What the Fireflies Knew: A Novel /// Kai Harris

An NAACP Image Award Nominee
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize
A Marie Claire Book Club pick

Named 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 Review

In 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.

BIO

Kai Harris is a writer and educator from Detroit, Michigan who uses her voice to uplift the Black community through realistic fiction centered on the Black experience. She resides in the Bay Area with her husband, three daughters, and dog Tabasco, where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Santa Clara University.

REVIEWS

“Harris rewrites the coming-of-age story with Black girlhood at the center.” -- New York Times Book Review

“[A] sensitive, realistic portrait of a ten-year-old trying to understand her world in the wake of her father’s death. Sent to spend the summer with a grandfather she barely knows, she contends with her losses and fears while learning more about her family, finding her own voice in the process.” -- The Washington Post

“[What the Fireflies Knew] is not an easy read . . . but it feels authentic, and does what good fiction does: takes readers on a journey they otherwise wouldn’t travel.” -- Associated Press

“What the Fireflies Knew is the best novel I have read in a long time, and Harris has brilliantly captured KB’s voice. She jumps off the page so strongly that I was invested not only from the first page but, indeed, the first sentence.” -- Free Lance-Star

“Harris’s story helped me remember what it was like to be a young Black girl on the border of adolescence.” -- The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Combining complex characters, writing that instantly penetrates your heart, and the restorative power of nature, What the Fireflies Knew is a luminous reminder that sometimes the only true path to healing is through facing our painful histories, and that we don’t have to do it alone. With a debut novel this remarkable, Kai Harris is a writer I hope is around for a long, long time.” -- Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck

[H]  Tiny Reparations Books  /   February 01, 2022

 1.13" H x 9.36" L x 6.32" W (1.05 lbs) 288 pages

[P]  Penguin Publishing Group  / February 07, 2023

0.6" H x 8.0" L x 5.15" W (0.46 lbs) 288 pages