Salt the Water
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book
Cerulean Gene is free everywhere except school, where they’re known for repeatedly challenging authority. Raised in a free-spirited home by two loving parents who encourage Cerulean to be their full self, they’ve got big dreams of moving cross-country to live off the grid with their friends after graduation. But a fight with a teacher spirals out of control, and Cerulean impulsively drops out to avoid the punishment they fear is coming. Why wait for graduation to leave an oppressive capitalist system and live their dreams?
Cerulean is truly brilliant, but their sheltered upbringing hasn’t prepared them for the consequences of their choice — especially not when it’s compounded by a family emergency that puts a parent out of work. Suddenly the money they’d been stacking with their friends is a resource that the family needs to stay afloat.
Salt the Water is a book about dreaming in a world that has other plans for your time, your youth, and your future. It asks, what does it look like when a bunch of queer Black kids are allowed to dream? And what does it look like for them to confront the present circumstances of the people they love while still pursuing a wildly different future of their own?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Black nonbinary 17-year-old Cerulean Gene is fed up with the rigid rules and expectations of public high school ("i'm stuck in stiff-ass classrooms... staring down out-of-touch white men/ who don't really care if i learn"). After a dispute with a teacher escalates, Cerulean drops out of school. Cerulean; their partner, Zaria; and friends Irvin and Jai—the self-named "Bronx babies," all of whom are nonbinary—have been saving money to live a life off the grid, where they won't be held to society's expectations. Cerulean's parents' unwavering support buoys them along on their journey to becoming their most authentic self. But after a serious accident jeopardizes their family's livelihood, Cerulean must decide if what they want out of life is still possible. Fluid verse by Iloh (Break This House) is driven by Cerulean's refreshing and optimistic dreams of creating their own world ("last night i had a dream... in the dream i was in an open field surrounded/ by all these flowers"); their introspective first-person perspective, paired with an open-ended resolution, offers myriad avenues for rumination on personal autonomy and self-expression. Ages 14–up.
