During a trip to Israel in 2008, Stone discovered that she wanted to become a writer when encountering a family with a story that fascinated her. Stone wrote her first novel for young adults in 2017, inspired by American young adult novelist
Veronica Roth's
Divergent series because it was the first series featuring Black characters that she encountered that live until the end. and published in 2017 by
Crown Books for Young Readers. Stone has stated she began writing her debut novel
Dear Martin after the death of
Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old black high school student who was fatally shot by a white man in a hate crime in 2012. The book debuted on the
New York Times bestseller list at #4. It was also chosen as a finalist for the
William C. Morris award in 2017 and received a
starred review from
Booklist. It has been published and translated in Germany, Brazil, Indonesia, The Netherlands, UK, Turkey, and Romania. Two years after it was first published,
Dear Martin again hit the New York Times bestseller list, at #1 for Young Adult Paperbacks in February 2020. A sequel,
Dear Justyce, about an incarcerated teen who is on trial for murder charges, was published in October 2020. Stone says she was not planning on writing a sequel but was encouraged by her publisher, and decided to write a book about a "black boy that everybody is afraid of."
Clean Getaway Her middle-grade debut,
Clean Getaway, illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile, was published by Crown in January 2020. It tells the story of 11-year-old Scoob, who goes on a roadtrip with his grandmother. It received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and debuted on the Children's Middle Grade Hardcover New York Times bestseller list, at #5. Stone says the inspiration for the novel was a Twitter headline about a shoplifting grandma in Atlanta who turned out to be an international jewel thief. It was published in 2018 by Crown Books for Young Readers. It also received a starred review from Booklist. In 2019, her third novel,
Jackpot, was published by Crown. In September 2019, it was announced that Stone would write a novel focused on
Shuri, from
Marvel's
Black Panther. It was published by
Scholastic in 2020. Stone wrote a young adult novel
Blackout, released in June 2021, which she co-authored with
Dhonielle Clayton,
Tiffany D. Jackson,
Angie Thomas,
Ashley Woodfolk, and
Nicola Yoon. A companion novel titled
Whiteout was published in 2023. Aside from young adult fiction and middle grade, Stone also writes essays, and her short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies. Stone co-authored a young adult companion to Ibram X. Kendi's
New York Times best-selling book,
How to Be an Antiracist, titled
How to Be a (Young) Antiracist which was published in 2023. Beginning in February 2022, Stone hosted a six-episode podcast series with
Marvel and
Sirius XM podcast. The podcast series was titled,
The History of Marvel Comics: Black Panther. == Bibliography ==