16 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY FEBRUARY 2, 2026
By JOANNE O’SULLIVAN “WARGA’S FAMILY RECENTLY ADOPTED A RESCUE DOG. HIS OINKLIKE SNUF- FLING MADE WILBUR THE PERFECT NAME, AN HOMAGE TO CHARLOTTE’S WEB . HER KIDS ARE ALREADY LOBBYING FOR A COMPANION FOR WILBUR. ‘PERHAPS THERE WILL BE A CHARLOTTE IN OUR FUTURE,’ SHE TOLD ME.”
Author Profile
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MARS ROVER , a Syrian refugee girl, a cheetah, and a depressed teen: there are no obvious links between these disparate characters. But in the stories of children’s author Jasmine Warga, each is a touch- stone for exploring themes of home, belonging, and identity. Growing up in a small town out- side Cincinnati, Warga, 37, says she felt like an outsider. “Middle school
was hard for me. I was always really shy. I was one of the only kids who had an immi- grant parent, and we were the only Muslim family.” Her mother is American, but her father, whose family had previously been displaced from Palestine, had come to the U.S. from Jordan for his medical residency and fellowship. “Books were my comfort,” she says. “They saved me in lots of ways. They helped me understand that my world at that moment was small, but the world itself wasn’t small. I hoped I could write books like the ones I loved.” Warga recalls a career day at school when she wore a lab coat, as a nod to a possible future in medicine, following in her father’s footsteps. Instead of carrying a prescription pad, however, she carried a notebook, rep- resenting her dream of becoming a writer, although she wasn’t sure exactly what that would look like. After studying history and art history at Northwestern University, Warga, who currently lives near Chicago, started teaching sixth grade in Texas, reading aloud many of the books she’d loved as a child with her students as well as discovering new favorites. She later completed an MFA in creative writ- ing at Lesley University. Although she had planned to write for the upper elementary level, “the book that gets you in the door isn’t necessarily representative of all the work you’ve done before,” she says. Her 2015 debut novel, My Heart and Other Black Holes , was YA, written as a way to process grief from the loss of a friend. She
Books and Belonging Newbery Honor author Jasmine Warga revisits familiar themes in her forthcoming middle grade novel The Unlikely Tale of Chase & Finnegan — this time with animals
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