Author Andrew Smith is going on his “Keep YA Weird” tour to celebrate the release of his new novel, The Alex Crow and the paperback release of Grasshopper Jungle.
Andrew Smith will embark on a national “Keep YA Weird” tour. This tour will be part of a national “Keep YA Weird” campaign that celebrates literary experimentalism and extreme imagination in YA literature. To celebrate, fans will be encouraged to share their favorite five “weird YA” books using the hashtag #keepYAweird.
Smith’s “weirdly compelling” (Kirkus, starred review) fiction has been likened to Kurt Vonnegut (The New York Times Book Review) and “an absurdist Middlesex” (Entertainment Weekly). Grasshopper Jungle was celebrated as “raunchy, bizarre, smart and compelling” (Rolling Stone), “intricately structured” and “profound” (The Washington Post) and “wildly original” (The San Francisco Chronicle). The novel explored sexual identity, Polish ancestry, and science gone wrong through a series of strange events in a small, dying Iowa factory town.
In The Alex Crow, Smith blends multiple story strands that transcend time and place to tell the story of 15-year-old Ariel, a refugee from the Middle East who is the sole survivor of an attack on his small village. Now living with an adoptive family in Sunday, West Virginia, Ariel’s story of his summer at a boys’ camp for tech detox is juxtaposed against those of a schizophrenic bomber, a depressed bionic reincarnated crow, a Siberian iceman and the diaries of a failed arctic expedition from the late nineteenth century.
The Alex Crow and Grasshopper Jungle paperback release on March 10.
Andrew Smith’s ‘Keep YA Weird’ Tour
Tuesday, March 10 at 6:30 pm – SAN FRANCISCO
BookPassage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, CA 94925
Wednesday, March 11 at 7 pm – PALO ALTO, CA
Books Inc. Palo Alto
74 Town and Country Village
855 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, 94301
Thursday, March 12 at 7 pm – BOISE, ID
Rediscovered Books
180 North 8th Street
Boise, ID 83702
Friday, March 13 at 7 pm – PHOENIX, AZ
Changing Hands
Tempe, AZ
Sat-Sun, March 14-15 – TUCSON, AZ
Tucson Book Festival
Saturday, March 21 – NEW YORK CITY
NYC Teen Author Festival
Sunday, March 22 at 4 pm – RHINEBECK, NY
Oblong Books & Music
group event with Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black
6422 Montgomery Street, Rhinebeck, NY 12572
Monday, March 23 at time tk – ATLANTA, GA
Little Shop of Stories
133 East Court Square
Decatur GA 30030
Tuesday, March 24 at 6:30 pm – ATHENS, GA
Avid Bookshop
493 Prince Avenue, Athens, GA 30601
April 18-19 – LOS ANGELES
LA Times Festival of Books
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