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• A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall Balzer + Bray (New York, NY), 2024

1. A strange thing happened in Cherry Hall LCCN 2023948578 Type of material Book Personal name Warga, Jasmine, author. Main title A strange thing happened in Cherry Hall / Jasmine Warga. Edition First edition. Published/Produced New York : Balzer + Bray, 2024. Description pages cm ISBN 9780062956705 (hardcover) CALL NUMBER Not available Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

• Jasmine Warga website - https://jasminewarga.com

  Jasmine Warga is the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of middle grade novels Other Words For Home, The Shape of Thunder, and A Rover’s Story. Other Words For Home earned multiple awards, including a John Newbery Honor, a Walter Honor for Young Readers, and a Charlotte Huck Honor. The Shape of Thunder was a School Library Journal and Bank Street best book of the year, a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Children's and YA Book Award, and has been named to several state award reading lists. A Rover’s Story, her latest novel, was an instant New York Times bestseller, a Indie Next List and a Junior Library Guild selection, and was named a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly and The Washington Post. She is also the author of young adult novel, My Heart and Other Black Holes, which has been translated into over twenty different languages. Her next middle grade novel, A STRANGE THING HAPPENED IN CHERRY HALL, will be published on September 10th, 2024. Originally from Cincinnati, she now lives in the Chicago-area with her family in a house filled with books.

  Longer + informal bio:
  At Author’s Night in first grade
  At Author’s Night in first grade

  I was born on April 24, 1988 at 11:59 PM in Cincinnati, Ohio. This means that I am a Taurus if you are into astrology and star stuff, which I most definitely am. Also, like all other people from Cincinnati, I am inordinately proud of my little Midwestern city and think that Graeter’s black raspberry chip ice cream is the most delicious food in the whole world. (I’m really into a baby hippo named Fiona, too. She makes her home at the Cincinnati Zoo.)

  Growing up, I loved to read. When I was younger, I read about every book I could get my hands on. Some of my favorites were Charlotte’s Web, The Witches, and Anne of Green Gables. I read The Bridge to Terabithia when I was in fourth grade, and it is the first book I remember reading by myself that made me cry. In middle school, we read books by Sharon Draper and Margaret Peterson Haddix, and I fell in love with their stories. I wanted to live in the world of Ella Enchanted, and I couldn’t stop thinking about The Giver. In high school, I was introduced to the work of Virginia Woolf and my brain exploded. I also fell hard and fast for the poetry of Adrienne Rich and Anne Sexton. In college, I discovered Zadie Smith and Sandra Cisneros and reading their brilliant writing made my own desire to tell stories feel possible in a way it hadn’t before.

  I went to college with the intention of getting a degree in something “practical” (because I wanted to make my parents happy), but I ended up graduating with a degree in Art History and History (which if you really think about it was just a roundabout way for me to study the structure of story and how stories are told.) After graduation, I found a job teaching 6th grade science (I know, right?) to a bunch of smart and challenging students in Texas. While teaching, I started to try my hand at writing my own stories. Lots of false starts and messy drafts later, here we are. I feel extremely lucky as all I’ve ever wanted to do is tell stories.

  These days, I live in the Chicago area with my family in a house full of books. My current favorite things are neighborhood walks, buttery popcorn, foggy mornings, dark chocolate-covered pretzels, and flowering trees.

• Wisconsin Muslim Journal - https://wisconsinmuslimjournal.org/award-winning-author-jasmine-warga-proud-to-be-palestinian-and-american/

  Award-winning author Jasmine Warga: Proud to be Palestinian and American
  Posted by Sandra Whitehead | Sep 30, 2022 | Featured

  Author Jasmine Warga with her latest novel “A Rover’s Story” about belonging and home, the center of every immigrant story.

  “From a very early age, I thought a lot about what ‘home’ means,” Newbery Honor Book author Jasmine Warga said an interview Monday with the Wisconsin Muslim Journal. As the daughter of a son of Palestinian refugees, “so much of our family story and history has been talking about home—leaving home, making a new home and honoring the home of our past,” she said.

  Growing up in a small town near Cincinnati, Ohio, people always asked her, “Where are you from?” She realized she looked different from her peers and was the only Muslim in her elementary school class. Yet when she visited family in Jordan, she was “the American.”

  “As a kid, I wanted to fit in,” she recalled. “I spent a lot of time thinking about belonging. What does it mean to belong?”

