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/books-for-missouri-students/books-for-2019-2018/

2019 Books for Missouri Students

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2019 Senior, 9-12
2019 Senior, 9-12
American Road Trip
American Road Trip Image

Brothers Teodoro and Manny Avila take a road trip to address Manny’s PTSD following his tour in Iraq, and to help T. change his life and win the heart of Wendy Martinez. Includes information and resources about PTSD.

You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone
You

Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist and to convince her music teacher he wants her the way she wants him. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins, the first step on her path toward med school and a career as a surgeon.
But one thing could wreck their carefully planned futures: a genetic test for Huntington’s, a rare degenerative disease that slowly steals control of the body and mind. It’s turned their Israeli mother into a near stranger and fractured the sisters’ own bond in ways they’ll never admit. While Tovah finds comfort in their Jewish religion, Adina rebels against its rules. When the results come in, one twin tests negative for Huntington’s. The other tests positive.

These opposite outcomes push them farther apart as they wrestle with guilt, betrayal, and the unexpected thrill of first love. How can they repair their relationship, and is it even worth saving?

Jazz Owls
Jazz Owls Image

In early 1940s Los Angeles, Mexican Americans Marisela and Lorena work in canneries all day then jitterbug with sailors all night with their zoot suit wearing younger brother, Ray, as escort until the night racial violence leads to murder. Includes historical note.

Children of Blood and Bone
Children of Blood and Bone Image

Zelie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orisha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zelie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zelie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zelie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zelie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

 

The Tomb
The Tomb Image
Nothing is as it seems. These are the first words Kiva’s best friend Seth says, after three years of silence. Kiva thought she was growing up in ancient Alexandria. That’s what she and all her classmates had been led to believe by their parents. It turns out she was living in virtual reality, in a sleep chamber in deep space, and three years ago, Seth woke up. Now it’s her turn to join him. Together, Kiva and Seth must take an escape shuttle to search for the engine part their home ship needs to keep running. But it’s been a long time since the Krakatoa has communicated with any of the other three ships harboring human civilization.
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes Image

Tareq lives in Syria with his warm and loving family, until the bombs strike. He, his father, and his younger sister are the only survivors, and they have no choice but to go to Raqqa, where they have extended family. But Raqqa is a stronghold for Daesh, the militant group claiming to follow the tennets of Islam, yet who really exist only to enable violence and intolerance. Tareq’s family leave quickly, and Tareq heads to Istanbul with his cousin. From there, reunited with his younger sister, they flee successfully to Greece.

Summer Bird Blue
Summer Bird Blue Image

Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of–she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea. Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.

Save the Date
Save the Date Image

Charlie Grant’s older sister is getting married this weekend at their family home, and Charlie can’t wait–for the first time in years, all four of her older siblings will be under one roof. Charlie is desperate for one last perfect weekend, before the house is sold and everything changes. The house will be filled with jokes and games and laughs again. Making decisions about things like what college to attend and reuniting with longstanding crush Jesse Foster–all that can wait. She wants to focus on making the weekend perfect. The only problem? The weekend is shaping up to be an absolute disaster. There’s the unexpected dog with a penchant for howling, house alarm that won’t stop going off, and a papergirl with a grudge. There are the relatives who aren’t speaking, the (awful) girl her favorite brother brought home unannounced, and a missing tuxedo. Not to mention the neighbor who seems to be bent on sabotage and a storm that is bent on drenching everything. The justice of the peace is missing. The band will only play covers. The guests are all crazy. And the wedding planner’s nephew is unexpectedly, distractingly…cute.

Over the course of three ridiculously chaotic days, Charlie will learn more than she ever expected about the family she thought she knew by heart. And she’ll realize that sometimes, trying to keep everything like it was in the past means missing out on the future.

Live In Infamy
Live In Infamy Image
In the eighty years since the Axis powers won World War II with their genetically engineered super soldiers, America has changed drastically in the hands of the unforgiving victors. But there are still those who aspire to what the country used to stand for: freedom for all. In the Western American Territories, Chinese American Ren Cabot has lost nearly everything to Imperial Japan’s rule. After the public execution of his mom for treason five years ago, Ren lives under constant scrutiny of the Empire, afraid that one wrong step will rip apart what remains of his family for good. However, when a chance encounter with a resistance group offers Ren an opportunity to save lives and quite possibly topple the government, he agrees to their deadly plot. But his role will lead him straight into the heart of enemy, and if caught, death would be a much better fate than what the Empire will do to him.
The Strange True Tale of Frankenstein's Creator Mary Shelley
The Strange True Tale of Frankenstein

The story of Frankenstein‘s creator is a strange, romantic, and tragic one, as deeply compelling as the novel itself. Mary ran away to Lake Geneva with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley when she was just sixteen. It was there, during a cold and wet summer, that she first imagined her story about a mad scientist who brought a corpse back to life. Success soon followed for Mary, but also great tragedy and misfortune.

The Dead Enders
The Dead Enders Image

In a place like Gold Fork, sometimes a secret is the only thing that’s really yours. Ana, Davis, Erik, and Georgie know that best. Bound together by a horrible tragedy from their pasts, they forged a friendship that has lasted through high school. In a town full of weekenders, they all know what it’s like to be dead enders, fated to stay trapped in a tourist destination for the rest of their lives. But with the appearance of long-lost family members and an arsonist setting the town ablaze, it’s time to confront the fact that what brought them together years ago might be what ultimately tears them apart.

Brazen: rebel ladies who rocked the world
Brazen: rebel ladies who rocked the world Image

Brazen looks at the lives of twenty-nine charismatic women in history, including Josephine Baker, Betty Davis, and Cheryl Bridges.

