The authors of the young adult bestseller Blackout are teaming up again for a follow-up to their acclaimed 2021 novel.
Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon will publish Whiteout this fall, HarperCollins announced in a news release.
Written during the Covid-19 quarantine, Blackout told the story of a citywide electrical outage in New York, and the teenagers who were affected by it. A critic for Kirkus praised the book as “a fantastic mix of humor and romance” and “a celebration of Black teen love and the magic of possibility.” The book is being adapted into a movie and television series by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground.
Whiteout will be set in Atlanta during a massive snowstorm in December. “A group of Black teens, who reflect a diverse range of identities and experiences, band together to help a friend pull off the most epic apology of her life,” HarperCollins says. “With the city frozen in place and everyone sprinkled across the city, will the teens be able to make it happen?”
In a statement, the authors said they were “thrilled” to be “bringing a new novel full of Black love to Black teens.”
“As we did with Blackout, Whiteout will celebrate queer kids, Afro-Latinx kids, and even more cultural diversity from across the African diaspora,” they said. “We can’t wait for the world to see that Black kids and Black love stories are as unique as snowflakes.”
Whiteout will be published by Quill Tree Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, on Nov. 8.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