  Warga’s middle-grade novel Other Words for Home, a 2020 Newbery Honor Book, explores those questions from the perspective of Jude, a 12-year-old Syrian girl who, with her mother, fled the violence of war and immigrated to Cincinnati, where she confronts the challenges of being Muslim and Arab in the United States.

  In her new middle-grade novel, A Rover’s Story, to be published Oct. 4, the protagonist is a Mars rover named Resilience. “The main character is a robot but it is still a story about belonging,” Warga said. “What does it mean to leave home, everything you’ve ever known? That’s the crux of every immigrant story. And it’s the engine that fuels my writing.”

  Warga teaches in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Originally from Cincinnati, she lives in the Chicago-area with her family.

  She is the author of the children’s books Other Words for Home, a Newbery Honor Book and a Walter Honor Book for Younger Readers, and The Shape of Thunder. Her teen books, Here We Are Now and My Heart and Other Black Holes, have been translated into over 25 languages.

  The Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition and the Boswell Book Company are co-sponsoring Jasmine Warga in Conversation with Amanda Zieba at the Greenfield Public Library, 5310 W. Layton Ave., Wednesday, Oct. 5, at 6:30 p.m.

  “We are looking forward to the upcoming visit from award-winning author Jasmine Warga—such a talented, impactful up-and-coming children’s and teen’s author,” Greenfield Public Library Director Sheila O’Brien wrote in email to WMJ. “We expect a lively and enthusiastic turnout for the author visit, especially since this will be our first one in the post-pandemic season.”

  The Greenfield Public Library has in its mission to present for patrons of all ages a broad and diverse cross section of viewpoints, opinions, traditions, values, lifestyles, cultural backgrounds, and demographic groups on important issues of the day, O’Brien noted.

  Registration to the Jasmine Warga Author Talk is required and opened now through this link.

  Chatting with Jasmine Warga

  In an interview with WMJ Monday, author Jasmine Warga talked openly about her writing and being a Palestinian American has given her a valuable perspective. Here are the highlights.

  “The Shape of Thunder” is a touching story about friendship, grief and the ways we cope with emotions.

  I can see as a Palestinian American, you would be able to empathize and understand the plight of Syrian refugees, like the protagonist in Other Words for Home, but in A Rover’s Story, the main character is a robot. Was it difficult to write from that perspective?

  I think all robot stories are really stories about what does it mean to be human. My robot worries a lot about having human feelings, worried that makes him a bad robot who doesn’t fit in with the other robots. This idea of being an outsider, of having things that make you different and then growing throughout the story to see that is maybe what also makes him special.

  When I do school visits with kids, I’m always talking about the way to find your voice as a writer is to think about what are the things that matter to you. What are the things that you wonder a lot about? And for me those are home and family and belonging. Those were the big questions of my own adolescence and are still the big questions of my adult life.

  What inspired you to write about a robot?

  I was actually inspired by my own daughter who wanted to watch the launch of the newest NASA rover. We watched it together in July 2020. When the rocket carrying the rover was going into the air, my older daughter, who is 6, was jumping and clapping. But my younger one, a 5-year-old, looked really concerned.

  So, I asked her, “What’s wrong sweetheart? It was a successful launch.”

  And she says, “Yeah, but Mama, do you think the robot is scared?” I thought to myself, what a beautiful story idea. Is this robot scared to leave home?

  And I started to think like, what a beautiful story idea. Like is the robot afraid? What does it mean to have human feelings? And then I started thinking about this idea of is, is the robot scared to leave home?

  It sounds like the stories in Other Words for Home and A Rover’s Story are very similar.

  Yes, I’m writing about all of the same things in this book that I wrote about in Other Words for Home, just from a different angle. In this story, one of the main scientists who works on the robot is an Arab American woman with a daughter. Most of the book is from the robot’s point of view but there are letters from her daughter in the book, so there are a few cultural nods here. The daughter processes her own preteen emotions and feelings about her mom being so busy in the lab with the rover.

  That’s exciting to me because if I had pulled this book off the shelf when I was in fifth grade, I would have been so excited not only to find this fun space adventure book but also to see a few Arabic words. That would have been very surprising and fun.

  Are you writing for Arab American or Muslim American children and youth?

