Narrator

Soneela Nankani

Soneela Nankani
  • For young readers inspired by bestselling autobiographies such as Essentially Charli and Reach for the Skai comes the extraordinary true story of how a nine-year-old DJ from Dubai became an international superstar, as told in her own words—with some help from her “Momager”—with a foreword by Wyclef Jean.

    Dubai wunderkind Michelle Rasul was only a toddler when she first got behind the turntables. By the time she entered the 2021 DMC Global DJing Championship, she was on her way to becoming an international celebrity. Her inspiring autobiography is a testament to passion, talent, family, love, and perseverance—and above all, a celebration of Girl Power with some scratching and a beat.

    Award-winning children’s author Rabiah York takes the reader through DJ Michelle’s extraordinary life in a rollicking, intimate narrative driven by Michelle’s own words—joined by the star’s mother, Saida Rasul. (Or “Momager,” as the family prefers.) In conversation, mother and daughter open up not only about the magic of music in their lives, but about the discipline it takes to journey from precocious youngster to professional scratch DJ. For all of Michelle’s positivity, she is unflinchingly honest about the obstacles she has had to overcome to achieve such astonishing success at such a young age.

    The print edition is enhanced by colorful photographs and other fun multimedia inserts—including (but not limited to) crucial bits of DJ history; text messages from friends, fans, and celebrities; even a school assignment.

  • A fresh, witty romantic-comedy romp set against the backdrop of a high-profile music competition and a riotous Indian wedding

    Zurika Damani is a naturally gifted violinist with a particular love for hip-hop beats. But as she is part of a big Indian family, everyone has expectations, and those certainly don’t include hip-hop violin. After being rejected by the Juilliard School, Zuri’s last hope is a contest judged by a panel of top-tier college scouts. The only problem? This coveted competition happens to take place during Zuri’s sister’s extravagant wedding week. And Zuri has already been warned, repeatedly, that she is not to miss a single moment.

    In the midst of the chaos, Zuri’s mom is in matchmaking mode with the groom’s South African cousin Naveen—who just happens to be a cocky vocalist set on stealing Zuri’s spotlight at the scouting competition. Luckily, Zuri has a crew of loud and loyal female cousins cheering her on.

    Now, all she has to do is to wow the judges for a top spot, evade getting caught by her parents, resist Naveen’s charms, and, oh yeah—not mess up her sister’s big fat Indian wedding. What could possibly go wrong?

  • In the past, being a “difficult bitch” was bad. Girls weren’t supposed to call people out for their BS, stand up for themselves, or do their own thing. This book embraces the insult with irreverent humor, encouraging listeners to be themselves no matter what, including an exploration of the ways this phrase can be interpreted differently among people of different backgrounds.

    Being a powerhouse is a choice. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a code of ethics. It takes work, a thick skin, and perseverance. In this book, you’ll learn the ins and outs of being a Difficult Bitch, from school to friends to body to life.

  • Teen Vogue, the fresh voice of a generation of activists, curates a dynamic collection of timely pieces on the climate justice movement.

    With accessible, concise explanations of the features and causes of climate change as well as pieces urging an intersectional approach to environmental justice, this book is the handbook for the emerging youth climate movement. Using a feminist, indigenous, antiracist, internationalist lens, the book paints a picture of a world in climate crisis and presents bold, courageous ideas for how to save it. Featuring introductions from leading climate activists, No Planet B is essential listening for everyone fighting for a Green New Deal and more.

  • Ramiza Shamoun Koya reveals the devastating cost of anti-Muslim sentiment in The Royal Abduls, her debut novel about an Indian America family.

    Evolutionary biologist Amina Abdul accepts a post-doc in Washington, DC, choosing her career studying hybrid zones over a faltering West Coast romance. Her brother and sister-in-law welcome her to the city, but their marriage is crumbling, and they soon rely on her to keep their son company.

    Omar, hungry to understand his cultural roots, fakes an Indian accent, invents a royal past, and peppers his aunt with questions about their cultural heritage. When he brings an ornamental knife to school, his expulsion triggers a downward spiral for his family, even as Amina struggles to find her own place in an America now at war with people who look like her.

