it. I was just putting myself in Lucy’s shoes and it didn’t occur to me to pathologize or diagnose her—in the same way that we often don’t pathologize or diagnose ourselves because we only know our own lived experience. Writing The Color of Sound was such an eye-opener about my own synesthesia and OCD.

  For a long time, I was hesitant to use the term neurodivergent to describe myself because I had only heard it used to describe autism spectrum disorders and maybe ADHD. I have a friend whose daughter is on the autism spectrum and she gave me permission to think of neurodiversity as an umbrella. Lots of people are neurodivergent in some way, and by stepping under that umbrella, it has given me great empathy for all the other people under it.

  I hope we can see a more expansive acceptance of neurodiversity, in the same way that we see body diversity and gender identity. When I visit schools, just as so many kids introduce themselves along with their pronouns, they’re getting comfortable talking about their neurodivergence, whether it’s ADHD, being on the autism spectrum, dyslexia, OCD, or synesthesia. When I was a kid, we were taught not to talk about mental health, but society has changed. I wasn’t diagnosed with OCD until my late teens, but now I see it as my superpower. It is such a big part of my creativity. When it is well managed with medication and therapy, it’s what makes me constantly think about what’s going to happen next in a story. It has been very freeing to come out as a neurodivergent person in my 40s, particularly after keeping my OCD a secret for so long. Our differences can be our strengths. I’ve been able to utilize my OCD to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a storyteller. I hope that some kid out there who’s just gotten diagnosed with something that may seem scary will understand that someday they may be able to harness it into making the life they want for themself.

  “
  I hope that some kid out there who's just gotten diagnosed with something that may seem scary will understand that someday they may be able to harness it into making the life they want for themself.
  ”
  Rosie has a unique situation—she is a violin prodigy with synesthesia. However, all kids can relate to the feeling of wanting to be like everyone else while also wanting to be special. Is that something you hoped readers would take away?

  Absolutely. If I look back on my childhood, one of the prevailing feelings I wrestled with was wanting to be special, but not wanting to be too different—the push and pull between when to stand out and when to blend in. When I was writing The Color of Sound, I realized that I felt the same way about being Jewish. Synesthesia works well as a metaphor for any kind of difference, like being a Jew in a world where we’re a minority. I did not start out seeing that connection, but it happened very organically as I wrote the book and the puzzle pieces fit together.

  One reason I love writing about the middle grade years is that they’re a time of self-differentiation. You need to separate yourself from your parents a bit, and that can be both terrifying and exciting—and it’s more complicated with a parent like Rosie’s, who’s so deeply invested in Rosie’s life being a certain way. I hope readers will feel empathy for Rosie and also feel seen. It can be hard to realize that who you are may be different from the way your family has seen you previously. It takes courage to stand up and say, I think I want something different or I think I am something different. I hope the book helps readers see that we can change other people’s understanding of who we need to be.

  How do you think your own neurodivergence—and identifying as a neurodivergent author—will impact your future books?

  It parallels beautifully with being a Jewish author. Every book I write will be influenced by my Jewish experience, whether it’s overt or incidental. It's the same with neurodivergence. I can’t help but infuse my experience into each of my characters. But when I’m starting a book, I always think about what I can bring to the table, so that kids reading it will feel seen and understood. I would like to hope that The Color of Sound will resonate with people who aren’t Jewish or aren’t neurodivergent, but that they’ll see in Rosie that same struggle of wanting to fit into two different worlds or feeling like you’re not exactly who you thought you were and you want to explore this other part of yourself.

  I always want to offer a peek into some kind of neurodivergence because those are the books I could have used when I was a kid. One of the interesting things about synesthesia is that people usually don’t know they have it. A lot of us sense there’s something about us that’s different, but we don’t know what it is. I had not read a book or seen a show about anybody with synesthesia, so I didn’t know what questions to ask. My goal is to write books that don’t necessarily have the answers, but can help readers formulate the questions that they’ve been needing to ask.

  The Color of Sound by Emily Barth Isler. Carolrhoda, $19.99 Mar. 5 ISBN 978-1-7284-8777-9

* ISLER, Emily Barth. The Color of Sound. 336p. Carolrhoda. Mar. 2024. Tr $19.99. ISBN 9781728487779.