  When I’m writing, I’m always writing for young me. That’s the only child whose interior workings I have known. In that way, I am always thinking about Arab American and Muslim kids who haven’t gotten to see themselves in a book in a positive light. That’s so important to me.

  First grader, Jasmine Warga at an event called “Author’s Night”

  But I was also growing up in a small Ohio town where everyone around me was Christian and celebrating Christmas. My mom had grown up with these holidays. So, we got a tree and Santa Claus came to our house. And on the Eid, we’d get cookies and money. Growing up, we celebrated all the holidays.

  From an early age, I understood the nuances of all the hyphenated parts of my identity, that my family is Palestinian but lives in Jordan now. Then my dad moved to America and I’m half this and half that. So, I have always been thinking about identity and belonging.

  However, some of the most moving letters I have received from readers are from kids who have never before encountered a Muslim or a Muslim character in a book. The book shifted their perspective and understanding. I love writing for young people for that reason—because the books you read when you are young live in your fiber and have the ability to expand your heart in a way that’s harder to do as we get older.

  Tell us a bit about your family.

  My father is Muslim. He was born in Jordan, the son of Palestinian refugees. My mother converted to Islam when I was a child. But I’ve always thought of myself as coming from a mixed-faith family. My dad instilled in us the idea that we came from a Muslim family. My great-grandfather was a caretaker at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. A big part of being an immigrant is wanting your kids to know where you came from.

  Jasmine Warga with her Palestinian Grandmother

  We were the only Muslim family at my elementary school. In my memory, I was the only child of an immigrant. I looked different from my peers. I was always asked where I came from. In some ways, I feel like my connection to being Arab also came from the way other people reacted to me. I went through a phase in middle school where all I wanted was to fit in. I wanted to like pass under some radar, not having people call out that I was clearly different from the rest of my peers. Then, I’d go to the Middle East to visit and I felt very American.

  What inspired you to write about a Syrian refugee in Other Words for Home?

  Our closest family friends were Syrian American. That book was directly inspired by sort of watching members of their family come over to live with them because of the conflict in Syria. I began wondering what it would have been like for me in middle school if my cousins in Jordan came to live with us. The story would be about an American girl whose cousin comes to live with her. Then, as books often do when you are writing, the perspective changed and I told the story from Jude’s (the refugee’s) perspective.

  How did 9/11 impact your childhood?

  It was obviously very informative for the way I felt about myself. I was in 9, in eighth grade. Before 9/11, I felt invisible in books. I never saw characters who came from the same background as I did, who practiced the religion my family practiced at home, who ate the same foods or any of those things. Then, after 9/11, suddenly everyone was talking about the region in the world where my family came from, about my religion, but they were doing so in a really negative, pejorative way.

  “Other Words for Home” explores questions from the perspective of Jude, a 12-year-old Syrian girl who fled the violence of war and immigrated to Cincinnati.

  Just when I started to feel I could be Arab and Muslim and American, the media I was consuming told me there was something oppositional between these different parts of my identity. In writing Other Words for Home, I was saying no to those messages. There’s a lot of beauty and power in a hyphenated identity. You can be Arab and American, Muslim and American. That is something I didn’t understand when I was 12 and 13. And I definitely didn’t see any stories that supported me. The media I consumed made me feel bad about these parts of my identity.

  How did you resolve this identity crisis you felt?

  When I got to college, I met other Arab Americans and other Muslim Americans. Through conversations with them, I began to feel this thing that had made me feel so different also gave me a special perspective.

  I still feel I am always explaining my identity, parsing out these different parts of myself. But what I discovered is that I’m really proud of being Palestinian American. I am proud those stories of my ancestors live on in me and I’m able to tell them. I’m also really proud to be from Cincinnati, Ohio. That’s the city that raised me. Both of those identities exist in the way I tell stories. The hyphen doesn’t have to be a divider; it can be a bridge.

• The Author Village - https://theauthorvillage.com/presenters/jasmine-warga/

  Jasmine Warga (she/her)
  “I love getting the chance to visit with students, and to remind them that we are all storytellers, and that the stories we tell about ourselves and others matter. There’s nothing more energizing to me than watching a room full of young people feel inspired to take control of their own narrative.”