    With The Royal Abduls, Koya ignites the canon of post-9/11 literature with a deft portrait of second-generation American identity.

  • Princess or adventurer.

    Duty or freedom.

    Her Kingdom or the storm hunter she loves.

    If Aurora knows anything, it’s that choices have consequences. To set things right, she joins a growing revolution on the streets of Pavan.

    In disguise as the rebel Roar, she puts her knowledge of the palace to use to aid the rebellion. But the Rage season is at its peak, and not a day passes without the skies raining down destruction. Yet these storms are different … they churn with darkness and attack with a will that’s desperate and violent.

    This feels like more than rage.

    It feels like war.

  • Multilayered, subtle, insightful short stories from the inimitable Booker Prize–winning author

    Nobody has written so powerfully of the relationship between and within India and the Western middle classes than Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. In this selection of stories, chosen by her surviving family, her ability to tenderly and humorously view the situations faced by three (sometimes interacting) cultures―European, post-Independence Indian, and American―is never more acute.

    In “A Course of English Studies,” a young woman arrives at Oxford from India and struggles to adapt, not only to the sad, stoic object of her infatuation but also to a country that seems so resistant to passion and color. In the wrenching “Expiation,” the blind, unconditional love of a cloth-shop owner for his wastrel younger brother exposes the tragic beauty and foolishness of human compassion and faith. The wry and triumphant “Pagans” brings us middle-aged sisters Brigitte and Frankie in Los Angeles, who discover a youthful sexuality in the company of the languid and handsome young Indian, Shoki. This collection also includes Jhabvala’s last story, “The Judge’s Will,” which appeared in the New Yorker in 2013 after her death.

    The profound inner experience of both men and women is at the center of Jhabvala’s writing: she rivals Jane Austen with her impeccable powers of observation. With an introduction by her friend, the writer Anita Desai, At the End of the Century celebrates a writer’s astonishing lifetime gift for language and leaves us with no doubt of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s unique place in modern literature.

  • Mira is a teacher living in the heart of Suryam, a modern, bustling city in India and the only place in the world the fickle Rasagura fruit grows. Mira lives alone and with only the French existentialists as companions, until the day she witnesses a beautiful woman having a seizure in the park. Mira runs to help her but is cautious, for she could have sworn the woman looked around to see if anyone was watching right before the seizure began.

    Mira is quickly drawn into the lives of this mysterious woman, Sara, who suffers myriad unexplained illnesses, and her kind, intensely supportive husband, Rahil, striking up intimate, volatile, and fragile friendships with each of them that quickly become something more.

    Intoxicated by their attention and eager to unravel the mystery of Sara’s illness, Mira wonders if Sara is unwell. Is she faking it for attention? Is it a psychological disorder? Or is Rahil making Sara sick to keep her wings clipped?

    A moving exploration of loss, Mukherjee delivers an intense and unexpected modern love story as Mira reconciles reality with desire.

  • An activism handbook for teen girls ready to fight for change, social justice, and equality

    Take on the world and make some serious change with this handbook to everything activism, social justice, and resistance. With in-depth guides to everything from picking a cause, planning a protest, and raising money to running dispute-free meetings, promoting awareness on social media, and being an effective ally, Girls Resist! will show you how to go from “mad as heck about the way the world is going” to “effective leader who gets stuff done.”

    Veteran feminist organizer KaeLyn Rich shares tons of expertise that’ll inspire you as much as it teaches you the ropes plus interviews with fellow teen girl activists show how they stood up for change in their communities. Grab this handbook to crush inequality, start a revolution, and resist!

  • Mem is a rare novel, a small book carrying very big ideas, the kind of story that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading it.

    Set in the glittering art deco world of a century ago, Mem makes one slight alteration to history: a scientist in Montreal discovers a method allowing people to have their memories extracted from their minds, whole and complete. The Mems exist as mirror-images of their source―zombie-like creatures destined to experience that singular memory over and over, until they expire in the cavernous Vault where they are kept.

