2016 – Out of Darkness, by Ashley Hope Perez

Out of Darkness is a work of historical young adult fiction, loosely based on an actual school explosion that took place in New London, Texas, in 1937.

Ashley Hope Perez has taken the explosion as her backdrop and imagined a diverse cast of characters whose broken lives are utterly captivating and tragically entangled with the school and the explosion. The central story is that of two teenagers: Naomi, who is Mexican, and Wash, who is black. It’s a gripping novel about race, segregation, love, and the forces that destroy people.

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