  Biography
  Jasmine Warga is the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of middle grade novels Other Words For Home, The Shape of Thunder, A Rover’s Story, and A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall. Her books have won several awards including, a John Newbery Honor, a Walter Honor for Young Readers, a Charlotte Huck Honor, the Ohioana Library award, and a Barnes & Noble Children’s and YA Book Award finalist. Additionally, they have been named to several state award lists. Jasmine is also the author of young adult novel, My Heart and Other Black Holes, which has been translated into over twenty different languages.

  Jasmine grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied art history and history at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She briefly taught 6th grade science in Texas before going on to get her MFA in creative writing from Lesley University in Boston. She quickly discovered that writing for kids and teens was the perfect combination of her dual interests in storytelling and working with young people.

  Growing up, Jasmine felt a lot of pressure to become a doctor to please her immigrant father. She also didn’t quite believe she could really be an author because she never read stories about girls like her. She now feels extra inspired to write books that will help other young people feel empowered to tell their own stories. She also strongly believes that all kids should have the opportunity to see diversity in their literary protagonists and heroes, and that we all gain empathy and insight from reading outside of our own experience.

  These days, Jasmine lives with her husband, two daughters, and a very energetic dog in a book-filled house in the Chicago-area.

• Great Parks - https://blog.greatparks.org/2024/03/woman-made-nature-inspired-jasmine-warga/

  QUOTED: "for A Rover’s Story, that moment of inspiration is much more clear because I was watching the actual launch of Perseverance and it was my daughter who asked me if I thought the robot was afraid. I thought, 'Wow, what an amazing question.' We just listened all this pre-coverage about how smart these robots are and then make that leap to ask if there is emotional intelligence there too?"

  Woman-Made, Nature-Inspired: Jasmine Warga
  03/6/2024 11AM
  Woman-Made, Nature-Inspired, Stories
  In honor of Women’s History Month, Great Parks is celebrating seven local women writers who find creative inspiration from the natural world around them.

  The views and opinions expressed in the interview are those of the artist and do not represent the views or positions of Great Parks.

  Jasmine Warga
  Meet Jasmine Warga, children’s novelist
  Great Parks: Could you tell us a little bit about you and your work?

  JW: I’m Jasmine, and I write primarily for young people, specifically upper elementary to junior high age range. I like to write for young people because middle school was a really hard time in my life. I like to write books that hopefully make kids feel seen and help them understand that their voice matters and their story matters.

  Representation is super important to me. When I was a kid, I never saw myself or someone with my same ethnic or religious background in a book. So now in my books, whether I’m engaging directly with that identity in a way that I do on my book Other Words for Home or when I’m writing about robots like I do in A Rover’s Story, still having that representation piece is really important to me.

  GP: You mentioned middle school as being a time that was difficult or something that you draw on for your writing. When was the first time you wanted to become a writer?

  JW: I decided that I wanted to be a writer in first grade when the word author was introduced to me. My first-grade teacher did an author’s night project where all of us were given a blank white book and we were told we’re going to be authors and to create our own story. That was this magic light bulb moment for me of realizing that there was a job where you got to make up stories for a living.

  I come from a family of storytellers, and I love storytelling. I loved being read to long before I could read on my own. I was a pretty late independent reader, which I like to share, because I think oftentimes there’s so much pressure on kids to read and write early. I was someone who loved stories and being told stories, but my own literacy came in a little bit later. I decided I wanted to be an author from that experience of learning that word, and then seizing on to that feeling of “Ohh, there’s a name for this thing that I want to do.”

  GP: From a little bit of research, it looks like you have a background as a 6th grade science teacher, and you are obviously a lover of science. How have those aspects of your identity influenced your writing?

  JW: It’s funny to me. I accidentally got slated into teaching science. I did an alternative teaching program and in the state of Texas math and science teachers are in such high need that I ended up—I thought I was going to be a language arts teacher, and I show up at my school and they’re like surprise! You’re sixth grade science teacher!

  It’s funny to me. In the cliche of people who have immigrant parents, I was told I should be a doctor my whole life. I ran away from science and had this false sense of science being in one silo and creativity and art and stories being in this other silo. A lot of my work has actually been about breaking down those silos. I feel like science is a discipline that’s interested in curiosity about the natural world and our place in the world. Lots of times, storytelling is that same idea.

