Premium Members Get 10% Off and Earn Rewards Find Out More

The Way the Light Bends

Add to Wishlist

The Way the Light Bends

eBook

$9.99

View All Available Formats & Editions

eBook
$9.99

View All Available Formats & Editions

Available on Compatible NOOK Devices and the free NOOK Apps.

WANT A NOOK? Explore Now

Buy As Gift

Related collections and offers

Overview

A powerful novel in verse about fitting in, standing out, defining your own self-worth, and what it takes to keep a fracturing family whole.

Virtual twins Linc and Holly were once extremely close. But while artistic, creative Linc is her parents' daughter biologically, it's smart, popular Holly, adopted from Ghana as a baby, who exemplifies the family's high-achieving model of academic success.

Linc is desperate to pursue photography, to find a place of belonging, and for her family to accept her for who she is, despite her surgeon mother's constant disapproval and her growing distance from Holly. So when she comes up with a plan to use her photography interests and skills to do better in school--via a project based on Seneca Village, a long-gone village in the space that now holds Central Park, where all inhabitants, regardless of race, lived together harmoniously--Linc is excited and determined to prove that her differences are assets, that she has what it takes to make her mother proud. But when a long-buried family secret comes to light, Linc must decide whether her mother's love is worth obtaining.

A novel in verse that challenges the way we think about family and belonging.

Praise for The Way the Light Bends

"I fell into Linc's world and found myself changed by her journey. Readers will fall in love with her and her struggles." -Dhonielle Clayton, author of the Tiny Pretty Things series and The Belles

"Achingly beautiful, honest and visceral. This is a must read for anyone who has questioned whether they belong." -Meg Wiviott, author of Paper Hearts

"Linc's struggle to chart her own future, unfolding in graceful verse, makes a compelling read." --Kirkus Reviews

"Give this book to any students who have ever felt invisible or who have ever struggled to feel at home in a traditional academic setting." --School Library Journal

"The meshing of word choice and space integrates the protagonist's inner struggles with her undeniable talent as a budding photographer." --Voice of Youth Advocates

"Rich with imagery that embodies longing and heart, a girl's desire to recapture what was, and her joy over discovering her own kind of success." --Booklist

"The book tugs at the heartstrings by focusing on family dynamics and expectations that are universal experiences." --School Library Connection

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399547461
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	03/27/2018
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

Cordelia Jensen holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and teaches creative writing in Philadelphia, where she lives with her husband and children. She is also the author of Skyscraping. Follow her on Twitter @cordeliajensen.

Read an Excerpt

What’s Alive

With a click
and a breath

I capture branches
squirrels
pigeons

two girls
skipping
in time
everything alive, pulsing—
the park
the heartbeat of Manhattan,
of who we used to be.

Holly doesn’t notice
the beauty in
the shape of a puddle
the curved blade of grass,
doesn’t remember
jogs right by
the trickling stream that
became rushing water when our wands
commanded.
Too focused on her boyfriend Stefano
on school
on soccer
for any memory of us.

I take picture after picture
till I’m so far behind
I’m not sure I can catch up.

In Rhythm

We used to be
two girls
walking
hand in hand
arms wrapped around each other
tight
her hand deep brown,
mine, freckly, white,
matching steps and skips
our footsteps falling in rhythm

two beams of light
two stretching shadows

moving side by side

in tempo
in time.

Together, Apart

Now we are
two girls
walking
through Central Park
//together, apart//

one

hands wrapped tight around
my camera, my phone

the other

hands wrapped tight around
someone else
t p
w a
o t
h
s

one in light
one in shadow

diverging.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

New Releases: Instafriendships, Family Drama, and a Legend Retold

March releases came in like a lion, and they’re leaving like one, too. These twelve YAs span the spectrum of relationships, from newly formed best friend trios who meet by chance but could only be fate to families harboring secrets that could tear them apart. College-set YA adds new life lessons to the mix, and […]

14 of Our Most Anticipated Sophomore Novels of 2018

I’m always excited by the prospect of revisiting an author whose debut did anything from spark my interest to steal my heart, but I dare say 2018 is the first year I’m utterly overwhelmed by the sophomore class. This year, it spans authors who made their debut appearance anywhere from 2012 all the way to […]

33 of Our Most Anticipated March YA Novels

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a month start off with a bang like this March does, and the hits just keep on coming until the very end. Get your fill of incredible debuts, mindblowing fantasy, beautifully quiet contemporary, an anthology of unforgettable girls, and books guaranteed to shatter your heart.

