Elizabeth Acevedo

Elizabeth Acevedo is the New York Times bestselling author of With the Fire on High and National Book Award-winning novel The Poet X. She is a National Poetry Slam champion. In Clap When You Land (Quill Tree Books) a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives. Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, she arrives at the airport to see crowds of people crying. In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews noted that Clap When You Land “Tackles family secrets, toxic masculinity, and socio-economic differences with incisive clarity and candor… Every line is laced with betrayal and longing as the teens struggle with loving someone despite his imperfections. A standing ovation.”