An NAACP Image Award NomineeLonglisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel PrizeA Marie
Claire Book Club pickNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by *Marie Claire* *Teen Vogue*
*Buzzfeed* *Essence* *Ms. Magazine* *NBCNews.com* *Bookriot* *Bookbub* and more! Harris
rewrites the coming-of-age story with Black girlhood at the center.”—New York Times Book
ReviewIn the vein of Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones and Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of
Bees a coming-of-age novel told by almost-eleven-year-old Kenyatta Bernice (KB) as she and
her sister try to make sense of their new life with their estranged grandfather in the wake of
their father's death and their mother's disappearance An ode to Black girlhood and adolescence
as seen through KB's eyes What the Fireflies Knew follows KB after her father dies of an
overdose and the debts incurred from his addiction cause the loss of the family home in
Detroit. Soon thereafter KB and her teenage sister Nia are sent by their overwhelmed mother
to live with their estranged grandfather in Lansing Michigan. Over the course of a single
sweltering summer KB attempts to navigate a world that has turned upside down.Her father has
been labeled a fiend. Her mother's smile no longer reaches her eyes. Her sister once her best
friend now feels like a stranger. Her grandfather is grumpy and silent. The white kids who
live across the street are friendly but only sometimes. And they're all keeping secrets. As KB
vacillates between resentment abandonment and loneliness she is forced to carve out a
different identity for herself and find her own voice.A dazzling and moving novel about family
identity and race What the Fireflies Knew poignantly reveals that heartbreaking but necessary
component of growing up—the realization that loved ones can be flawed and that the perfect
family we all dream of looks different up close.
