Switch

Description

A surreal and timely novel about isolation and human connection from Michael L. Printz Award winner A.S. King. Switch tell the story of Tru Beck, a girl who lives in a house with a single mysterious switch at its center. No one knows what the switch controls, but Tru's father spends all his time building progressively larger boxes around the switch, until each of his children is safely isolated in their own box. Tru Beck is a teenage girl from Pennsylvania who lives in a world that has become trapped in a fold in time and space, where "real" time has stopped but humanity continues to mark artificial time based on a website called N3WCLOCK.com. Tru lives in a house that has a switch at its center. No one knows what the switch controls, but her father continually builds larger and larger boxes around the switch (Tru lives in Box #7). Tru leaves the box through a Tru-shaped hole to go to school, where she pays no attention to the new "Solution Time" curriculum. In fact, the only interesting thing that's ever happened to Tru at school is when she discoevrs (on her first try) that she can throw a javelin farther than any human has ever thrown anything before in human history.

A.S. King is the award-winning author of many acclaimed books for young readers. Her novel Dig won the 2020 Michael L. Printz Award, and Ask The Passengers won the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The New York Times called her "one of the best YA writers working today." King lives with her family in Pennsylvania, where she returned after living on a farm and teaching adult literacy in Ireland for more than a decade. www.as-king.com

"Timely and extraordinary, teen readers will find themselves immersed in this timeless world."-SLJ, starred review "An unsettling but emotionally resonant novel for our own unsettling times."-Bookpage, starred review "King explores the meaning of time and the toxicity of family secrets. This inventive, surreal novel's dedication, 'For the class of 2020,' makes a direct address to real-life teens' 'lost' COVID-19 year." -Horn Book, starred review "A work of literary genius."-Booklist "Printz Award winner King returns with another surrealist masterpiece."-Kirkus "Poignant, propulsive, and profound."-Publishers Weekly A BookPage Best Book of 2021 A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2021