Attucks!: Oscar Robertson and the basketball team that awakened a city
Attucks!: Oscar Robertson and the basketball team that awakened a city Image
A rousing rags-to-riches episode, a tale of youth power, and a scarcely told chapter in African-American history, Attucks! charts the rise of the legendary Crispus Attucks High School Tigers in the 1950s. By winning the Indiana state high school basketball boys’ championship in 1955, ten teens from a school meant to be the centerpiece of racially segregated education in Indiana shattered the myth of their own inferiority. Their brilliant coach had fashioned an unbeatable team from a group of boys born in the South and raised in poverty, anchored by the astonishing player Oscar “The Big O” Robertson. The Crispus Attucks Tigers went down in history as the first state champions from the city of Indianapolis and the first all-black team in U.S. history to win a racially open championship tournament.
Strange Days
Strange Days Image

Alex Mata doesn’t want to worry about rumors of alien incursions–he’d rather just skate and tag and play guitar. But when he comes home to find an alien has murdered his parents, he’s forced to confront a new reality- aliens are real, his parents are dead, and nobody will believe him if he tells. On the run, Alex finds himself led to the compound of tech guru Jeffrey Sabazios, the only public figure who stands firm in his belief that aliens are coming.

Come November
Come November Image

It’s not the end of the world, but for Rooney Harris it’s starting to feel that way. It’s the beginning of senior year, and her mom just lost her job. Even worse, she isn’t planning to get another one. Instead, she’s spending every waking moment with a group called the Next World Society, whose members are convinced they’ll be leaving Earth behind on November 17. It sounds crazy to Rooney, but to her mother and younger brother it sounds like salvation. As her mom’s obsession threatens to tear their lives apart, Rooney is scrambling to hold it all together. But will saving her family mean sacrificing her dreams or theirs?

Claiming My Place: coming of age in the shadow of the Holocaust
Claiming My Place: coming of age in the shadow of the Holocaust Image

Chronicles the life of Barbara Riechmann, once known as Gucia Gomolinska, who grew up as a Jew in the predominantly Catholic Poland during the 1920s and 1930s, explores how she survived after the Nazis invaded Poland, and her immigration to America until her death.

Unclaimed Baggage
Unclaimed Baggage Image

Told from three viewpoints, teens Doris, Nell, and Grant find friendship and the possibility of love while working in Unclaimed Baggage, a store that sells items that went missing during airline travel.

Dear Evan Hansen
Dear Evan Hansen Image

Evan goes from being a nobody to everyone’s hero and a social media superstar after a chance encounter with Connor just before his suicide leads others to believe Evan was his only friend.

Economic Inequality: the American dream under siege
Economic Inequality: the American dream under siege Image

Many Americans are angry about economic inequality, and many are working on solutions. Readers will learn how state and local governments, businesses, and ordinary citizens, including young people are fighting to close the gap between rich and poor, to preserve the promises of American democracy, and to give everyone a fair shot at the American Dream.

Life Inside My Mind: 31 authors share their personal struggles
Life Inside My Mind: 31 authors share their personal struggles Image

Thirty-one YA authors share their own struggles with mental illness, ranging from such topics as neurodiversity and addiction to OCD and PTSD.

Hunger
Hunger Image

It is the autumn of 1846 in Ireland. Lorraine and her brother are waiting for the time to pick the potato crop on their family farm leased from an English landowner. But this year is different–the spuds are mushy and ruined. What will Lorraine and her family do? Then Lorraine meets Miss Susannah, the daughter of the wealthy English landowner who owns Lorraine’s family’s farm, and the girls form an unlikely friendship that they must keep a secret from everyone. Two different cultures come together in a deserted Irish meadow. And Lorraine has one question: how can she help her family survive?

Fresh Ink
Fresh Ink Image

An anthology featuring award-winning diverse authors about diverse characters. Short stories, a graphic novel, and a one-act play explore such topics as gentrification, acceptance, untimely death, coming out, and poverty, and range in genre from contemporary realistic fiction to adventure and romance.

Blacklisted!: Hollywood, the cold war, and the first amendment
Blacklisted!: Hollywood, the cold war, and the first amendment Image

The story of 19 men, all from the film industry who are summoned to appear before the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities. All 19 believe that the committee’s investigations into their political views and personal associations are a violation of their First Amendment rights. When the first 10 of these men refuse to give the committee the simple answers it wants, they are cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted.

The Grand Escape: the greatest prison breakout of the 20th century
The Grand Escape: the greatest prison breakout of the 20th century Image

At the height of World War I, as battles raged in the trenches and in the air, another struggle for survival was being waged in the most notorious POW camp in all of Germany: Holzminden. A land-locked Alcatraz of sorts, it was home to the most troublesome Allied prisoners. The Grand Escape tells the remarkable tale of a band of pilots who pulled off an ingenious plan and made it out of enemy territory in the biggest breakout of WWI, inspiring their countrymen in the darkest hours of the war.

Unpunished Murder
Unpunished Murder Image

On Easter Sunday of 1873, just eight years after the Civil War ended, a band of white supremacists marched into Grant Parish, Louisiana, and massacred over one hundred unarmed African Americans. The court case that followed reached the highest court in the land. Yet, following one of the most ghastly incidents of mass murder in American history, not one person was convicted.

I Stop Somewhere
I Stop Somewhere Image

Tormented throughout middle school, Ellie begins her freshman year with a new look: she doesn’t need to be popular; she just needs to blend in with the wallpaper. But when the unthinkable happens, Ellie finds herself trapped after a brutal assault. She wasn’t the first victim, and now she watches it happen again and again. She tries to hold on to her happier memories in order to get past the cold days, waiting for someone to find her. The problem is, no one searches for a girl they never noticed in the first place.

