Warga, Jasmine

Cora and Quinn, the main characters in Jasmine Warga’s The Shape of Thunder (Balzer + Bray), are best friends but haven’t spoken in a year. They live next door to each other, but they exist in separate worlds of grief. Cora is still grappling with the death of her sister in a school shooting, and Quinn is carrying the guilt of what her brother did. On Cora’s 12th birthday, Quinn leaves a box on her doorstep with a note. She’s decided that the only way to fix things is to go back in time to the moment before her brother changed all their lives forever – and stop him. Despite herself, Cora wants to believe. And so, the two former friends begin working together to open a wormhole in the fabric of the universe. But as they attempt to unravel the mysteries of time travel to save their siblings, they learn that the magic of their friendship may be the key to saving themselves. Publishers Weekly noted that “Warga’s lyrical language and credible rendering of both middle school life and of the tensions of two families coping differently with personal devastation make for a perceptive, sensitively told novel about the effects of gun violence.”