Wendelin Van Draanen

Wendelin Van Draanen builds fiction for children and teenagers around friendship, resilience, and moral choice without losing the momentum of an accessible plot. The Peach Rebellion unfolds in postwar California after Dust Bowl migrations. Former childhood friends Ginny Rose and Peggy reunite across a class divide, while Peggy’s newer friend Lisette brings a third perspective to conflicts involving their families and the peach farm. Knopf issued it during 2022, and Ember later brought out the paperback. Van Draanen spent years as a classroom teacher before publishing novels. Her wider bibliography includes the Sammy Keyes mysteries, Flipped, The Running Dream, Runaway, and Wild Bird, moving between mystery, romance, contemporary realism, and stories of recovery. The Peach Rebellion brings those interests into historical fiction. Its three teenage protagonists must reckon with economic hardship, inherited expectations, and damaged family relationships while learning that courage can be strengthened through solidarity rather than individual defiance alone.