All that I can Fix
All that I can Fix Image

In Makersville, Indiana, people know all about Ronney. He’s from that mixed-race family with the dad who tried to kill himself, the pill-popping mom, and the genius kid sister. If having a family like that wasn’t bad enough, the local eccentric at the edge of town decided one night to open up all the cages of his exotic zoo–lions, cheetahs, tigers–and then shoot himself dead. Overnight, news crews, gun control supporters, and gun rights advocates descend on Makersville, bringing around-the-clock news coverage, rallies, and anti-rallies with them. With his parents checked out, Ronney is left tending to his sister’s mounting fears of roaming lions, stopping his best friend from going on a suburban safari, and shaking loose a lonely boy who follows Ronney wherever he goes.

We Are All That's Left
We Are All That

Zara and her mother, Nadja, have a strained relationship. Nadja just doesn’t understand Zara’s creative passion for, and self-expression through, photography. And Zara doesn’t know how to reach beyond their differences and connect to a closed-off mother who refuses to speak about her past in Bosnia. But when a bomb explodes as they’re shopping in their local farmers’ market in Rhode Island, Zara is left with PTSD–and her mother is left in a coma. Without the opportunity to get to know her mother, Zara is left with questions–not just about her mother, but about faith, religion, history, and her own path forward.

In Search of Us
In Search of Us Image

When Marilyn was seventeen, she fell in love with Angie’s father, James, who was African-American. But Angie’s never met him, and Marilyn has always told her he died before she was born. When Angie discovers evidence of an uncle she’s never met she starts to wonder, what if her dad is still alive, too? So she sets off on a journey to find him, hitching a ride to LA from her home in New Mexico with her ex-boyfriend, Sam. Along the way, she uncovers some hard truths about herself, her mother, and what truly happened to her father.

The History of Jane Doe
The History of Jane Doe Image

History buff Ray knows everything about the peculiar legends and lore of his rural Connecticut hometown. Burgerville’s past is riddled with green cow sightings and witches’ curses, but the most interesting thing about the present is the new girl–we’ll call her Jane Doe. Inscrutable, cool, and above all mysterious, Jane seems as determined to hide her past as Ray is to uncover it. As fascination turns to friendship and then to something more, Ray is certain he knows Jane’s darkest, most painful secrets and Jane herself–from past to present. But when the unthinkable happens, Ray is forced to acknowledge that perhaps history can only tell us so much.

Price of Duty
Price of Duty Image

Jake Liddell is a hero. At least, that’s what everyone says he is. The military is even awarding him a Silver Star for his heroic achievements–a huge honor for the son of a military family. Now he’s home, recovering from an injury, but it seems the war has followed him back. He needs pills to get any sleep, a young woman is trying to persuade him into speaking out against military recruitment tactics, and his grandfather is already urging him back onto the battlefield. He doesn’t know what to do; nothing makes sense anymore.

Bonnie and Clyde: the making of a legend
Bonnie and Clyde: the making of a legend Image

What was life really like for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in the early 1930s? How did two dirt-poor teens from west Texas morph from vicious outlaws to legendary couple?

Girl Made of Stars
Girl Made of Stars Image

Mara and Owen are as close as twins can get, so when Mara’s friend Hannah accuses Owen of rape, Mara doesn’t know what to think. Can her brother really be guilty of such a violent act? Torn between her family and her sense of right and wrong, Mara feels lost, and it doesn’t help that things are strained with her ex-girlfriend, Charlie. As Mara, Hannah, and Charlie come together in the aftermath of this terrible crime, Mara must face a trauma from her own past and decide where Charlie fits into her future.

A Heart in the Body in the World
A Heart in the Body in the World Image

Each step on Annabelle’s 2,700 mile cross-country run brings her closer to facing a trauma from her past. So that’s what Annabelle does–she runs from Seattle to Washington, DC, through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She’s not ready to think about the why yet, just the how–muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person–The Taker–that haunts her.

Followed by Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her brother and two friends (her self-appointed publicity team), Annabelle becomes a reluctant activist as people connect her journey to the trauma from her past. Her cross-country run gains media attention and she is cheered on as she crosses state borders, and is even thrown a block party and given gifts. The support would be nice, if Annabelle could escape the guilt and the shame from what happened back home. They say it isn’t her fault, but she can’t feel the truth of that.

Give Me Some Truth
Give Me Some Truth Image

In 1980 life is hard on the Tuscarora Reservation in upstate New York, and most of the teenagers feel like they are going nowhere: Carson Mastick dreams of forming a rock band, and Maggi Bokoni longs to create her own conceptual artwork instead of the traditional beadwork that her family sells to tourists. But tensions are rising between the reservation and the surrounding communities, and somehow in the confusion of politics and growing up Carson and Maggi have to make a place for themselves.

Impostors
Impostors Image

In a world that is rapidly descending into chaos, Frey and Rafi are twin sisters, but few people know of Frey’s existence, because she has been raised to be her sister’s body double and lethal bodyguard, while Rafi has been raised to further the family’s political power–but when their father sends Frey in her sister’s place as collateral in a tricky deal, Col, the son of a rival leader, gets close enough to begin to suspect something, and Frey must decide whether to deal with him violently or finally assume her own identity.

