CHILDREN · FICTION
Hope Vanderberg
Also known as: Hope Vanderberg of Youth Communication
Frederick Joseph is an American author from Yonkers, New York. He is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author whose work spans nonfiction, poetry, children's literature, and young adult fiction. He is the author of The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person (2020), Patriarchy Blues (2022), and the young adult novel This Thing of Ours (2025), which received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly.
THE SCENE: AN AFRICAN savanna after a torrential sea rain.
— from Mirror, Mirror
Most acclaimed
Mirror, Mirror
E-Book Extra: “Little Snow-White” by the Brothers Grimm (read the original version of the classic fairy tale)Think you know who's the fairest of them all? Think again. Bestselling re-imaginer of classic fairy tales sets the Snow White story in Renaissance Italy, where the madly vain Lucrezia Borgia plots a dire fate for seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada (a.k.a. Snow White).A lyrical work of stunning creative vision, Mirror Mirror is set in Renaissance Italy, where Gregory Maguire draws a connection between the poison apple in the original Snow White story and the Borgia family's well-known appetite for poisoning its foes.In Mirror Mirror Snow White is called Bianca de Nevada. She is born on a farm in Tuscany in 1495, and when she is seven, her father is ordered by the duplicitous Cesare Borgia to go on a quest to reclaim the relic of the original Tree of Knowledge, a branch bearing three living apples that are thousands of years old. Bianca is left in the care of her father's farm staff and the beautiful -- and madly vain -- Lucrecia Borgia, Cesare's sister. But Lucrecia becomes jealous of her lecherous brother's interest in the growing child and plots a dire fate for Bianca in the woods below the farm. There Bianca finds herself in the home of seven dwarves -- the creators of the magic mirror -- who await the return of their brother, the eighth dwarf, long gone on a quest of his own.In the evocative style of Maguire's earlier novels, Mirror Mirror is a fresh, compelling take on a beloved classic tale.
Sticks and stones
Six months after nearly losing their lives to a serial killer in New York City, FBI Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett are suffering through something almost as frightening: the monotony of desk duty. When they're ordered to take a vacation for the good of everyone's sanity, Ty bites the bullet and takes Zane home with him to West Virginia, hoping the peace and quiet of the mountains will give them the chance to explore the explosive attraction they've so far been unable to reconcile with their professional partnership. Ty and Zane, along with Ty's father and brother, head up into the Appalachian mountains for a nice, relaxing hike deep into the woods... where no one will hear them scream. They find themselves facing danger from all directions: unpredictable weather, the unrelenting mountains, wild animals, fellow hikers with nothing to lose, and the most terrifying challenge of all. Each other.
Vicious
A masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers. Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end? In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn't automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.