Ashley Hope Pérez is a novelist, editor, literary scholar, educator, and advocate for young readers. Her work connects narrative ethics, Latinx young-adult literature, historical memory, and intellectual freedom, including the Printz-recognized novel Out of Darkness and the censorship anthology Banned Together.
A dangerous forbidden romance rocks a Texan oil town in 1937, when segregation was a matter of life and death. A Top Ten Most Challenged Book of the Year "This is East Texas, and there's lines. Lines you cross, lines you don't cross. That clear?" New London, TX. 1937. Naomi Vargas is Mexican American. Wash Fuller is Black. These teens know the town's divisive racism better than anyone. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines. And the consequences can be explosive. Naomi and Wash dare to defy the rules, and the New London school explosion serves as a ticking time bomb in the background. Can their love survive both prejudice and tragedy? Race, romance, and family converge in this riveting novel that transplants Romeo and Juliet to a bitterly segregated Texas town. Includes a fascinating author's note detailing the process of research and writing about voices that have largely been excluded from historical accounts. A Printz Honor Book A Booklist 50 Best YA Books of All Time Selection A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A School Library Journal Best Book Winner of the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award
Print · 2015 · English
More About Ashley Hope Pérez
Ashley Hope Pérez is a Texas-born novelist, editor, literary scholar, educator, and youth advocate. She earned a PhD in comparative literature from Indiana University and teaches world literatures at Ohio State, where her work includes narrative ethics, Latinx young-adult literature, and intellectual freedom.
Pérez began writing for young adults after teaching at César E. Chávez High School and listening to students describe the stories they could not find on library shelves. That experience led to What Can't Wait and continues through The Knife and the Butterfly and Out of Darkness, a historical novel about a Black and Mexican American romance in the shadow of the 1937 New London school explosion.
Her later work brings literary creation and public advocacy together. She edited Banned Together, writes and speaks about censorship and readers' rights, and published the scholarly monograph Deformative Fictions on narrative ethics and cruelty.