To Be Honest
To Be Honest Image

Savannah is dreading being home alone with her overbearing mother after her big sister–and best friend–goes off to college. But if she can just get through senior year, she’ll be able to escape to college, too. What she doesn’t count on is that her mother’s obsession with weight has only grown deeper since her appearance on an extreme weight-loss show, and now Savvy’s mom is pressuring her even harder to be constantly mindful of what she eats. Between her mom’s diet-helicoptering, missing her sister, and worrying about her collegiate future, Savvy has enough to worry about. And then she meets George, the cute new kid at school who has insecurities of his own. As Savvy and George grow closer, they help each other discover how to live in the moment and enjoy the here and now before it disappears.

The Perfect Candidate
The Perfect Candidate Image

When recent high school graduate Cameron Carter lands an internship with Congressman Billy Beck in Washington, DC, he thinks it is his ticket out of small town captivity. What he lacks in connections and Beltway polish he makes up in smarts, and he soon finds a friend and mentor in fellow staffer Ariel Lancaster. That is, until she winds up dead.

As rumors and accusations about her death fly around Capitol Hill, Cameron’s low profile makes him the perfect candidate for an FBI investigation that he wants no part of. Before he knows it–and with his family’s future at stake–he discovers DC’s darkest secrets as he races to expose a deadly conspiracy.

After the Shot Drops
After the Shot Drops Image

Bunny and Nasir have been best friends forever, but when Bunny accepts an athletic scholarship across town, Nasir feels betrayed. While Bunny tries to fit in with his new, privileged peers, Nasir spends more time with his cousin, Wallace, who is being evicted. Nasir can’t help but wonder why the neighborhood is falling over itself to help Bunny when Wallace is in trouble.

The Summer of Broken Things
The Summer of Broken Things Image

Fourteen-year-old Avery Armisted is athletic, rich, and pretty. Sixteen-year-old Kayla Butts is known as “butt-girl” at school. The two girls were friends as little kids, but that’s ancient history now. So it’s a huge surprise when Avery’s father offers to bring Kayla along on a summer trip to Spain. Avery is horrified that her father thinks he can choose her friends and make her miss soccer camp. Kayla struggles just to imagine leaving the confines of her small town.

But in Spain, the two uncover a secret their families had hidden from both of them their entire lives. Maybe the girls can put aside their differences and work through it together. Or maybe the lies and betrayal will only push them and their families farther apart.

The Fall of Innocence
The Fall of Innocence Image

For the past eight years, sixteen-year-old Emilia DeJesus has done her best to move on from the traumatic attack she suffered in the woods behind her elementary school. She’s forced down the memories–the feeling of the twigs cracking beneath her, choking on her own blood, unable to scream. Most of all, she’s tried to forget about Jeremy Lance, the boy responsible, the boy who caused her such pain. Emilia believes that the crows who watched over her that day, who helped her survive, are still on her side, encouraging her to live fully. And with the love and support of her mother, brother, and her caring boyfriend, Emilia is doing just that.

But when a startling discovery about her attacker’s identity comes to light, and the memories of that day break through the mental box in which she’d shut them away, Emilia is forced to confront her new reality and make sense of shifting truths about her past, her family, and herself.

What I Leave Behind
What I Leave Behind Image

Sixteen-year-old Will spends most of his days the same way: Working at the Dollar Only store, trying to replicate his late father’s famous cornbread recipe, and walking the streets of Los Angeles. Will started walking after his father committed suicide, and three years later he hasn’t stopped. But there are some places Will can’t walk by: The blessings store with the chest of 100 Chinese blessings in the back, the bridge on Fourth Street where his father died, and his childhood friend Playa’s house.

Boots on the Ground: America's war in Vietnam
Boots on the Ground: America

An exploration of the Vietnam War from many different perspectives including an American soldiers, a nurse, and a Vietnamese refugee

Mary's Monster: love, madness, and how Mary Shelley created Frankenstein
Mary

Legend is correct that Mary Shelley began penning Frankenstein in answer to a dare to write a ghost story. What most people don’t know, however, is that the seeds of her novel had been planted long before that night. By age nineteen, she had been disowned by her family, was living in scandal with a married man, and had lost her baby daughter just days after her birth. Mary poured her grief, pain, and passion into the powerful book still revered two hundred years later, and in Mary’s Monster, author/illustrator Lita Judge has poured her own passion into a gorgeous book that pays tribute to the life of this incredible author.

Darius the Great is not Okay
Darius the Great is not Okay Image

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s a Fractional Persian–half, his mom’s side–and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life.

Our Year of Maybe
Our Year of Maybe Image

Sophie Orenstein would do anything for Peter Rosenthal-Porter, who’s been on the kidney transplant list as long as she’s known him. Peter, a gifted pianist, is everything to Sophie: best friend, musical collaborator, secret crush. When she learns she’s a match, donating a kidney is an easy, obvious choice. She can’t help wondering if after the transplant, he’ll love her back the way she’s always wanted.

But Peter’s life post-transplant isn’t what either of them expected. Though he once had feelings for Sophie, too, he’s now drawn to Chase, the guitarist in a band that happens to be looking for a keyboardist. And while neglected parts of Sophie’s world are calling to her–dance opportunities, new friends, a sister and niece she barely knows–she longs for a now-distant Peter more than ever, growing increasingly bitter he doesn’t seem to feel the same connection.

Peter fears he’ll forever be indebted to her. Sophie isn’t sure who she is without him. Then one heartbreaking night twists their relationship into something neither of them recognizes, leading them to question their past, their future, and whether their friendship is even worth fighting for.

Dry
Dry Image

Imagine turning on the shower and no water comes out. This is what happens to Alyssa and her family along with all the residents of California. The Tap-Out has begun. After years of critical drought, neighboring states have cut California off from all water supplies. Neighbors become enemies. Strangers become allies. Families are changed.