  It didn’t occur to me to really braid science and storytelling until I was a 6th grade teacher myself, and I was teaching myself the concepts to then go in and teach to my kids. I was thinking about how there are so many amazing metaphors. I was teaching rock science at the time, and I was talking about potential energy and kinetic energy and thinking about the way to understand the universe. So many of my students told me that they didn’t like reading. They associated reading with stressful standardized tests, and that made me really sad. When I was their age, I was a really voracious reader, so I wanted to get back to story with them. To be around story as opposed to being around stressful, standardized tests.

  I started reading aloud to my students, even though I was a science teacher, again, to break down those false walls that we have around subject matter. That’s when I had the ‘aha’ moment that I wanted to write for young people. Up until that point, I thought I wanted to write short stories for adults, and the only reason I thought that was because I thought that was the pinnacle of literariness.

  I never felt magnetized to have a lot to say. Then I realized I feel pretty passionately about working with young people, and this is a good way to marry those two interests.

  GP: That’s a cool journey of how you started as the teacher and then dove deeper into science and are now combining it all. That’s really cool.

  JW: Yeah, it’s sort of unexpected. Like I was not someone who at 22 would have told you I was passionate about science. I feel like I was falsely running away from that my whole life, trying to say, “No, no, no, I can’t be a doctor, because I don’t like science.”

  Now I’m coming to understand that wasn’t true at all. I had a false sense that I had to pick between these two things. You really don’t have to.

  GP: In your opinion, with that marriage of science in some of your novels with fiction stories, what impact do you think these fiction novels could have on the world of science?

  JW: I don’t know about the world of science, but what I hope they do is spark curiosity. I think that the most important thing in the world you can be is curious, and that’s what I always like to share with kids. I think there’s this false sense that you need to be an expert, but I think that just coming to everything with this passionate curiosity and wanting to know more and understanding that you can view the world as a mystery that you can solve. I hope that that’s what the books do: encourage them to think more deeply about their role in the world, and how the world is a really amazing place that’s worthy of exploration and discovery.

  What’s really exciting is to get to go with A Rover’s Story and talk to a gym full of kids who had no idea that we are actually building hyperintelligent robots that we’re sending to Mars and that’s not science fiction. There are so many different ways to be involved in science too, that kids don’t necessarily think about or understand.

  I hear from parents that say A Rover’s Story is the first fiction novel their kid has ever read and that they’re really a nonfiction science kid—that this opened the doorway for them to be more interested in other novels. And then vice versa. Kids who had no interest in science, and suddenly A Rover’s Story has unlocked this interest in going to check out more books about Mars. I love that.

  GP: You make a lot of appearances at gymnasiums, libraries, schools, bookstores. Can you speak a little bit about how empowering diverse young voices, especially young women, is important to you and important to Women’s History Month.

  JW: So I love getting to go and speak at different schools and upending people’s idea of who an author is. Sometimes kids are surprised, especially when I go into schools where there is a large Arab population or large Muslim population, the kids are so excited that I’m the author of the book. That’s really meaningful to me. That would have been so huge for me when I was a kid, and I never had that experience.

  Going in and letting kids know that their voice matters, their story matters. They deserve to see themselves in books, and it’s important to read about people who are different from you, too. I go into school districts where there really aren’t any Arab or Muslim kids, and I think the value in representation, especially when we’re in this moment where I feel like American culture oftentimes only represents the Middle East in terms of war and conflict. It’s humanizing to have different representation.

  I love getting to go and encourage kids of all backgrounds that not everyone is going to be an author, but all of us are storytellers. Understanding that their story matters and learning how to share their story and figuring out the medium with which they feel most empowered to tell their story is my favorite part of my job.

  GP: What is your writing process look like?

  JW: Usually all my books start with a question that’s a really vague image. I mean for A Rover’s Story, that moment of inspiration is much more clear because I was watching the actual launch of Perseverance and it was my daughter who asked me if I thought the robot was afraid. I thought “Wow, what an amazing question.” We just listened all this pre-coverage about how smart these robots are and then make that leap to ask if there is emotional intelligence there too?

  With my book that’s coming out this September, which is a history novel that takes place at an art museum, that just started from a vague inkling of this idea of “What if a painting was stolen and nobody understood why? Why does somebody steal a painting? What does it mean to want to steal a painting?”