Gr 3-7--Rosie is a 12-year-old violin prodigy, but she is hiding her feelings, her fears, her hopes, and her synesthesia--she experiences sound as colors. Rosie and her mom go to Connecticut for the summer to stay with grandparents she barely knows; her grandmother is dying of dementia and often doesn't know her. Rosie refuses to continue the grueling violin practices and performances that she believes prevent her from being a regular tween girl enjoying sleepovers and crushes. But she doesn't throw a tantrum; it is a considered decision that her parents might better understand if they truly listened to her. As a result of tensions with her mom, Rosie spends time with her grandfather who shows her their family history, decimated and traumatized by the tragedies of the Holocaust. Encounters with a young girl, Shanna, on the farm lead to a tentative friendship and gives Rosie an understanding of the impact of growing up in an entirely different family structure. Rosie is able, in her gracious way, not only to learn from Shanna but to also help teach and guide her mother to a place of better understanding. Isler crafts an exceptionally honest portrayal of complicated mother-daughter dynamics, and a protagonist whose independence and kindness is a stunning solo. VERDICT A top pick for any middle school collection; a perfect book club pick and a reminder to all that patience and understanding can change lives.--Lee De Groft

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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De Groft, Lee. "ISLER, Emily Barth. The Color of Sound." School Library Journal, vol. 70, no. 1, Jan. 2024, pp. 56+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A778646567/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7dc84c66. Accessed 14 June 2024.

Isler, Emily Barth THE COLOR OF SOUND Carolrhoda (Children's None) $19.99 3, 5 ISBN: 9781728487779

Going on strike gives a synesthetic musical prodigy space in her life to learn the music of her Jewish heritage.

Two things control 12-year-old Rosie's life: 1. Her unusual brain, with its full-sensory synesthesia, echoic musical memory, and exceptional violin talent; 2. her imperious stage mother. After her overpacked schedule causes Rosie to lose her only friend, she stops playing violin. Refusing music camp, she perforce accompanies her frustrated mother to her grandparents' for the summer--without devices as punishment. Connecticut offers a fresh start. Alongside secretly watching improv classes at the public library and swimming with her grandfather, Rosie learns about her Hungarian Jewish family history. Most intriguingly, through some time-travel anomaly, she encounters a girl she realizes is her mother. Shanna as a girl is so different from Shoshanna as a grown-up that Rosie wonders how the one became the other--and if she can change that outcome. Rosie is an appealing, sympathetic character who develops believably in her quest to expand both her life and her music. While the scope of her synesthesia is conveyed in a somewhat confusing way, the descriptions of her sensory perceptions are lyrical and evocative, though at times excessive. The depiction of generational trauma is poignant and subtle, from Rosie's Holocaust-survivor great-grandparents, to her dying, Alzheimer's-afflicted grandmother, to her mother. However, as a literary device, Rosie's unexplained time-travel interactions with Shanna feel awkward and unnecessary.

A quiet exploration of synesthesia, music, and family history. (discussion questions, author's note) (Fiction. 10-13)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Isler, Emily Barth: THE COLOR OF SOUND." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A780841019/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=54c9a16f. Accessed 14 June 2024.

The Color of Sound

Emily Barth Isler. Carolrhoda, $19.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-7284-8777-9

A talented tween with synesthesia probes her Jewish family's history in this sonorous tale by Isler (After Math), who contemplates the generational trauma caused by the Holocaust. Twelve-year-old "musical genius" Golden Rose Solomon, who experiences sounds "as textures and colors, as feelings and temperatures and tastes," longs to cultivate a part of her identity beyond "the girl with the violin." To the frustration of her rigid mother, Shanna, Rosie goes on a music strike, forgoing symphony commitments. As punishment, she's forced to join her mom on a visit to the dying grandmother Rosie barely knows. At Shanna's childhood home, Rosie "somehow, magically, impossibly" meets a 12-year-old version of Shanna, who longs to play violin and resents her mother--Rosie's grandmother--for forcing her to become a bat mitzvah. From Shanna, Rosie learns that her great-grandmother survived Auschwitz, an experience that echoes through furure mother-daughter relationships in her family, making Rosie wonder whether changing the past could help Shanna understand her, and help revitalize her own connection with music. Intricately entwining interpersonal growth with each character's relationship to their Jewish faith and culture, Isler highlights the role of family history in identity formation through metaphorical time travel. Color-centric imagery rendered in immersive prose translates Rosie's synesthesia in this salient celebration of family, music, and neurodiversity. Ages 11 - 14. Agent: Emily Keyes. Keyes Agency. (Mar.)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 PWxyz, LLC
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"The Color of Sound." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 50, 11 Dec. 2023, p. 68. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A777789781/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dfbe9eab. Accessed 14 June 2024.

