Jarrett Dapier is a Chicago-area librarian and the recipient of the John Phillip Immroth Award from the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Round Table for his work exposing book censorship in the Chicago Public Schools. He is the author of several award-winning picture books for children, one of which has faced several censorship attempts. AJ Dungo is a graduate of ArtCenter College of Design. He has worked with Nike, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bleacher Report, Doubleday & Cartwright, This American Life, The Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, and Virgin Orbit. His first graphic novel, In Waves, was an NPR Favorite Book and an ALA Alex Award winner.
“A community under fire. A burgeoning love story. An urgent call to action. What more do you need? Frame by frame, Dapier and Dungo’s Wake Now in the Fire throws us in the thick of our here and now reality with marching orders, and hope. What a book!”—Rita Williams-Garcia, Newbery Honor recipient and three-time National Book Award finalist “With a mix of fact and fiction, Wake Now in the Fire tells a deeply true and urgent story of student activism in the face of institutional censorship and cowardice. I was swept along with these smart, passionate teens and recognized my own fight in their story. Dapier and Dungo have put together a prescient narrative face to this book ban moment. Read this for a playbook on how to defend books, education, and free speech.”—Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer: A Memoir “I love how the personal stories of the characters—who they are and where they are—intersect with their quest for the freedom to read and to be. I couldn’t put Wake Now in the Fire down.”—Francisco X. Stork, author of One Last Chance to Live and Disappeared