Every Time a Rainbow Dies

From three-time National Book Award finalist and Coretta Scott King Award winner Rita Williams-Garcia, Every Time a Rainbow Dies is a moving, lyrical love story—perfect for fans of Renée Watson and Jason Reynolds. First published in 2001, the novel has now been repackaged with gorgeous new cover art. This book has been available only as an e-book, and we are putting it back into print.  

“He had held frightened squabs but had never handled anything as delicate as this girl. He wanted to be gentle as he helped her to her feet, but she fought everything he did for her.”

Dreamy Thulani spends most of his time up on the roof, taking care of the flock of doves in the cote and watching the streets of Brooklyn bustle below him.

He is up there on the day he sees a girl being brutally attacked in an alley.

Though the girl makes it clear she wants nothing more to do with him after he helps her home, he can’t stop thinking about her. Is she okay? What is her name? Would she be scared if he tried to talk to her?

Suddenly, for the first time since his mother died, Thulani finally has a reason to come down from the roof. But as much as he wants to care for this girl, Ysa—more fragile and fiercer than his birds—she will not trust easily. Is it possible to shelter someone who needs to be free? 

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. Her novel Clayton Byrd Goes Underground was a National Book Award finalist and winner of the NAACP Image Award for Youth/Teen Literature. Rita is also the author of five other distinguished novels for young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here, Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book), Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); and Blue Tights. Rita Williams-Garcia lives in Jamaica, New York, with her husband and has two adult daughters.