2019 Senior, 9-12
American Road Trip Image
American Road Trip
Brothers Teodoro and Manny Avila take a road trip to address Manny’s PTSD following his tour in Iraq, and to help T. change his life and win the heart of Wendy Martinez. Includes information and resources about PTSD.
You
You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone
Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist and to convince her music teacher he wants her the way she wants him. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins, the first step on her path toward med school and a career as a surgeon. But one thing could wreck their carefully planned futures: a genetic test for Huntington’s, a rare degenerative disease that slowly steals control of the body and mind. It’s turned their Israeli mother into a near stranger and fractured the sisters’ own bond in ways they’ll never admit. While Tovah finds comfort in their Jewish religion, Adina rebels against its rules. When the results come in, one twin tests negative for Huntington’s. The other tests positive. These opposite outcomes push them farther apart as they wrestle with guilt, betrayal, and the unexpected thrill of first love. How can they repair their relationship, and is it even worth saving?
Jazz Owls Image
Jazz Owls
In early 1940s Los Angeles, Mexican Americans Marisela and Lorena work in canneries all day then jitterbug with sailors all night with their zoot suit wearing younger brother, Ray, as escort until the night racial violence leads to murder. Includes historical note.
Children of Blood and Bone Image
Children of Blood and Bone
Zelie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orisha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zelie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zelie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zelie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zelie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.  
The Tomb Image
The Tomb
Nothing is as it seems. These are the first words Kiva’s best friend Seth says, after three years of silence. Kiva thought she was growing up in ancient Alexandria. That’s what she and all her classmates had been led to believe by their parents. It turns out she was living in virtual reality, in a sleep chamber in deep space, and three years ago, Seth woke up. Now it’s her turn to join him. Together, Kiva and Seth must take an escape shuttle to search for the engine part their home ship needs to keep running. But it’s been a long time since the Krakatoa has communicated with any of the other three ships harboring human civilization.
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes Image
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes
Tareq lives in Syria with his warm and loving family, until the bombs strike. He, his father, and his younger sister are the only survivors, and they have no choice but to go to Raqqa, where they have extended family. But Raqqa is a stronghold for Daesh, the militant group claiming to follow the tennets of Islam, yet who really exist only to enable violence and intolerance. Tareq’s family leave quickly, and Tareq heads to Istanbul with his cousin. From there, reunited with his younger sister, they flee successfully to Greece.
Summer Bird Blue Image
Summer Bird Blue
Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of–she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea. Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.
Save the Date Image
Save the Date
Charlie Grant’s older sister is getting married this weekend at their family home, and Charlie can’t wait–for the first time in years, all four of her older siblings will be under one roof. Charlie is desperate for one last perfect weekend, before the house is sold and everything changes. The house will be filled with jokes and games and laughs again. Making decisions about things like what college to attend and reuniting with longstanding crush Jesse Foster–all that can wait. She wants to focus on making the weekend perfect. The only problem? The weekend is shaping up to be an absolute disaster. There’s the unexpected dog with a penchant for howling, house alarm that won’t stop going off, and a papergirl with a grudge. There are the relatives who aren’t speaking, the (awful) girl her favorite brother brought home unannounced, and a missing tuxedo. Not to mention the neighbor who seems to be bent on sabotage and a storm that is bent on drenching everything. The justice of the peace is missing. The band will only play covers. The guests are all crazy. And the wedding planner’s nephew is unexpectedly, distractingly…cute. Over the course of three ridiculously chaotic days, Charlie will learn more than she ever expected about the family she thought she knew by heart. And she’ll realize that sometimes, trying to keep everything like it was in the past means missing out on the future.
Live In Infamy Image
Live In Infamy
In the eighty years since the Axis powers won World War II with their genetically engineered super soldiers, America has changed drastically in the hands of the unforgiving victors. But there are still those who aspire to what the country used to stand for: freedom for all. In the Western American Territories, Chinese American Ren Cabot has lost nearly everything to Imperial Japan’s rule. After the public execution of his mom for treason five years ago, Ren lives under constant scrutiny of the Empire, afraid that one wrong step will rip apart what remains of his family for good. However, when a chance encounter with a resistance group offers Ren an opportunity to save lives and quite possibly topple the government, he agrees to their deadly plot. But his role will lead him straight into the heart of enemy, and if caught, death would be a much better fate than what the Empire will do to him.
The Strange True Tale of Frankenstein
The Strange True Tale of Frankenstein's Creator Mary Shelley
The story of Frankenstein‘s creator is a strange, romantic, and tragic one, as deeply compelling as the novel itself. Mary ran away to Lake Geneva with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley when she was just sixteen. It was there, during a cold and wet summer, that she first imagined her story about a mad scientist who brought a corpse back to life. Success soon followed for Mary, but also great tragedy and misfortune.
The Dead Enders Image
The Dead Enders
In a place like Gold Fork, sometimes a secret is the only thing that’s really yours. Ana, Davis, Erik, and Georgie know that best. Bound together by a horrible tragedy from their pasts, they forged a friendship that has lasted through high school. In a town full of weekenders, they all know what it’s like to be dead enders, fated to stay trapped in a tourist destination for the rest of their lives. But with the appearance of long-lost family members and an arsonist setting the town ablaze, it’s time to confront the fact that what brought them together years ago might be what ultimately tears them apart.