    And then there is Dolores Extract #1, the first Mem capable of creating her own memories. An ageless beauty shrouded in mystery, she is allowed to live on her own, and create her own existence, until one day she is summoned back to the Vault. What happens next is a gorgeously rendered, heart-breaking novel in the vein of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

    Debut novelist Bethany Morrow has created an allegory for our own time, exploring profound questions of ownership and how they relate to identity, memory, and history, all in the shadows of Montreal’s now forgotten slave trade.

  • From the award-winning author of For Today I Am a Boy, a gripping and deeply felt novel about a group of young girls at a remote camp—and the night that changes everything and will shape their lives for decades to come

    A group of young girls descends on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and camp songs by the fire. Filled with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home.

    The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore traces these five girls—Nita, Andee, Isabel, Dina, and Siobhan—through and beyond this fateful trip. We see them through successes and failures, loving relationships and heartbreaks; we see what it means to find, and define, oneself, and the ways in which the same experience is refracted through different people. In diamond-sharp prose, Kim Fu gives us a portrait of friendship and of the families we build for ourselves—and the pasts we can’t escape.

  • From the award-winning author of For Today I Am a Boy, a gripping and deeply felt novel about a group of young girls at a remote camp—and the night that changes everything and will shape their lives for decades to come.

    A group of young girls descend on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and camp songs by the fire. Filled with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home.

    The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore traces these five girls—Nita, Andee, Isabel, Dina, and Siobhan—through and beyond this fateful trip. We see them through successes and failures, loving relationships and heartbreaks; we see what it means to find, and define, oneself, and the ways in which the same experience is refracted through different people. In diamond-sharp prose, Kim Fu gives us a portrait of friendship and of the families we build for ourselves—and the pasts we can’t escape.

  • The Sisters of the Crescent Empress is the second book in Leena Likitalo’s Waning Moon Duology, a fabulous historical fantasy based on the lives of the Romanov sisters.

    We all think we know how the story ends …

    With the Crescent Empress dead, a civil war has torn the empire asunder. No one seems able to stop the ruthless Gagargi Prataslav. The five Daughters of the Moon are where he wants them to be, held captive in an isolated house in the far north.

    Little Alina senses that the rooms that have fallen in disrepair have a sad tale to tell. Indeed, she soon meets two elderly ladies, the ghosts of the house’s former inhabitants.

    Merile finds the ghosts suspiciously friendly and too interested in her sisters. She resolves to uncover their agenda with the help of her two dogs.

    Sibilia isn’t terribly interested in her younger sisters’ imaginary friends, for she has other concerns. If they don’t leave the house by spring, she’ll miss her debut. And while reading through the holy scriptures, she stumbles upon a mystery that reeks of power.

    Elise struggles to come to terms with her relationship with Captain Janlav. Her former lover now serves the gagargi, and it’s his duty to keep the daughters confined in the house. But if the opportunity were to arise, she might be able sway him into helping them flee.

    Celestia is perfectly aware of the gagargi coming to claim her rather sooner than later. She’s resolved to come up with a plan to keep her sisters safe at any cost. For she knows what tends to happen to the sisters of the Crescent Empress.

  • Inspired by the 1917 Russian revolution and the last months of the Romanov sisters, The Five Daughters of the Moon is a beautifully crafted historical fantasy with elements of technology fueled by evil magic.

    The Crescent Empire teeters on the edge of a revolution, and the Five Daughters of the Moon are the ones to determine its future.

    Alina, six, fears Gagargi Prataslav and his Great Thinking Machine. The gagargi claims that the machine can predict the future, but at a cost that no one seems to want to know.

    Merile, eleven, cares only for her dogs, but she smells that something is afoul with the gagargi. By chance, she learns that the machine devours human souls for fuel, and yet no one believes her claim.

    Sibilia, fifteen, has fallen in love for the first time in her life. She couldn’t care less about the unrest spreading through the countryside. Or the rumors about the gagargi and his machine.

    Elise, sixteen, follows the captain of her heart to orphanages and workhouses. But soon she realizes that the unhappiness amongst her people runs much deeper that anyone could have ever predicted.

    And Celestia, twenty-two, who will be the empress one day. Lately, she’s been drawn to the gagargi. But which one of them was the first to mention the idea of a coup?

  • Roar is the first in a new YA fantasy series by New York Times bestselling author Cora Carmack.

