Sitting in St. James

Rita Williams-Garcia's Newbery Honor Book, One Crazy Summer, was a winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and a New York Times bestseller. The two sequels, P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama, were both Coretta Scott King Author Award winners and ALA Notable Children’s Books. She is also the author of the NAACP Image Award–winning and National Book Award finalist Clayton Byrd Goes Underground; A Sitting in St. James, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winner and Los Angeles Times Book Award winner; Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book; Blue Tights; and four ALA Best Books for Young Adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here; Every Time a Rainbow Dies, a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book; and Fast Talk on a Slow Track. Rita Williams-Garcia lives in Jamaica, New York, with her husband and has two adult daughters. You can visit her online at ritawg.com.

"This is a wonderful character-driven novel as stories of the enslaved and the slaveowners are simultaneously told... This novel is a necessary purchase for conversations about ­slavery’s legacy in the Black Lives Matter era." — School Library Journal (starred review)“A Sitting in St. James is a mesmerizing, confounding and vividly rendered portrait of the thoroughly putrid institution of slavery in antebellum Louisiana.” — BookPage (starred review)"The masterful Rita Williams-Garcia depicts the brutality and inhumanity of slavery in the antebellum South by intertwining the lives of the white Guilbert family and the Black people they enslaved in this shocking and dramatic novel." — Shelf Awareness (starred review)"With a cast of characters whose assorted genealogies feel like an ode to the mixing of peoples and cultures in Louisiana, this story broadens and emboldens interrogations of U.S. chattel slavery... A marathon masterpiece that shares a holistic portrait of U.S. history that must not be dismissed or forgotten." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"Offers an unvarnished look at a slowly toppling power structure obsessed with artifice and tradition, hinting through a notably long-view lens that new generations may, slowly and not without suffering, move away from antiquated ideology." — Publishers Weekly"In this sweeping, richly researched, and powerfully delivered tale of privilege and exploitation—often a difficult read—Williams-Garcia’s storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic." — Horn Book (starred review)"Williams-Garcia is chessmaster of a deviously intricate game; Madame Sylvie may make the boldest moves, but it’s her hobbled pawn, the near-silent servant Thisbe, who listens, observes, learns, and amasses the knowledge to strike the queen with a coup de grâce." — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books"Equal parts history and tantalizing, chaotic drama, Williams-Garcia's stunning novel delivers a fresh and nuanced approach to the tale of American slavery... Best-selling, award-winning Williams-Garcia's return to YA, particularly with a book as monumental as this, is definite cause for celebration." — Booklist (starred review)