MAGNETIC ATTRACTION

Seton Girls (a Young Adult Novel)

BY CHARLENE THOMAS 16B

Seton Academic High is a prep school obsessed with its football team and their thirteen-year conference win streak, a record that players always say they’d never have without Seton’s girls. What exactly Seton girls do to make them so valuable, though, no one ever really says. Soon the actual secrets to the team’s enduring success leak to a small group of girls who suddenly have the power to change their world forever. Thomas’s young adult novel is an examination of the nuances of female friendships and the complex intersection of race, class, and gender. “I wanted readers to find Black girls as main characters— being the pre y ones, the popular ones, the heroes—because we still so rarely get to see ourselves cast in those roles,” Thomas says. “I wanted to remind girls everywhere that they’re more than what boys decide they are. That they are full, capable humans within their own right.”

Something Happened to My Dad: A Story about Immigration and Family Separation

BY ANN HAZZARD 76C AND VIVIANNE APONTE-RIVERA

The Something Happened series of children’s books presents and explains sensitive and important events happening in communities across the US and around the world. Told in clear, compelling stories, the books come with the authority of psychological expertise from the American Psychological Association. The series started with Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story of Racial Injustice, which is a New York Times bestseller and one of the American Library Association’s most banned books. This latest entry in the series tells the story of young Carmen, who learns that through community and love, she can find strength in herself and maintain her connection with her Papi, who has been detained because of his immigration status.

Alumni entrepreneurs donate pajamas to Children’s Healthcare.

Emory alumni Lauren Levy 01C and Lawrence Scheer 98C, co-founders of Magnetic Me baby clothing company, this fall flew in from their headquarters in New York City to donate a year’s supply of pajamas to the Heart Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. These lifelong college friends—one an investment banker and the other a security a orney— came up with a promising business idea, quit their day jobs, did a ton of research, and patented a safe magnetic-fastening system originally designed to help parents and health care workers get infants dressed quicker and easier. Today, Magnetic Me sells stylish pajamas, outerwear, raincoats, and more for both children and adults. They are sold nationwide at major department stores and thousands of boutique shops. Magnetic Me’s recent donation to the Heart Center is just one of many to infant care centers across the country.