(S)Kin

Ibi Zoboi's novel in verse draws on Caribbean soucouyant folklore to tell the linked stories of two teenage girls. Marisol, fifteen, is the daughter of a soucouyant: every new moon she sheds her skin and flies into the Brooklyn night as a fireball witch, feeding on the lives of others to sustain her own. She hoped her family had left that inheritance behind when they emigrated, but her mother won't let the old ways go.

Across the city, seventeen-year-old Genevieve is dealing with a worsening skin condition, sleepless nights with her infant half-siblings, and an unexplained hunger that seems tied to the mother she's never known. When a new nanny arrives to help with the twins, a hidden connection between Gen and Marisol starts to surface.

Told in verse, (S)Kin threads inherited magic through mother-daughter estrangement, immigration, and the pressure to hide what makes you different — a National Book Award finalist for young people's literature.