The Poet X is a stirring novel by renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo. It tells the story of a young girl in Harlem who discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.

So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

Life experiences could be unique and inestimable. And exactly those values I aimed to capture in my poems.

Life could be an adventure, a dream, an illusion, a wonderful poem or endless love. Travel in Time is not only a collection of poems, it is for you as a reader an experience into a new world, into the world of poetic and romantic imagery.

Step out in time, there where you will touch with your spirit the Transylvanian green mountains, will listen to the song of a lonely shepherd, or you will hear the howling wolves in the moonlight.

Experience with me the innocent emotions of the first love, breathe the fresh air of a foreign country, meet the parents with hearts of diamonds, smile at the innocent sight of an angel, and perhaps, you will encounter a seldom beauty, the Queen of the Night.

The images, thoughts, and emotions you will experience reflect vivid moments from my life. Perhaps, along the journey, you will encounter familiar situations or places, and maybe you will smile by reminiscing your own adventures, your own memories, your own love story.

A teen navigates questions of grief, identity, and guilt in the wake of her sister’s mysterious disappearance in this breathtaking novel-in-verse from the author of 500 Words or Less—perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo.

Rowena feels like her family is a frayed string of lights that someone needs to fix with electrical tape. After her mother died a few years ago, she and her sister, Ariana, drifted into their own corners of the world, each figuring out in their own separate ways how to exist in a world in which their mother is no longer alive.

But then Ariana disappears under the cover of night in the middle of a snowstorm, leaving no trace or tracks. When Row wakes up to a world of snow and her sister’s empty bedroom, she is left to piece together the mystery behind where Ariana went and why, realizing along the way that she might be part of the reason Ariana is gone.

Haunting and evocative—and told in dual perspectives—Turtle Under Ice examines two sisters frozen by grief as they search for a way to unthaw.