  I was in an art museum with my family, thinking about all the people who are depicted in paintings. Who are these models? Why were they chosen? What are their stories? The story behind the story. It’s some kind of concept like that and it will sit in my head for a long time and then eventually, I figure out who my main character is. I figure out how my main character’s journey connects with that concept, and then I build the book out from there. But I never plot the book ahead of time, so my first drafts are really messy and organic and a place of discovery. The book usually changes a lot from draft to draft.

  I’m a really character-focused writer, so I’m always starting with trying to figure out who’s my main character and what big question are they asking about the world and what’s this journey that they’re going to go on? Because stories are really ways to talk about change, right? You need your main character to go through some kind of change. So the questions I’m always asking myself are “In what way is my character going to change throughout the story? Why are they going to change? How are they going to change and what’s that going to look like?

  GP: You just took our last question. We were going to ask, are there any projects you’re currently working on that you’re excited about? So you have a book coming out this fall?

  JW: Yeah. So it’s a new book, and it’s called A Strange Thing Happened in Sherry Hall, and it’s coming out on September 10th. I’m really excited about it. It’s the first mystery that I’ve ever written. It’s funny, I was inspired by a school visit. Kids kept asking me, “Are you going to write a mystery?”

  I was thinking, “This is such a strange question. Why is this the genre?” Then I remembered when I was a kid, how much I loved mysteries. I think the appeal of mysteries when you were young person, is this idea that the world is holding back information from you. It was a really fun book to work on, and so I’m excited to get to share it with everyone this fall.

  GP: Thank you.

  Jasmine Warga is one of the local artists whose artwork will be on display at Instinct: Woman-Made, Nature-Inspired, a nature-themed art show happening March 22 & 23 at Fernbank Park.

• Wikipedia -

  Jasmine Warga

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  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  Warga at the 2022 Texas Book Festival.
  Jasmine Warga (born April 24, 1988) is an American children's and young adult book author. Her free verse book Other Words for Home received a Newbery Honor in 2020.[1]

  Early life and education
  Warga was born in Cincinnati to an American mother and immigrant Jordanian father.[2][3][4] She graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in history and art history. She also earned her MFA in creative writing at Lesley University.[5][3] After graduating college, Warga worked as a sixth grade science teacher in Texas. While still teaching, she began writing stories.[3]

  Career
  Warga's debut novel, My Heart and Other Black Holes, published in 2015, is about depressed and suicidal teenagers. Warga was inspired to write the young adult novel after the unexpected death of a close friend.[6] Her 2019 children's book about a Syrian refugee living in Ohio, Other Words for Home,[7] won a Newbery Honor as well as other awards.[4] She was inspired to write the book after visiting a Syrian family friend in 2013 and watching the interactions between his cousins born in America and cousins who had come to America from Syria.[2] In her research over the course of writing the book, she interviewed members of Cincinnati's Syrian community.[8]

  Personal life
  Warga lives in Naperville, Illinois[9] with her family. She teaches at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in addition to her writing career.[3][5]

  Works
  My Heart and Other Black Holes (2015)
  Here We Are Now (2017)
  Other Words for Home (2019)
  The Shape of Thunder (2021)
  A Rover's Story (2022)

QUOTED: "The intelligences here may be (mostly) artificial, but the feelings are genuine and deep."

Warga, Jasmine A ROVER'S STORY Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (Children's None) $17.99 10, 4 ISBN: 978-0-06-311392-3

A Mars rover discovers that it has a heart to go with its two brains.

Warga follows her cybernetic narrator from first awareness to final resting place--and stony indeed will be any readers who remain unmoved by the journey. Though unable to ask questions of the hazmats (named for their suits) assembling it in a NASA lab, the rover, dubbed Resilience by an Ohio sixth grader, gets its first inklings of human feelings from two workers who talk to it, play it music, and write its pleasingly bug-free code. Other machines (even chatty cellphones) reject the notion that there's any real value to emotions. But the longer those conversations go, the more human many start sounding, particularly after Res lands in Mars' Jezero Crater and, with help from Fly, a comically excitable drone, and bossy satellite Guardian, sets off on twin missions to look for evidence of life and see if an older, silenced rover can be brought back online. Along with giving her characters, human and otherwise, distinct voices and engaging personalities, the author quietly builds solid relationships (it's hardly a surprise when, after Fly is downed in a dust storm, Res trundles heroically to the rescue in defiance of orders) on the way to rest and joyful reunions years later. A subplot involving brown-skinned, Arabic-speaking NASA coder Rania unfolds through her daughter Sophia's letters to Res.

