Join Loyalty Bookstores and DC Public Libr ary for a live\, in-person event with C eleste Ng and Dolen Perkins-Valdez for \;Our Missin g Hearts! This event will take place at DCPL's \;MLK Library location. \;
\n**Proof of vaccination and face masks are required for all attendees.** \;
\nWe will have additi onal copies of Celeste's and Dolen's books available for sale at the event . Please email events@loyaltybookstores.com with any questions. A limited number of free copies will be available courtesy of the DC Public Library Foundation. \;
\nABOUT THE BOOK
\nOne of The Millions&rsqu o\; Most-Anticipated Books of 2022
\n&ldquo\;As lyrical as it is chi lling\, as astonishing as it is empathic\, \;Our Missing Hearts \; arguably achieves literary perfection.&rdquo\; &mdash\;Booklist (starred r eview)
\nFrom the number one bestselling author of \;Little Fire s Everywhere\, a deeply suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbre akable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear
\nTwelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving bu t broken father\, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions\, stand out too much\, o r stray too far. For a decade\, their lives have been governed by laws wri tten to preserve &ldquo\;American culture&rdquo\; in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperit y\, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents\, e specially those of Asian origin\, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic&mdash\;including the work of Bird&rsquo\;s moth er\, Margaret\, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was ni ne years old.
\nBird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poem s\; he doesn&rsquo\;t know her work or what happened to her\, and he knows he shouldn&rsquo\;t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter cont aining only a cryptic drawing\, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child\, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians\, into the lives of the children who have been taken\, and finally to New Yo rk City\, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.
\nOur Missing Hearts \;is an old story made new\, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injusti ce. It&rsquo\;s a story about the power&mdash\;and limitations&mdash\;of a rt to create change\, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children\ , and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.
\nABOUT THE AUTHOR
\nCeleste Ng \;is the number one New York Times bestselling author of \;Everything I Never Told You \;and&nb sp\;Little Fires Everywhere. Her third novel\, \;Our Missing Hearts\, will be published in October 2022. Ng is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation\, and h er work has been published in over thirty languages.
\nABOUT THE IN CONVERSATION PARTNER
\nDolen Perkins-Valdez \;is the New York Ti mes bestselling author of \;Wench \;and \;Balm. She was a fina list for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for fi ction\, and she was awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus o f the American Library Association. She lives in Washington\, DC with her family.
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