Brazen: rebel ladies who rocked the world Image
Brazen: rebel ladies who rocked the world
Brazen looks at the lives of twenty-nine charismatic women in history, including Josephine Baker, Betty Davis, and Cheryl Bridges.
Attucks!: Oscar Robertson and the basketball team that awakened a city Image
Attucks!: Oscar Robertson and the basketball team that awakened a city
A rousing rags-to-riches episode, a tale of youth power, and a scarcely told chapter in African-American history, Attucks! charts the rise of the legendary Crispus Attucks High School Tigers in the 1950s. By winning the Indiana state high school basketball boys’ championship in 1955, ten teens from a school meant to be the centerpiece of racially segregated education in Indiana shattered the myth of their own inferiority. Their brilliant coach had fashioned an unbeatable team from a group of boys born in the South and raised in poverty, anchored by the astonishing player Oscar “The Big O” Robertson. The Crispus Attucks Tigers went down in history as the first state champions from the city of Indianapolis and the first all-black team in U.S. history to win a racially open championship tournament.
Strange Days Image
Strange Days
Alex Mata doesn’t want to worry about rumors of alien incursions–he’d rather just skate and tag and play guitar. But when he comes home to find an alien has murdered his parents, he’s forced to confront a new reality- aliens are real, his parents are dead, and nobody will believe him if he tells. On the run, Alex finds himself led to the compound of tech guru Jeffrey Sabazios, the only public figure who stands firm in his belief that aliens are coming.
Come November Image
Come November
It’s not the end of the world, but for Rooney Harris it’s starting to feel that way. It’s the beginning of senior year, and her mom just lost her job. Even worse, she isn’t planning to get another one. Instead, she’s spending every waking moment with a group called the Next World Society, whose members are convinced they’ll be leaving Earth behind on November 17. It sounds crazy to Rooney, but to her mother and younger brother it sounds like salvation. As her mom’s obsession threatens to tear their lives apart, Rooney is scrambling to hold it all together. But will saving her family mean sacrificing her dreams or theirs?
Claiming My Place: coming of age in the shadow of the Holocaust Image
Claiming My Place: coming of age in the shadow of the Holocaust
Chronicles the life of Barbara Riechmann, once known as Gucia Gomolinska, who grew up as a Jew in the predominantly Catholic Poland during the 1920s and 1930s, explores how she survived after the Nazis invaded Poland, and her immigration to America until her death.
Unclaimed Baggage Image
Unclaimed Baggage
Told from three viewpoints, teens Doris, Nell, and Grant find friendship and the possibility of love while working in Unclaimed Baggage, a store that sells items that went missing during airline travel.
Dear Evan Hansen Image
Dear Evan Hansen
Evan goes from being a nobody to everyone’s hero and a social media superstar after a chance encounter with Connor just before his suicide leads others to believe Evan was his only friend.
Economic Inequality: the American dream under siege Image
Economic Inequality: the American dream under siege
Many Americans are angry about economic inequality, and many are working on solutions. Readers will learn how state and local governments, businesses, and ordinary citizens, including young people are fighting to close the gap between rich and poor, to preserve the promises of American democracy, and to give everyone a fair shot at the American Dream.
Life Inside My Mind: 31 authors share their personal struggles Image
Life Inside My Mind: 31 authors share their personal struggles
Thirty-one YA authors share their own struggles with mental illness, ranging from such topics as neurodiversity and addiction to OCD and PTSD.
Hunger Image
Hunger
It is the autumn of 1846 in Ireland. Lorraine and her brother are waiting for the time to pick the potato crop on their family farm leased from an English landowner. But this year is different–the spuds are mushy and ruined. What will Lorraine and her family do? Then Lorraine meets Miss Susannah, the daughter of the wealthy English landowner who owns Lorraine’s family’s farm, and the girls form an unlikely friendship that they must keep a secret from everyone. Two different cultures come together in a deserted Irish meadow. And Lorraine has one question: how can she help her family survive?
Fresh Ink Image
Fresh Ink
An anthology featuring award-winning diverse authors about diverse characters. Short stories, a graphic novel, and a one-act play explore such topics as gentrification, acceptance, untimely death, coming out, and poverty, and range in genre from contemporary realistic fiction to adventure and romance.
Blacklisted!: Hollywood, the cold war, and the first amendment Image
Blacklisted!: Hollywood, the cold war, and the first amendment
The story of 19 men, all from the film industry who are summoned to appear before the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities. All 19 believe that the committee’s investigations into their political views and personal associations are a violation of their First Amendment rights. When the first 10 of these men refuse to give the committee the simple answers it wants, they are cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted.
The Grand Escape: the greatest prison breakout of the 20th century Image
The Grand Escape: the greatest prison breakout of the 20th century
At the height of World War I, as battles raged in the trenches and in the air, another struggle for survival was being waged in the most notorious POW camp in all of Germany: Holzminden. A land-locked Alcatraz of sorts, it was home to the most troublesome Allied prisoners. The Grand Escape tells the remarkable tale of a band of pilots who pulled off an ingenious plan and made it out of enemy territory in the biggest breakout of WWI, inspiring their countrymen in the darkest hours of the war.
Unpunished Murder Image
Unpunished Murder
On Easter Sunday of 1873, just eight years after the Civil War ended, a band of white supremacists marched into Grant Parish, Louisiana, and massacred over one hundred unarmed African Americans. The court case that followed reached the highest court in the land. Yet, following one of the most ghastly incidents of mass murder in American history, not one person was convicted.
I Stop Somewhere Image
I Stop Somewhere