ISLER, Emily Barth. AfterMath. 272p. Carolrhoda. Sept. 2021. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9781541599116.

Gr 5 Up-Queensland, VA, a town devastated by a mass school shooting, is perhaps the toughest place tween Lucy Rothman can ever imagine moving, especially as a new member of the affected seventh grade class. Though her mother obsessively redecorates, Lucy's new room, which belonged to one of the victims, feels weighed down by memories. Lucy is enveloped by death; her parents wanted a fresh start after losing her younger brother to a heart condition. Wrecked, alone, and with aloof parents, Lucy finds solace in math and logic. A friendly math teacher and his improv class prove instrumental as she works to stitch her classmates, herself, and her family together again, filer's novel provides a look at the turmoil that is felt years after a tragedy. Her original yet devastatingly plausible scenario will entice tween readers, who will connect with the authentic narrator. Lucy's thoughts, conversations, and thought-provoking math equations offer an emotional glimpse into the disrupted lives of the victims. Some readers will relate to Lucy's inaccessible parents and further discover ideas on mending such relationships. Despite the weight of the premise, the book is accessible, and there are even occasional chuckles and hints at young romance. Short chapters and a well-paced plot will keep tweens reading and also create a day-by-day approach to the challenging topic. The ending feels simplistic and perhaps a bit too easily resolved but provides a hopeful outlook. VERDICT filer nose-dives into the perhaps taboo topic of school shootings, yet breathes healing, change, and math into the emotional catharsis.--Mary-Brook J. Townsend, formerly at The McGillis Sch., Salt Lake City

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
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Townsend, Mary-Brook J. "ISLER, Emily Barth. AfterMath." School Library Journal, vol. 67, no. 9, Sept. 2021, pp. 88+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A673471274/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=968b69b5. Accessed 14 June 2024.

Isler, Emily Barth AFTERMATH Carolrhoda (Children's None) $17.99 9, 7 ISBN: 978-1-5415-9911-6

After her brother dies, a girl tries to navigate seventh grade in a new school filled with students who are also coping with trauma.

After Lucy’s 5-year-old brother, Theo, dies from a rare congenital heart condition, her parents, who commute to work in Washington, D.C., decide they need a fresh start. They move from suburban Maryland to Queensland, a fictional Virginia suburb marked by an elementary school shooting four years previously. In the town of 2,500, 32 people were killed; all the children who died were in third grade, and when Lucy arrives, she’s the first new student to join the shattered class. Not only that, her bedroom in the new house belonged to a girl who was a shooting victim. Lucy’s new classmates talk openly and frequently about the shooting, but Lucy plans to keep Theo a secret. While struggling with losing touch with her best friend from home and her parents’ emotional distance, she tentatively befriends Avery, a girl the other students ostracize. Isler’s debut unfortunately feels overwrought, and some plot points strain credulity; for example, in densely populated Northern Virginia, the students from the elementary building that was torn down in the wake of the shooting would have been reassigned to other schools. Additionally, Avery’s journey from pariah to acceptance happens far too smoothly. Lucy and her family are Jewish and, like Avery, read as White.

Lacks the nuance necessary to do justice to this sensitive subject. (author’s note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 10-12)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Isler, Emily Barth: AFTERMATH." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A668237688/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ec8710e5. Accessed 14 June 2024.

They told me I couldn't write this book. I said, "I can't not write this book."

Writing a book means living with its contents for years. I started writing AfterMath, a middle grade novel about seventh graders dealing with loss, grief, and the aftermath of trauma caused by a school shooting, in 2015, the year my second child was born. He's now six, and I've been living with the contents of this book in many forms all that time.

It's not as if these fears--that my children or someone we love could be affected by our country's gun-violence epidemic--weren't in my mind before I wrote the book. If anything, I've grown less scared, less small. I've talked to so many parents who are thankful to know they're not the only ones worried about the things I wrote about.