The intelligences here may be (mostly) artificial, but the feelings are genuine and deep. (afterword, resources) (Science fiction. 9-13)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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Source Citation
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"Warga, Jasmine: A ROVER'S STORY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A711906550/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=50ce1723. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

QUOTED: "a profound and poignant exploration of the universe both outside and within us all."

A Rover's Story. By Jasmine Warga. Oct. 2022. 320p. HarperCollins/Balzer+Bray, $17.99 (9780063113923). Gr. 4-6.

Fans of space exploration have eagerly followed the adventures of several Mars rovers as they roam our neighboring planet, but what if those robots could communicate their firsthand experiences? Enter a rover named Resilience, or Res for short, who gains consciousness in a sterile NASA laboratory. Res grows in knowledge and awareness with each passing day, gradually advanced by two scientists in particular. As they chat with the rover, play him music, and add endless code to Res' repertoire, the robot begins to grasp the complicated realm of human emotion--or, at least, the robot equivalent. Res can communicate with other electronics (a cell phone, a tablet, another rover) and is warned that emotions have no place in the complicated mission. Still, Res can't help viewing his existence in a new way, and when he ultimately lands on Mars, he's determined to complete his mission, make his favorite humans proud, and find his way back home. It's an endlessly inventive story, replete with gentle humor and playful pondering, offering a unique perspective on everything from music and electronics to loyalty and love. Res is written in a distinct, precise voice and sweetly countered by interspersed letters to the rover from a young girl intimately connected to his being, and both thoughtfully evolve as the years pass. A profound and poignant exploration of the universe both outside and within us all. --Emily Graham

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 American Library Association
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Graham, Emily. "A Rover's Story." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 2, 15 Sept. 2022, p. 54. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A720255859/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=28f1bdb7. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

QUOTED: "an unusual but heartfelt example of the importance of staying true to yourself, quirks and all."

A Rover's Story

by Jasmine Warga

Intermediate Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins 320 pp. g

10/22 978-0-06-311392-3 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-0-06-311394-7 $12.99

Warga (Other Words for Home, rev. 7/19; The Shape of Thunder, rev. 5/21) imagines a sentient space rover with human emotions who is embarking on a perilous one-way trip to Mars. Resilience (Res for short) narrates much of the book and has profound conversations about life with his companion drone and a nearby satellite. Interspersed throughout are letters written to Res by Sophie, the daughter of Rania, one of Res's programmers. Res sets off on an exploration that will thrill fans of both adventure and robot stories and also provide intellectual sustenance for the deep thinkers, with the novel asking existential questions such as: where do memories and experiences go when we die? Looking at the remains of a broken-down rover, Res wonders, "Are we all going to end up just like this?" Through the character of a robot who has feelings and self-awareness, Warga probes issues of identity, attachment, and the purpose of life, offering readers an unusual but heartfelt example of the importance of staying true to yourself, quirks and all. JULIE HAKIM AZZAM

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
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Azzam, Julie Hakim. "A Rover's Story." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 98, no. 6, Nov.-Dec. 2022, p. 98. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A727777350/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5c5fbf8d. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

QUOTED: "A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall exudes appreciation for the transformative nature of art ... and exudes empathy for those who struggle with loneliness."

By Jasmine Warga

Readers have long reveled in stories where museums and mystery intersect, such as E.L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Blue Balliett's Chasing Vermeer. Bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient Jasmine Warga joins in the artsy, sleuth-y fun with A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall (HarperCollins, $19.99, 9780062956705), a creative and compassionate tale featuring a stolen painting, a confused ghost and an inquisitive turtle. Eleven-year-old Rami Ahmed's mom supervises the cleaning crew at the Penelope L. Brooks Museum, and Rami spends a lot of time there. Lately, he's been worried: A painting called "Untitled" has been stolen, and security staff consider him and his mom to be suspects. Meanwhile, at school, his best friends publicly rejected him at lunch. A smart, confident girl named Veda has invited him into her friend group, but he can't stop reliving his hurt and shame.

When Rami encounters the girl depicted in "Untitled" floating around the spot in Cherry Hall where the painting once hung, he has to stifle a few screams, but he also feels a glimmer of hope. The girl insists Rami help her figure out who she is, and he realizes his investigation could unearth the art thief as well. Crime podcast-aficionada Veda decides to join him, and even Agatha, the turtle who lives behind the museum, has information to contribute, too.

