Awards and HonorsPublishers Weekly Best Books - 2019
NYPL Best Books - 2019 PEOPLE Best Books of Fall 2019
2020 Mathical Award Winner 2021 Alan Walden Book Award Finalist
By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer: not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the black man.”
But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination. Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically black in a world intimidated by blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?
These exciting, age-appropriate fiction and nonfiction titles will appeal to even the most reluctant high-school readers. With that kind of appeal, the 14 books in this category will rarely sit on the shelf.
Discrimination: Racial Insensitivity/Racism,Language: Racial or Ethnic Epithet/Slur,Language: Strong Language,Sexual Content: Mild Sexual Content/Themes,Violence: General
Crime: Stalking,Discrimination: Racial Insensitivity/Racism,Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco: Drug Use/Abuse,Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco: Underage Use,Language: Strong Language,Sexual Content: Contact Between Adult and Minor,Violence: Domestic/Physical Abuse,Violence: Sexual Assault/Rape