A World Worth Saving

A trans kid learns just how powerful he can be in the face of dangers both natural and supernatural in this powerful new book from the Newbery Honor-winning author of When A’s friend Yarrow goes missing, he knows it has everything to do with Save our Sons and Daughters. The organization markets themselves as a support group for parents with trans kids, but;SOSAD does little more than push fears of a nonexistent “transgender craze," and take every opportunity to turn parents against their children.; While Yarrow''s dissapearance is shocking, it''s not altogether surprising; kids have been disappearing from the group for weeks. Still, A never suspected that there was anything supernatural about it, until he finds himself face-to-face with a real-life golem--a creature brought to life by a rabbinic ritual. Turns out, Yarrow''s disappearance is bigger than SOSAD, A''s transphobic parents, or even the rash of anti-trans bills racing through state legistlatures across the country. Sheydim--demons from Jewish mythology--who feed on the darkness in the world, are stirring. And the rise in transphobia is serving up an endless buffet. The golem is convinced that A can help unravel the thread of evil weaving through the world. But how is one trans kid who hasn’t even chosen a full name supposed to save his friend, let alone the whole world?

Auteur
Kyle Lukoff is the author of many books for young readers. His debut middle-grade novel, Too Bright to See, received a Newbery Honor, the Stonewall award, and was a National Book Award finalist. His picture book When Aidan Became a Brother also won the Stonewall. He has forthcoming books about mermaids, babies, apologies, and lots of other topics. While becoming a writer he worked as a bookseller for ten years, and then nine more years as a school librarian.

Texte du rabat

A groundbreaking, action-packed, and ultimately uplifting adventure that intertwines elements of Jewish mythology with an unflinching examination of the impacts of transphobia, from Newbery Honor-winner Kyle Lukoff

“Rare and beautiful—a novel that combines wondrous fantasy, searing real-world relevance, and a frank empathetic understanding of the adolescent experience...The way Lukoff combines these elements in a page-turning adventure is nothing short of magic!” —Rick Riordan, author of Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Covid lockdown is over, but A’s world feels smaller than ever. Coming out as trans didn’t exactly go well, and most days, he barely leaves his bedroom, let alone the house. But the low point of A’s life isn’t online school, missing his bar mitzvah, or the fact that his parents monitor his phone like hawks—it’s the weekly Save Our Sons and Daughters meetings his parents all but drag him to.

At SOSAD, A and his friends Sal and Yarrow sit by while their parents deadname them and wring their hands over a nonexistent “transgender craze.” After all, sitting in suffocating silence has to be better than getting sent away for “advanced treatment,” never to be heard from again.

When Yarrow vanishes after a particularly confrontational meeting, A discovers that SOSAD doesn’t just feel soul-sucking…it’s run by an actual demon who feeds off the pain and misery of kids like him. And it’s not just SOSAD—the entire world is beset by demons dining on what seems like an endless buffet of pain and bigotry.

But how is one trans kid who hasn’t even chosen a name supposed to save his friend, let alone the world? And is a world that seems hellbent on rejecting him even worth saving at all?

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1
2022 (kind of)

“A_! It’s time to go! Are your shoes on?” Mom’s voice drilled through my closed bedroom door.

Aglets. That’s what they're called. Those little plasticky things at the ends of shoelaces. That would be a fun name, too. Aglet Izenson. I clicked out of the Wikipedia rabbit hole that led me to “shoelaces” and closed my laptop.

I grabbed the laces of my left sneaker. They dangled from my fingers like limp black worms. Come on, I urged myself, but my hands remained rebelliously still.

“Almost ready!” I called back.

I didn’t forget how to tie my shoes, I swear. Shoe-tying was a skill I mastered in first grade, the loops and knots and everything. But once my shoes were tied, I’d have to leave.

“Well, hurry up!”

It’s not like I loved my bedroom, this featureless box painted a babyish shade of lilac. All I had in here were books; battered old paperbacks from my mom’s youth, the ones she loved enough to keep and pass on to me, the ones I had a complicated relationship with. No posters on the walls, no flags or pictures torn out of magazines, just a small bump in the plaster above my desk shaped like a teddy bear, and a cobweb hanging in the corner that I hadn’t knocked down yet. I was saving that task for a day when I got really bored.

After spending approximately twenty-one percent of my life in this room except for going to the bathroom, shuffling downstairs for bowls of cereal, and long meanders around our backyard—thanks, COVID—you’d think I’d be thrilled for any excuse to leave. I mean, even wandering around the grocery store without a mask on still felt like a risky, thrilling adventure. But tying my shoes would take me one step closer to an intolerable fate.

“A, we’re going to be late! Let’s get a move on!” That was my dad.

“One more minute,” I yelled.

It wasn’t too late to fake-cough and tell them that I couldn’t smell anything. There was still the lingering fear of a new variant, one that wouldn’t register on a rapid test. Mom would freak out about a breakthrough infection, I’d go stir-crazy sitting in my room for ten days, but I’d get to miss two SOSAD meetings.

That felt like a nuclear option, though. One to save for if I really needed to get out of something.

Mom rapped her knuckles on my bedroom door, then poked her head in without waiting for my response.

“You’re wearing that?” she asked. Well, “ask” isn’t quite the right word. It’s more like she was telling me I wouldn’t be wearing that if she had anything to say about it.

“I am,” I said anyway. Because it was true, I was wearing that, “that” being plain black sneakers, my only pair of baggy jeans with decent pockets, and a red polo shirt I bought at a neighbor’s yard sale for a quarter. I wished I still had the binder I got, from this collective that shipped donated ones all over the world in discreet packaging. But when my mom found it, she whisked it away without a word, and I never saw it again. I figured she cut it into pieces or buried it in the trash or ritualistically burned it in the backyard. Now I squeezed myself into too-tight sports bras. If you didn’t look too closely I could pass as a boy with, uh, unusually well-developed pectoral muscles.

“Why don’t you at least change your shirt, sweetheart?” she asked, her voice like that stuff they have to advertise as “breakfast syrup” because there’s not a drop of true maple in it. Too sweet, and bad for you. “I bought you those nice new blouses, I’m sure everyone at the meeting would love to see you in one.”

I tried to keep my body language relaxed and nonchalant, while girding my mental loins. “I like this shirt,” I told her. “And besides, you’re the one who’s always told me that girls get …