  • A wildly imaginative, rebellious, and tender tale of independence from the critically acclaimed author of Bad Marie.

    With each new novel, Marcy Dermansky deploys her “brainy, emotionally sophisticated” (New York Times) prose to greater and greater heights, and The Red Car is no exception.

    Leah is living in Queens with a possessive husband she doesn’t love and a long list of unfulfilled ambitions, when she’s jolted from a thick ennui by a call from the past. Her beloved former boss and friend, Judy, has died in a car accident and left Leah her most prized possession and, as it turns out, the instrument of Judy’s death: a red sports car.

    Judy was the mentor Leah never expected. She encouraged Leah’s dreams, analyzed her love life, and eased her into adulthood over long lunches away from the office. Facing the jarring disconnect between the life she expected and the one she is now actually living, Leah takes off for San Francisco to claim Judy’s car. In sprawling days defined by sex, sorrow, and unexpected delight, Leah revisits past lives and loves in search of a self she abandoned long ago. Piercing through Leah’s surreal haze is the enigmatic voice of Judy, as sharp as ever, providing wry commentary on Leah’s every move.

    Following her “irresistible” (Time) and “wicked” (Slate) novel Bad Marie, Dermansky evokes yet another edgy, capricious, and beautifully haunting heroine―one whose search for realization is as wonderfully unpredictable and hypnotic as the twists and turns of the Pacific Coast Highway. Tautly wound, transgressive, and mordantly funny, The Red Car is an incisive exploration of one woman’s unusual route to self-discovery.

  • When the posthuman Next suddenly reappear in a solar system that banished them, humans are threatened. Their reactions vary from disgust and anger to yearning to live forever like the powerful Next, who are casually building a new city out of starships in the heart of the rewilded planet Lym. The first families of Lym must deal with invasion while they grapple with their own inner fears.

    Ranger Charlie Windar is desperate to save his beloved planet. The Next are building strange cities he never imagined, and other humans who want to destroy the Next are his worst enemies.

    Ambassador Nona Hall strives to forge links between the powerful station she’s from, the Diamond Deep, and the people of Lym. The formidable merchant Gunnar Ellensson appears to be up to no good, and as usual his motivations are suspect. Why is he sending ships to Lym, and what does he intend to do with them when he arrives?

    The Shining Revolution threatens to undo everything by attacking the Next on Lym, and their desire to eradicate the posthumans is greater than their desire to save humanity’s home. It is entirely possible that they will draw the wrath of the Next onto all of humanity.

    In the meantime, the Next’s motives remain inscrutable. Why are they here at all? What do they want? Why are they interested in the ancient past of a planet that has been ravaged and rebuilt at least once?

  • What if a society banished its worst nightmare to the far edge of the solar system, destined to sip dregs of light and struggle for the barest living? What if that life thrived, grew, learned, and became far more than anyone ever expected, yearning to return to the sun? What if it didn’t share your moral compass in any way?

    The Glittering Edge duology describes the clash of forces when an advanced society that has filled a solar system with flesh-and-blood life meets the near-AIs it banished long ago. This is a story of love for the wild and natural life on a colony planet, a complex adventure set in powerful space stations, and the desire to live completely—whether you are made of flesh and bone or silicon and carbon fiber.

    In Edge of Dark, listeners will meet ranger Charlie Windar and his adopted wild predator, who live on a planet that has been raped and restored more than once; Nona Hall, child of power and privilege from the greatest station in the system, the Diamond Deep; and Nona’s best friend, a young woman named Chrystal who awakens in a robotic body.

  • A tale beloved by many fans of Robert A. Heinlein, Podkayne of Mars tells the story of a young Marswoman and her interplanetary adventures with her uncle and her genius brother.

    Told largely through Podkayne’s diaries, the story details her travel to Earth with her two companions. Podkayne has definite plans on what to do and how to do it, but not everything is as it seems. She is suddenly thrust into the middle of life-or-death situations when the liner they are traveling on makes a stop at Venus.

    Heinlein was originally asked to change the controversial ending, and he reluctantly did. But he felt the original ending better suited the story and was never satisfied with the modified “safer” ending. This edition restores the book to how Heinlein originally wrote it.