Told with striking, unconventional graphic design, a chilling story of a child who discovers his father's secret book about violence against children, which gives a larger historical frame to the kind of abuse he himself has suffered.

There are some stories so terrible that we wish they would never be told. More than
that, we wish for the events that unfold within these stories never to have happened in
the first place, because it is their very reality that means the stories are not just
terrible--they're true. In The Book of Denial, a child stumbles upon the
story that his father has been writing in secret, and it's full of the worst imaginable
darkness. Why is his father writing such a story? He is writing it, we learn, because he lives it,
because he is part of the horror that must be told and become known: the history of the theft of
childhood, safety, care, and life itself from children. He says that he must write it so that others care, but
what toll will this act of storytelling take on him, and on those around him?

Written by genre-defying Mexican author Ricardo Chávez Castañeda,
The Book of Denial is a dark and powerful story within a story,
illustrated with a striking graphic sensibility by Alejandro Magallanes and
translated by Lawrence Schimel.

This is the third book to appear under Unruly, an imprint of picture books for older readers, and will include a short note to readers about how it continues to build this experimental framework of visually complex, sophisticated picture books for teens and adults.

Ricardo Chávez Castañeda was born in Mexico City in 1961. He is one of the founding members of the Mexican literary movement known as the "Crack," which began in the 1990s with a group of young writers who broke with literary conventions in a reaction against the Latin American "Boom." Castañeda has won many prizes for his writing, which includes novels, short stories, essays, and children's books. He holds a BA in Psychology from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and a Master's Degree in Latin American Literature from New Mexico State University. He currently teaches creative writing at Middlebury College.

Alejandro Magallanes was born in Mexico City, in 1971, and graduated from the National School of Plastic Arts of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He is dedicated to playing and working with letters and images and has created a style that has earned him important awards in Mexico and abroad. In addition to his extensive experience as a graphic designer and an illustrator, he is the author of books for children and young people.

Lawrence Schimel is a full-time author, writing in both Spanish and English, who has published over one hundred twenty books in a wide range of genres. He is also a prolific literary translator whose translations include La Bastarda (a Global Literature in Libraries Best Translated YA Honor Book, Lambda Literary Award finalist, and ALA Rainbow Book List selection) and Out in the Open (an Eisner Award finalist). He currently lives in Madrid.