Transcripts

[MUSIC PLAYING] EMILY BRIGHT: This is Ask a Bookseller, where we check in with Indie booksellers across the country to find out what books they're most excited about right now. I'm Emily Bright. And all through the month of September, we're featuring books for kids and teens to mark the start of the new school year. This week, I spoke with Anna Hirsch of Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis. Anna recommends the middle grade novel Dear Mothman by Robin Gow.

ANNA HIRSCH: Dear Mothman is a book that swept through all of our staff by storm. It is a novel in verse, so it's written in stanzas and written in letters. The main character, Noah, finds out that one of his very closest friends has passed away. So it deals with loss in a really beautiful way.

But as a way to grieve, he starts writing to Mothman, the cryptid. So it's kind of like on top of all these very serious things that he's going through, it's also talking about this like fun imaginary or maybe not imaginary local urban legend.

And so he starts sending these letters out into the world to Mothman. And during all of this, he finds a new group of friends that are incredibly supportive on his journey. He's kind of finding out who he is, finding out that he is trans. And it's also dealing with his family circle and his friends, and his teachers coming to terms with that information and accepting him as well. And it's just the most beautiful book, and one of those things that we put into everybody's hands.

EMILY BRIGHT: That was Anna Hirsch of Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis recommending the middle grade novel Dear Mothman by Robin Gow. For more about this book and other great reads, go to mprnews.org/books.