14 new YA books to read during sweater season this October

Light It Up – Kekla Magoon

Light It Up, the follow-up to author Kekla Magoon’s How It Went Down, is a series of vignettes in response to another terrible tragedy in a community still struggling to heal from the aftermath of violence.

When a white police officer shoots a 13-year-old black girl just two years after the killing of Tariq Johnson, the community of Underhill is more organized and ready to react. The story is told from the perspectives of multiple people, including young Shae’s devastated friends and family, the shooting’s sole witness, the daughter of the accused officer, a PR rep for the local police department and much more.

Light It Up is complex and difficult, inviting difficult conversations about police brutality and racism and the way these tragedies – and the culture that keeps producing them – impact different people in different ways.

The official synopsis has a bit more detail.

"A girl walks home from school. She’s tall for her age. She’s wearing her winter coat. Her headphones are in. She’s hurrying. She never makes it home. In the aftermath, while law enforcement tries to justify the response, one fact remains: a police officer has shot and killed an unarmed thirteen-year-old girl. The community is thrown into upheaval, leading to unrest, a growing movement to protest the senseless taking of black lives, and the arrival of white supremacist counter demonstrators."

Light It Up is available on October 22.