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Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Author
Imprint: Hodder Children's Books
Publication date: January 29, 2026
Category: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781444934625
In this quiet town, a magic awakens . . .
Thirteen-year-old Yumna lives in a sleepy town where nothing ever happens. So when her friends start sneaking into the woods at night, curiosity gets the better of her and she follows. There, she discovers something unbelievable. Kareem can turn into a golden horse. Sami can touch fire without burning. Even her cousin Nafisa has a strange new power. Everyone’s changing . . . except Yumna.
But when Kareem vanishes and a mysterious new family, the Maidstones, seem to be hiding something, Yumna is the only one asking the right questions. As secrets unravel and danger creeps closer, it’s up to Yumna to rally her friends and uncover the truth.
In a town full of secrets and powers, can one ordinary girl become the hero they all need?
Yassmin Abdel-Magied has published five books, most recently Stand Up and Speak Out Against Racism (Walker, 2023), named a Best Book of 2023 by School Library Journal and longlisted for the 2025 UKLA Book Award and 2024 SLA Information Book Award. Her previous books include the essay collection Talking About a Revolution (PRH, 2022) and two novels for younger readers, You Must Be Layla (Puffin, 2019) and Listen, Layla (Puffin, 2021). Listen, Layla was longlisted for Book of the Year by the Children’s Book Council of Australia, and named a 2022 Honor Book for Children’s Africana Book of the Year by the Center for African Studies at Howard University in the U.S. Her TED Talk on bias has been viewed over 2.7M times. Sudanese by birth, raised in Australia, Yassmin now lives in London.