For readers of Stamped and An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People, Albert J. Mann’s Shift Happens: The History of Labor in the United States is an accessible and comprehensive YA history of the way the labor movement has shaped America and how it intersects with many of the major issues facing modern teens.

“Mann explores the often oppressive, abusive, and bloody history of labor conditions and the merciless rise of capitalism with wit, snark, and comprehensive context…. Riveting, enlightening, infuriating, and timely: compulsory reading.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Its edgy title may attract attention, but it’s the compelling narrative and enlightening content that will keep readers engaged from cover to cover.” —SLJ (starred review) 

“In other hands, the snarky, conversational tone might feel like an adult’s overreach, but Mann’s simmering anger and clear passion for the working class will inspire readers just as much as the union leaders and organization efforts she covers.” —BCCB (starred review)

“Mann’s introduction to the history of labor is full of sharp, galvanizing points that will keep readers engaged and help them look critically at some of our entrenched systems.” —ALA Booklist

“The narrative’s laser focus on organizing heroes and essential employees, and the power of unions and striking workers to enact change, results in powerful storytelling.” —Publishers Weekly

You need to work to live.

That’s the truth for most people, and plenty of people in power have been abusing that truth for centuries.

Long before the first labor unions were formed, workers still knew what exploitation looked like. It looked like the enslavement of Black people. It looked like generations of children dying in dangerous jobs. It looked like wealthy people hiring private militaries to attack their employees.

But workers have always found a way to fight back. Lokono tribespeople resisted Columbus and his colonizers. Enslaved people led walkouts and rebellions. Textile workers demanded a wage that would let them have fun, not just survive. Miners died for the right to unionize. From 30,000 young seamstresses striking in the early 1900s to Uber drivers organizing for change today, people have learned we’re stronger when we are united.

Shift Happens is a smart, funny, and engaging look at the history of the worker actions that brought us weekends, pay equality, desegregation, an end to child labor, and so much more.

A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2021! A gritty, heart-wrenching novel of disability, pain, belonging, loss, addiction, and friendship.

Everything was fine before. When Eve and Lidia could hide their physical differences inside goofy Burger Hut costumes. When Lidia shook Eve up and Eve made Lidia laugh. When Lidia was there.

Everything is different now. Cut open . . . rearranged . . . stapled shut, Eve is left alone to recover in a world of pain and a body she no longer recognizes. Her only companions being a bottle of Roxanol and an infuriating (but cute) neighbor, Eve strikes up a relationship—and makes a pact—with the devil. Sacrificing pieces of a place she doesn’t know to return to a place she does. What will she discover when she unravels her past? And is having Lidia back worth the price?

In verse and prose, Fix paints a riveting picture of a teen struggling to find herself and move forward with her life in a sea of opioids, regret, grief, and hope.

“Respectful, unflinching, and eye-opening.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Historical fiction that not only depicts a cruel, horrifying reality but also the strength and courage of the people who had to endure it.” —Booklist

In the tradition of Girl, Interrupted, this fiery historical novel follows four young women in the early 20th century whose lives intersect when they are locked up by a world that took the poor, the disabled, the marginalized-and institutionalized them for life.

The Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded is not a happy place. The young women who are already there certainly don’t think so. Not Maxine, who is doing everything she can to protect her younger sister Rose in an institution where vicious attendants and bullying older girls treat them as the morons, imbeciles, and idiots the doctors have deemed them to be. Not Alice, either, who was left there when her brother couldn’t bring himself to support a sister with a club foot. And not London, who has just been dragged there from the best foster situation she’s ever had, thanks to one unexpected, life-altering moment. Each girl is determined to change her fate, no matter what it takes.