Brown, Roseanne

Roseanne Brown was born in Kumasi, Ghana, and immigrated to central Maryland as a child, where she later graduated from eth University of Maryland and completed the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House program. She was an assistant teacher, journalist, and editorial intern before writing her first two YA novels, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin – an instant New York Times bestseller – and A Psalm of Storms and Silence. For most kids, catching fireflies is a fun summer activity. For 12-year-old Serwa Boateng, the hero of Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting (Rick Riordan Presents), it’s a matter of life and death. She knows that some fireflies are “adze,” shapeshifting vampires from the forests of Southeastern Ghana. They prey on the blood of innocents, possessing their minds and turning them into monsters. Slayers like Serwa and her parents have protected an unknowing public for generations, and she is the best slayer her age. But when an “obayifo,” a witch, destroys her childhood home, her parents leave Serwa with her hippie aunt in Nowheresville, Maryland, “for her own safety.” She must deal with mean girls and algebra now, but just as she starts to get the hang of this normal girl thing, an adze infiltrates her school. Seventh grade is hard enough without vampires.