Solo

From award-winning and bestselling author Kwame Alexander comes Solo, the story of seventeen-year-old Blade Morrison, who is being crushed between the scathing tabloids exposing his former rock-star-father’s addictions and a protected secret that threatens his own identity. The answers to his past and future change everything he thought to be true.

Solo, a YA novel written in poetic verse, tells the story of seventeen-year-old Blade Morrison, who is being crushed between the scathing tabloids exposing his former rock-star-father’s addictions and a protected secret that threatens his own identity.

Thrown into a tailspin, Blade decides the only way he will understand his past and begin his future is to find out the truth behind the music and himself. He sets out on a journey that lands him in Ghana. There, Blade discovers a friendship he couldn’t have imagined, a people founded in family and community, and a reconciliation he never expected.

With his signature intricacy, intimacy, and poetic style, Kwame Alexander explores what it means to finally come home.

Without proselytizing, Solo empowers, engages, and encourages teenagers to move from heartache to healing, burden to blessings, depression to deliverance, and trials to triumphs.

Kwame Alexander is a poet, an educator, and the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty-five books, including his Newbery Medal–winning middle grade novel The Crossover. Some of his other works include Booked, which was longlisted for the National Book Award; The Playbook: 52 Rules to Aim, Shoot, and Score in This Game Called Life; Swing; the picture books How to Read a Book and How to Write a Poem (coauthored with Deanna Nikaido), both illustrated by Melissa Sweet; and The Undefeated, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Caldecott Medal, a Newbery Honor, and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. He is a regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, currently serving as their poet ambassador. He lives in Virginia with his family. 

Mary Rand Hess is a poet, playwright, screenwriter, composer, mixed-media artist, and New York Times bestselling author of notable and award-winning books. Some of her picture books include The One and Only Wolfgang: From Pet Rescue to One Big Happy Family; Animal Ark: Celebrating Our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures; and Belong, a book near and dear to her heart. Whether she’s creating for the page, stage, or screen, Mary has many stories and poems to dream up and share.