Warga deftly layers in suspense and intrigue as the kids research the painting's provenance, investigate the crime and try to avoid arousing suspicion in the adults around them. A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall exudes appreciation for the transformative nature of art--emphasized by Matt Rockefeller's lovely grayscale illustrations at the book's beginning and end--and exudes empathy for those who struggle with loneliness.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 BookPage
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Castellitto, Linda M. "A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall." BookPage, Sept. 2024, p. 28. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A808547413/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7d9aaf53. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

QUOTED: "a slowly unfurling delight."

Warga, Jasmine A STRANGE THING HAPPENED IN CHERRY HALL Harper/HarperCollins (Children's None) $19.99 9, 10 ISBN: 9780062956705

A missing painting, a floating girl, and a mustachioed man: a lonely almost-12-year-old vows to figure it all out.

Middle school has been terrible for Rami Ahmed, and now a painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum, where his mother works as the cleaning crew supervisor. Only the cleaning crew, Ed the security guard, and Rami himself were in the building on the day of the painting's disappearance. As the theft draws unprecedented interest in the small, largely overlooked museum, the pressure of suspicion starts to grow. When a mysterious girl appears to Rami in the museum--and he recognizes her as the girl who's portrayed in the stolen painting--he's certain that she holds the key to its whereabouts. After Rami joins forces with Indian American classmate Veda, an aspiring sleuth, he finds himself in increasingly unexpected situations. The mystery drives this exquisitely paced story that unfolds in short chapters that readers will quickly consume. The characters, though, are the beating heart of this tender, quiet tale. From Rami, the only child of a now-single immigrant mother from Lebanon, to the museum director, who "had that accent that most rich people do fancy and well educated," to Agatha, the sun-seeking turtle from the garden by the Penelope who observes, learns, and wants to give joy--each character is drawn with texture, depth, and warmth. Rockefeller's evocative illustrations enhance the text.

A slowly unfurling delight.(Mystery. 8-12)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Warga, Jasmine: A STRANGE THING HAPPENED IN CHERRY HALL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A802865072/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5b683a7b. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

QUOTED: "The meticulously fleshed-out museum backdrop evokes impeccable ambiance for a mystery in this cozy tale."

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

Jasmine Warga, illus. by Matt Rockefeller.

HarperCollins, $19.99 (224p)

ISBN 978-0-06-295670-5

Sixth grader Rami Ahmed is having a terrible time. His best friends dropped him for no apparent reason, and now someone has stolen a painting from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum, where his mother works. It's bad enough that security is suspicious of him, but his mother, who leads the cleaning staff, is considered a suspect, too. Since his father left before he was two, his mother is all Rami has. To make matters worse, he's now hearing and seeing a girl floating in the museum--and she looks like the girl in the missing painting. She soon approaches Rami: she doesn't know who she is and wants his help to figure it out. With assistance from his crime-podcast-obsessed new friend Veda and an artistically inclined turtle called Agatha, Rami determines to find the painting thief and clear his and his mother's names. Though the resolution feels thin, the meticulously fleshed-out museum backdrop evokes impeccable ambiance for a mystery in this cozy tale. Grayscale illustrations by Rockefeller, who collaborated with Warga on A Rover's Story, depict the museum and cast through vivid portraiture. Rami's parents are from Lebanon and Veda's are from India. Ages 8-12. Author's agent; Brenda Bowen, Book Group. (Sept.)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
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"A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 25, 24 June 2024, p. 63. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A800404915/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3039ec98. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

"Warga, Jasmine: A ROVER'S STORY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A711906550/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=50ce1723. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024. Graham, Emily. "A Rover's Story." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 2, 15 Sept. 2022, p. 54. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A720255859/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=28f1bdb7. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024. Azzam, Julie Hakim. "A Rover's Story." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 98, no. 6, Nov.-Dec. 2022, p. 98. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A727777350/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5c5fbf8d. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024. Castellitto, Linda M. "A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall." BookPage, Sept. 2024, p. 28. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A808547413/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7d9aaf53. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024. "Warga, Jasmine: A STRANGE THING HAPPENED IN CHERRY HALL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A802865072/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5b683a7b. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024. "A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 25, 24 June 2024, p. 63. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A800404915/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3039ec98. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

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