When Tomorrow Burns
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Mar 3, 2026
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Three middle school students embark on a quest to find a book that may just save their lives in this spectacular novel about fate and friendship--from the Newbery Award-winning author of When You Trap a Tiger.
Once there was a tree. For two hundred years, there was a tree. There was a tree. There was a tree. Until the tree fell in a forest--and then there was a book.
When best friends Nomi, Vi, and Arthur were younger, they discovered a book of prophecies. It was so very comforting to know what was coming. But as the kids grew older, they forgot about the book.
Until the final prophecy started coming true.
Now, as seventh grade tests their friendship and wildfires threaten Seattle, the final prophecy promises fire and destruction. Nomi tries everything to prevent calamity. The only problem? She needs help...but Vi's acting strange and Arthur stopped talking to her.
Vi can't tell Nomi, but she's been texting the coolest boy in school, and it's going well--until that boy makes an unexpected request, and she must decide who she wants to be.
Meanwhile, Arthur joined the cross-country team, but he can't outrun the real reason he ended his friendship with Nomi. The best he can do is try to hide it.
As the prophecy escalates, past and present intersect, fate and friendship collide, and secrets spread like wildfire. Together, Nomi, Vi, and Arthur must face the future...even, and especially when it's so uncertain.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seventh grade trials—and a healthy dose of mystical meddling—jeopardize a tight-knit trio's yearslong friendship in Newbery medalist Keller's striking novel. Uncomfortable with his crush on Nomi, Arthur avoids her to spend time with his sexist track teammates. Simultaneously, Nomi wonders why Violet has seemed different lately: she's started wearing pink and has been going by the name Vi. As encroaching wildfire smoke threatens her Seattle hometown, Nomi recalls a foreboding phrase from a book of prophecy the group once read: "Pink and gray both on one day./ The world has tipped, you have no say." Hoping to halt said world-tipping, the erstwhile friends reunite to embark on a quest to find the second volume of predictions, seeking guidance. Interspersed among the trio's perceptive alternating chapters are enigmatic interstitials from the perspective of Seattle trees as they recount the city's past and offer context surrounding the origins of the prophetic books. Threading a grounded story following three tweens on the precipice of change with adroit musings about climate disaster, misogyny, and the cyclical patterns of history, Keller delivers a moving, clear-eyed exhortation on the necessity of community. Vi is described as half Asian and half white; Nomi and Arthur are white. Ages 8–12.