Tormented throughout middle school, Ellie begins her freshman year with a new look: she doesn’t need to be popular; she just needs to blend in with the wallpaper. But when the unthinkable happens, Ellie finds herself trapped after a brutal assault. She wasn’t the first victim, and now she watches it happen again and again. She tries to hold on to her happier memories in order to get past the cold days, waiting for someone to find her. The problem is, no one searches for a girl they never noticed in the first place.
All that I can Fix Image
All that I can Fix
In Makersville, Indiana, people know all about Ronney. He’s from that mixed-race family with the dad who tried to kill himself, the pill-popping mom, and the genius kid sister. If having a family like that wasn’t bad enough, the local eccentric at the edge of town decided one night to open up all the cages of his exotic zoo–lions, cheetahs, tigers–and then shoot himself dead. Overnight, news crews, gun control supporters, and gun rights advocates descend on Makersville, bringing around-the-clock news coverage, rallies, and anti-rallies with them. With his parents checked out, Ronney is left tending to his sister’s mounting fears of roaming lions, stopping his best friend from going on a suburban safari, and shaking loose a lonely boy who follows Ronney wherever he goes.
We Are All That
We Are All That's Left
Zara and her mother, Nadja, have a strained relationship. Nadja just doesn’t understand Zara’s creative passion for, and self-expression through, photography. And Zara doesn’t know how to reach beyond their differences and connect to a closed-off mother who refuses to speak about her past in Bosnia. But when a bomb explodes as they’re shopping in their local farmers’ market in Rhode Island, Zara is left with PTSD–and her mother is left in a coma. Without the opportunity to get to know her mother, Zara is left with questions–not just about her mother, but about faith, religion, history, and her own path forward.
In Search of Us Image
In Search of Us
When Marilyn was seventeen, she fell in love with Angie’s father, James, who was African-American. But Angie’s never met him, and Marilyn has always told her he died before she was born. When Angie discovers evidence of an uncle she’s never met she starts to wonder, what if her dad is still alive, too? So she sets off on a journey to find him, hitching a ride to LA from her home in New Mexico with her ex-boyfriend, Sam. Along the way, she uncovers some hard truths about herself, her mother, and what truly happened to her father.
The History of Jane Doe Image
The History of Jane Doe
History buff Ray knows everything about the peculiar legends and lore of his rural Connecticut hometown. Burgerville’s past is riddled with green cow sightings and witches’ curses, but the most interesting thing about the present is the new girl–we’ll call her Jane Doe. Inscrutable, cool, and above all mysterious, Jane seems as determined to hide her past as Ray is to uncover it. As fascination turns to friendship and then to something more, Ray is certain he knows Jane’s darkest, most painful secrets and Jane herself–from past to present. But when the unthinkable happens, Ray is forced to acknowledge that perhaps history can only tell us so much.
Price of Duty Image
Price of Duty
Jake Liddell is a hero. At least, that’s what everyone says he is. The military is even awarding him a Silver Star for his heroic achievements–a huge honor for the son of a military family. Now he’s home, recovering from an injury, but it seems the war has followed him back. He needs pills to get any sleep, a young woman is trying to persuade him into speaking out against military recruitment tactics, and his grandfather is already urging him back onto the battlefield. He doesn’t know what to do; nothing makes sense anymore.
Bonnie and Clyde: the making of a legend Image
Bonnie and Clyde: the making of a legend
What was life really like for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in the early 1930s? How did two dirt-poor teens from west Texas morph from vicious outlaws to legendary couple?
Girl Made of Stars Image
Girl Made of Stars
Mara and Owen are as close as twins can get, so when Mara’s friend Hannah accuses Owen of rape, Mara doesn’t know what to think. Can her brother really be guilty of such a violent act? Torn between her family and her sense of right and wrong, Mara feels lost, and it doesn’t help that things are strained with her ex-girlfriend, Charlie. As Mara, Hannah, and Charlie come together in the aftermath of this terrible crime, Mara must face a trauma from her own past and decide where Charlie fits into her future.
A Heart in the Body in the World Image
A Heart in the Body in the World
Each step on Annabelle’s 2,700 mile cross-country run brings her closer to facing a trauma from her past. So that’s what Annabelle does–she runs from Seattle to Washington, DC, through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She’s not ready to think about the why yet, just the how–muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person–The Taker–that haunts her. Followed by Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her brother and two friends (her self-appointed publicity team), Annabelle becomes a reluctant activist as people connect her journey to the trauma from her past. Her cross-country run gains media attention and she is cheered on as she crosses state borders, and is even thrown a block party and given gifts. The support would be nice, if Annabelle could escape the guilt and the shame from what happened back home. They say it isn’t her fault, but she can’t feel the truth of that.
Give Me Some Truth Image
Give Me Some Truth
In 1980 life is hard on the Tuscarora Reservation in upstate New York, and most of the teenagers feel like they are going nowhere: Carson Mastick dreams of forming a rock band, and Maggi Bokoni longs to create her own conceptual artwork instead of the traditional beadwork that her family sells to tourists. But tensions are rising between the reservation and the surrounding communities, and somehow in the confusion of politics and growing up Carson and Maggi have to make a place for themselves.
Impostors Image
Impostors
In a world that is rapidly descending into chaos, Frey and Rafi are twin sisters, but few people know of Frey’s existence, because she has been raised to be her sister’s body double and lethal bodyguard, while Rafi has been raised to further the family’s political power–but when their father sends Frey in her sister’s place as collateral in a tricky deal, Col, the son of a rival leader, gets close enough to begin to suspect something, and Frey must decide whether to deal with him violently or finally assume her own identity.
To Be Honest Image
To Be Honest