There were some agents and editors who didn't want to take on AfterMath because they didn't want to live with the subjects for the many years they knew it would take for the book to come to be. I get it. Dozens of people have asked me if I wished I had written something "easier." Something that wasn't so sad. Sometimes I do wish I could have. I am sure the parents of children killed in school shootings or other senseless acts of gun violence wish that they, too, could think about something easier, but they were never given that choice.

But for me, writing something more light and "fun" would have required the world to be less sad, or me to be less anxious. And until either of those things comes to be, I will likely continue to write into my fears. I will keep listening to that voice in my head that I know now is a call to action. I will honor the things that scare me, because I know they are the things that matter.

After many years of freelance writing and a few novels I stuck in drawers, I wrote the first draft of what would become AfterMath in three frantic weeks while my infant son and toddler daughter napped. But the story must have been percolating in my brain for years, given how easily it flowed out.

It's possible I started developing the concept more than 20 years ago, when I heard about the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. Maybe that early seed was fed by the horrors of the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut. And likely, part of the idea was woven into my very DNA--my grandfather wrote in favor of gun control for the Washington Post in the 1960s and 70s, and, while he died before I was born, the legacy of his activism bloomed in me.

But the event that felt like the Hnal tipping point was a shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., in 2015 that killed 14 people. I wrote that first draft of AfterMath as if in a fever dream, worrying about my children and every child in our country who could not be guaranteed safety from gun violence.

"You can't write that book," people told me.

"I can't not write it," I said.

I sent it to my agent, and editors weighed in. "Rewrite it for YA," they said.

"Middle schoolers aren't really thinking about school shootings," one editor told us. At that point, my older child was in kindergarten, and I knew that she and her classmates endured active-shooter drills on a regular basis, as did every other kid in New York City's public schools. One publisher made an offer contingent on my changing the school shooting to a hurricane. I said no.

I can't not write this book.

Margery Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., happened. The Santa Fe High School shooting happened. The Tree of Life Synagogue shooting happened. My agent sent the book out again--we hoped that maybe the world was ready to see that kids needed to talk about school shootings, even kids as young as middle grade readers. Especially kids that young.

We sold the book to Amy Fitzgerald at Lerner/Carolrhoda, because she understood that I wrote the book purposefully from an outsider's perspective--the main character, Lucy, is new to a school where her classmates survived a shooting four years earlier--because many of us are outsiders to the trauma and grief of mass shootings and gun violence. But we're all aware of it, even middle schoolers. Especially middle schoolers.

I always intended AfterMath to be read by families or with teachers, not just handed to a 12-year-old with a "good luck, buddy" and a wave. I'm not sorry it took so long for the book to find its moment. I'm just sorry it's still so relevant.

BY EMILY BARTH ISLER

Emily Barth Isler is a former child actor who lives in L.A. and writes about eco-friendly beauty and skincare. She has also written web sitcoms, parenting columns, and personal essays. Aftermath is her debut novel.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 PWxyz, LLC
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Isler, Emily Barth. "Point Blank: An author discusses why she had to write a middle grade novel about gun violence." Publishers Weekly, vol. 268, no. 37, 13 Sept. 2021, p. 80. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A676353323/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6c7ffa89. Accessed 14 June 2024.

De Groft, Lee. "ISLER, Emily Barth. The Color of Sound." School Library Journal, vol. 70, no. 1, Jan. 2024, pp. 56+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A778646567/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7dc84c66. Accessed 14 June 2024. "Isler, Emily Barth: THE COLOR OF SOUND." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A780841019/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=54c9a16f. Accessed 14 June 2024. "The Color of Sound." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 50, 11 Dec. 2023, p. 68. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A777789781/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dfbe9eab. Accessed 14 June 2024. Townsend, Mary-Brook J. "ISLER, Emily Barth. AfterMath." School Library Journal, vol. 67, no. 9, Sept. 2021, pp. 88+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A673471274/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=968b69b5. Accessed 14 June 2024. "Isler, Emily Barth: AFTERMATH." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A668237688/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ec8710e5. Accessed 14 June 2024. Isler, Emily Barth. "Point Blank: An author discusses why she had to write a middle grade novel about gun violence." Publishers Weekly, vol. 268, no. 37, 13 Sept. 2021, p. 80. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A676353323/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6c7ffa89. Accessed 14 June 2024.

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