After transferring their eponymous imprint from HarperCollins Kids’s Books to Macmillan Kids’s Publishing Group final spring, publishers Alessandra Balzer and Donna Bray of Balzer + Bray have introduced their inaugural record, to be printed in winter and spring 2026. With books akin to Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give (edited by Bray), Ibi Zoboi’s Nigeria Jones, and The Lesbiana’s Information to Catholic College by Sonora Reyes (edited by Balzer) of their portfolio, the publishers have established a fame for books on the intersection of literary and business fiction. At Macmillan, the imprint will begin small, with 10 titles inside a mixture of classes: three image books, 4 center grade books, and three YA novels.
The Balzer + Bray imprint launched at Harper in 2009. Each publishers had held management roles at Hyperion Books for Kids, with Bray serving as government editor and Balzer as editorial director. At Harper, the co-publishers launched an array of bestsellers and award winners. After 16 years, Bray stated the transfer to Macmillan was “the correct alternative on the proper time.” Their time at Harper was “actually great and we constructed an awesome record there,” she stated, “however we had been simply prepared for a change. It was a brand new problem—to do what we like to do in a brand new surroundings with new folks.” VP and co-publisher Alessandra Balzer referred to as the change “energizing.”
“Our tastes, mission, and philosophy stay the identical,” Balzer added. “We’re going to proceed to publish daring revolutionary books that attraction on to youngsters. We’re by no means led by traits or by essentially what’s scorching available in the market. Issues are continuously evolving and altering.”
VP and co-publisher Donna Bray added, “We’re at all times searching for authors who’ve one thing to say to youngsters presently—top quality, nice storytelling, voices that can stand the check of time, however that additionally really feel present.” The inaugural record options authors who “write like no person else does,” she continued. “They actually respect youngsters and write so fantastically of their alternative ways.”
Amongst these featured on the preliminary record are Sara Pennypacker (the Clementine collection), who has labored with Bray earlier than, and Jasmine Warga (Different Phrases for Dwelling) and Ibi Zoboi (Nigeria Jones), who’ve printed with each editors throughout their careers. “It seems like kismet that we have now such a pleasant mixture of former authors that we love and new folks,” Balzer stated. Whereas all of the authors on the inaugural record have been beforehand printed, “some are new to us and a few are doing work that’s totally different from what they’ve executed previously,” she added.
The imprint’s image ebook record contains Name Me Moby, the primary author-illustrated title by New Yorker cartoonist and tv author Lars Kenseth. “It’s a narrative that has loads of coronary heart,” Bray stated. Adults accustomed to Moby-Dick will perceive the references, however for youths, it’s “a narrative of a whale who simply needs to make pals and doesn’t perceive why the sailors don’t wish to be pals with him.”
Coretta Scott King winner and Caldecott Honoree Christian Robinson’s image ebook Dad is destined to “make folks cry,” Bray stated. The story focuses on totally different sorts of fathers, together with animal and human dads, and differing types of father-child relationships. “All the perfect books will be learn on so many ranges. A guardian studying it to a toddler will perceive the layers of the textual content, however [Dad] can also simply be taken at face worth,” Bray added.
Within the center grade class, Balzer + Bray will publish Spindlewood, the primary novel for this age group by Freddie Kölsch, who made her YA debut with Now, Conjurers in 2024. Spindlewood is described by Bray as having “Wednesday Addams vibes,” centering on a lady who “winds up at a boarding college for seers regardless that she can not see ghosts and could be very skeptical.”
Additionally on the center grade record is The Serpent, the Rainbow, the Island Beneath by Ibi Zoboi. Being “very cognizant of how Haiti is represented within the information,” Balzer stated, Zoboi “takes that and creates this unbelievable middle-grade fantasy about youngsters who’re the descendants of voodoo gods. It’s her means of talking to that second and form of taking again that narrative. She will do it like nobody else can.” Balzer added that the story is “extremely escapist” with “all of the issues that children love about fantasy, friendship, and characterization.”
Bray stated she’s at all times searching for tales which are “humorous, intriguing, pacy and contemporary, but in addition have loads of coronary heart, so we have now an actual emotional connection to the story.” She discovered all of it in Augusta Pine Does Not Exist by Emily Lloyd Jones (The Bone Homes). Set within the close to future, the ebook contains a younger hacker who makes use of her legal abilities and information to resolve crimes with a secret authorities company. Bray described it as gripping and intense, with a little bit of thriller.
Peter Bognanni (This Ebook Is Not But Rated) has written for each adults and teenagers. His new YA, How one can Lose Your self Fully, is a few boy grappling with grief and nervousness who enrolls in an journey remedy program. Balzer stated that the novel’s themes resonate particularly strongly for teenagers as of late and that, whereas there are components of escapism within the story, it additionally has loads of coronary heart. The narrative voice is second individual, which makes it particularly gripping from the start, she added.
Of their new house at Macmillan, the imprint has a employees of three: Balzer, Bray and their assistant, Lavell Nero. Beginning with a small record has allowed the editors to be concerned in every a part of the method. “We very a lot love being within the weeds with the creator and the artist and the staff. It’s such a collaborative course of for us. We care so passionately about it and naturally we take very critically that we’re shepherding these authors’ ebook infants into the world,” Balzer stated.
At the moment the plan is to slowly construct to round 24 books a yr. Whereas they don’t have any debut authors on the preliminary record, introducing new voices is one thing that’s necessary to the publishers they usually anticipate doing in order time goes on. “We’re identified for having a extremely sturdy imaginative and prescient for a ebook from acquisition,” Bray stated, including that the staff “actually must really feel that we will be the very best writer for any given ebook that we convey on.”
Whereas the precise dates aren’t finalized but, the primary Balzer + Bray titles beneath Macmillan will publish in January 2026.
