Confessions of a candy snatcher / Phoebe Sinclair, Theodore Taylor III.

A night of Halloween fun gone wrong has Jonas wondering if he’s really a wolf in disguise in this fast-paced fiction debut delving into accountability, relationships . . . and zines.

For the past few years, twelve-year-old Jonas and his friends have competed to see how many bags of candy they can grab from unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. No one’s supposed to get hurt, just lose their treats. So Jonas is taken by surprise when one of his smaller targets fights back against his snatching attempt. He’s even more surprised when he starts to receive anonymous notes from someone who knows what happened that night. Jonas already has enough on his plate, between his parents’ ill-defined separation and his own guilt—guilt his friend Concepción challenges him to confront in a zine she’s creating around the prompt “What’s the worst thing you ever did?” It’s a complicated question, one that touches on issues of identity, maturity, physical boundaries, and safety. Featuring zines crafted by award-winning illustrator Theodore Taylor III, Phoebe Sinclair’s debut novel relates an emotive, reflective story about the wonder—and mess—of growing up.

Ages 10-14 Candlewick Press