Jessica Walker launches "The Secret Astronomers," with Lauren Redniss

Jessica Walker will be joined by award-winning author Lauren Redniss for a reading, conversation, Q&A, reception, and book signing.

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Two strangers. One forgotten astronomy textbook. A decades-old secret.

When a recent transfer student starts keeping her diary in the oldest textbook at the Green Bank High School library, the last thing she expects is to receive a response. Thus begins a sweeping tale of unlikely friendship and long-buried secrets between two secret pen pals at a rural West Virginia high school.

Copernicus is adrift and searching for answers after the sudden death of her mother, and leaving her cosmopolitan life in San Francisco behind. Kepler is a small-town girl with straight A’s and big plans to be the first person in her family to go to college, despite her family’s modest means. The two girls are so different from one another but united in their goal to solve a mystery that has riddled Green Bank for decades.

Meticulously hand-drawn by debut author Jessica Walker across the pages of an actual ancient astrophysics textbook, The Secret Astronomers is a story of friendship, family, crop circles, secret crushes, giant telescopes, life in Appalachia, and two girls discovering new ways to connect across any divide that separates them.

Advanced Praise for The Secret Astronomers

“Some books map bold new territory in form, at the expense of story. Some trod well-worn paths to tell an excellent story. It’s the rare book that sails into uncharted waters of form to also tell a brilliant story, and this is one. This is a compelling, stirring, rural Appalachian coming-of-age tale worthy to stand with the finest.” —Jeff Zentner, award-winning author of In the Wild Light

“A wholly original novel that celebrates connection in unlikely places.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Has a sense of stillness in the reading experience that is rare in YA.” —Booklist

“Elaborate full-color collages and artwork, as well as handwritten text scrawled on sticky notes and scratch-paper that covers the primer, make this a visually distinctive book you might have to see to fully appreciate.” —The Washington Post

“In this intriguing epistolary novel, Walker (Baby Feminists) employs multimedia formatting to chronicle the anonymous, pen pal–adjacent friendship between two high school seniors in 2016 rural Green Bank, W.Va. . . . [A] conceptually innovative solo debut.” —Publishers Weekly

“A tale told through notes, with gorgeous drawings and town secrets, that keeps readers wanting more… Readers will be entranced by the lush and creative hand-drawn illustrations and collages, as well as the mystery elements… A heartwarming tale about connection, grief, and challenging assumptions.” —School Library Journal

Jessica Walker is a multidisciplinary artist, illustrator, filmmaker, and educator. She is an associate professor of integrated design at Parsons and has exhibited films, books, and 2D media in solo and group shows in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Australia. Her work is housed in the permanent collections at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Research Library, Yale University Haas Family Arts Library, and the University of Washington Art Library. She is also the illustrator of Baby Feminists and Baby Feminists Too.

Lauren Redniss is an artist and author. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," a winner of the PEN/E.O.Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and was the first artist-in-residence at the American Museum of Natural History. Her book RADIOACTIVE was a finalist for the National Book Award and adapted for major motion picture. She has been a Guggenheim fellow, a New America Foundation fellow, and a fellow at the New York Public LIbrary's Cullman Center for Scholar & Writers. She teaches at Parsons School of Design.

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