Salt the Water

“There are many things Iloh accomplishes in Salt The Water, but the most impressive, and arguably the most important, is that this unflinching portrayal of the necessary irreverence of Black teenagers on a complicated quest for self-actualization is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.”—Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down

“Candice Iloh has painted a deeply moving portrait of Cerulean, a passionate and bright teen whose abrasive school life is in direct contrast to their loving and tender home life in the Bronx. Urban gardens serve as a poignant yet hopeful metaphor for the nurturing and care that young people need to navigate tumultuous cityscapes, public schools, and the fragile fault lines in their lives and in the world.” —Ibi Zoboi, coauthor of Punching the Air

“Candice Iloh’s Salt the Water invites the radical work of envisioning freedom. I learned so much from seventeen-year-old Cerulean: to do more than hope for and dream of freedom, but to plan for it. To bury my hands in the soil, in the vibrant verse of this story. To go there.”— Safia Elhillo, author of Home Is Not a Country and Girls that Never Die