8 Must Read YAs In Verse

I was going to introduce this amazing lineup of diverse books in narrative verse in free verse of my own, but I thought I’d spare you. Who needs my weak verse when you have real poets telling amazing stories? Novels in verse are a refreshing genre for many reasons, whether it’s because you’ve been doing […]

Praise for The Way the Light Bends

“I fell into Linc’s world and found myself changed by her journey. Readers will fall in love with her and her struggles.” —Dhonielle Clayton, author of the Tiny Pretty Things series and The Belles

“Achingly beautiful, honest and visceral. This is a must read for anyone who has questioned whether they belong.” —Meg Wiviott, author of Paper Hearts

"Linc’s struggle to chart her own future, unfolding in graceful verse, makes a compelling read." —Kirkus Reviews

"Give this book to any students who have ever felt invisible or who have ever struggled to feel at home in a traditional academic setting." —School Library Journal

"The meshing of word choice and space integrates the protagonist's inner struggles with her undeniable talent as a budding photographer." —Voice of Youth Advocates

"Rich with imagery that embodies longing and heart, a girl’s desire to recapture what was, and her joy over discovering her own kind of success." —Booklist

"The book tugs at the heartstrings by focusing on family dynamics and expectations that are universal experiences." —School Library Connection

From the Publisher

02/01/2018
Gr 7 Up—What happens when you have to choose between being yourself and pleasing others? This is a central question in this intricately woven novel in verse. Holly and Linc share an intense bond as sisters, but lately Holly is an academic superstar, while Linc's inability to succeed in school is a constant disappointment to their exacting mother. A blossoming photographer, Linc strives to make her parents and teachers register the value in her artistic vision; but she has a pervasive feeling that she does not belong at her competitive New York City school or within her own family. If only she could get into the Innovative Arts Academy, maybe everyone would understand her own vision for her life. A well-executed subplot sees Linc using her art to make the invisible history of Seneca Village, with its African American community and its Irish and German immigrants, visible. The author deftly avoids negative stereotyping in developing the diverse cast. Linc's best friend is gay. Holly was adopted from Ghana, while Linc is her parents' biological, though unplanned, daughter. The idea that "humans are their choices" is a pervasive and worthy message throughout the novel, and Linc learns to make wise and authentic choices. Her boyfriend turns out to deeply disappoint, and Linc closes off the relationship with a healthy finality. VERDICT Begging to be paired with Marilyn Nelson's My Seneca Village, give this book to any students who have ever felt invisible or who have ever struggled to feel at home in a traditional academic setting.—Melissa Williams, Berwick Academy, ME

School Library Journal

2017-12-06
Artistically gifted, academically challenged Linc is the biological child of white professional parents who wish Linc could be more like her black, transracially adopted sister, Holly—smart, athletic, popular.Holly's adoption from a Ghanaian orphanage was underway when Linc, four months younger, was conceived. Once close, the sisters' paths have diverged. Linc's on academic probation at their private school, where Holly's an academic superstar even while juggling a boyfriend, student government, and soccer. Linc's growing missteps (suggestive of ADD) trigger parental strictures and scolding lectures; her pleas for photography classes and transfer to an arts-focused school are vetoed. Revisiting Central Park's Seneca Village site—a 19th-century community of freed blacks and European immigrants—where she and Holly played as children, Linc's inspired to use photography to tell its history (its pre-European inhabitants aren't mentioned) for a school project. Park and library visits provide useful cover for secret photography classes and a romance with classmate and fellow artist Silas. Linc's solitary journey is convincing, but Holly, the only adopted character, never comes into focus. The questions and uncertainties she shares with Linc (wishing they'd visited her orphanage on the family's trip to Ghana, wondering about her birth mother) remain fundamentally unexplored. Holly remains an enigma, her character arc peripheral (her image is omitted from the cover), her story half-told.Occasionally pulled off course by tangential threads and underdeveloped characters, Linc's struggle to chart her own future, unfolding in graceful verse, makes a compelling read. (Fiction.13-17)

Kirkus Review