Savannah is dreading being home alone with her overbearing mother after her big sister–and best friend–goes off to college. But if she can just get through senior year, she’ll be able to escape to college, too. What she doesn’t count on is that her mother’s obsession with weight has only grown deeper since her appearance on an extreme weight-loss show, and now Savvy’s mom is pressuring her even harder to be constantly mindful of what she eats. Between her mom’s diet-helicoptering, missing her sister, and worrying about her collegiate future, Savvy has enough to worry about. And then she meets George, the cute new kid at school who has insecurities of his own. As Savvy and George grow closer, they help each other discover how to live in the moment and enjoy the here and now before it disappears.
The Perfect Candidate Image
The Perfect Candidate
When recent high school graduate Cameron Carter lands an internship with Congressman Billy Beck in Washington, DC, he thinks it is his ticket out of small town captivity. What he lacks in connections and Beltway polish he makes up in smarts, and he soon finds a friend and mentor in fellow staffer Ariel Lancaster. That is, until she winds up dead. As rumors and accusations about her death fly around Capitol Hill, Cameron’s low profile makes him the perfect candidate for an FBI investigation that he wants no part of. Before he knows it–and with his family’s future at stake–he discovers DC’s darkest secrets as he races to expose a deadly conspiracy.
After the Shot Drops Image
After the Shot Drops
Bunny and Nasir have been best friends forever, but when Bunny accepts an athletic scholarship across town, Nasir feels betrayed. While Bunny tries to fit in with his new, privileged peers, Nasir spends more time with his cousin, Wallace, who is being evicted. Nasir can’t help but wonder why the neighborhood is falling over itself to help Bunny when Wallace is in trouble.
The Summer of Broken Things Image
The Summer of Broken Things
Fourteen-year-old Avery Armisted is athletic, rich, and pretty. Sixteen-year-old Kayla Butts is known as “butt-girl” at school. The two girls were friends as little kids, but that’s ancient history now. So it’s a huge surprise when Avery’s father offers to bring Kayla along on a summer trip to Spain. Avery is horrified that her father thinks he can choose her friends and make her miss soccer camp. Kayla struggles just to imagine leaving the confines of her small town. But in Spain, the two uncover a secret their families had hidden from both of them their entire lives. Maybe the girls can put aside their differences and work through it together. Or maybe the lies and betrayal will only push them and their families farther apart.
The Fall of Innocence Image
The Fall of Innocence
For the past eight years, sixteen-year-old Emilia DeJesus has done her best to move on from the traumatic attack she suffered in the woods behind her elementary school. She’s forced down the memories–the feeling of the twigs cracking beneath her, choking on her own blood, unable to scream. Most of all, she’s tried to forget about Jeremy Lance, the boy responsible, the boy who caused her such pain. Emilia believes that the crows who watched over her that day, who helped her survive, are still on her side, encouraging her to live fully. And with the love and support of her mother, brother, and her caring boyfriend, Emilia is doing just that. But when a startling discovery about her attacker’s identity comes to light, and the memories of that day break through the mental box in which she’d shut them away, Emilia is forced to confront her new reality and make sense of shifting truths about her past, her family, and herself.
What I Leave Behind Image
What I Leave Behind
Sixteen-year-old Will spends most of his days the same way: Working at the Dollar Only store, trying to replicate his late father’s famous cornbread recipe, and walking the streets of Los Angeles. Will started walking after his father committed suicide, and three years later he hasn’t stopped. But there are some places Will can’t walk by: The blessings store with the chest of 100 Chinese blessings in the back, the bridge on Fourth Street where his father died, and his childhood friend Playa’s house.
Boots on the Ground: America
Boots on the Ground: America's war in Vietnam
An exploration of the Vietnam War from many different perspectives including an American soldiers, a nurse, and a Vietnamese refugee
Mary
Mary's Monster: love, madness, and how Mary Shelley created Frankenstein
Legend is correct that Mary Shelley began penning Frankenstein in answer to a dare to write a ghost story. What most people don’t know, however, is that the seeds of her novel had been planted long before that night. By age nineteen, she had been disowned by her family, was living in scandal with a married man, and had lost her baby daughter just days after her birth. Mary poured her grief, pain, and passion into the powerful book still revered two hundred years later, and in Mary’s Monster, author/illustrator Lita Judge has poured her own passion into a gorgeous book that pays tribute to the life of this incredible author.
Darius the Great is not Okay Image
Darius the Great is not Okay
Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s a Fractional Persian–half, his mom’s side–and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life.
Our Year of Maybe Image
Our Year of Maybe
Sophie Orenstein would do anything for Peter Rosenthal-Porter, who’s been on the kidney transplant list as long as she’s known him. Peter, a gifted pianist, is everything to Sophie: best friend, musical collaborator, secret crush. When she learns she’s a match, donating a kidney is an easy, obvious choice. She can’t help wondering if after the transplant, he’ll love her back the way she’s always wanted. But Peter’s life post-transplant isn’t what either of them expected. Though he once had feelings for Sophie, too, he’s now drawn to Chase, the guitarist in a band that happens to be looking for a keyboardist. And while neglected parts of Sophie’s world are calling to her–dance opportunities, new friends, a sister and niece she barely knows–she longs for a now-distant Peter more than ever, growing increasingly bitter he doesn’t seem to feel the same connection. Peter fears he’ll forever be indebted to her. Sophie isn’t sure who she is without him. Then one heartbreaking night twists their relationship into something neither of them recognizes, leading them to question their past, their future, and whether their friendship is even worth fighting for.
Dry Image
Dry
Imagine turning on the shower and no water comes out. This is what happens to Alyssa and her family along with all the residents of California. The Tap-Out has begun. After years of critical drought, neighboring states have cut California off from all water supplies. Neighbors become enemies. Strangers become allies. Families are changed.