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books

  • STACKED
  • About Us
  • Categories
    • Audiobooks
    • Book Lists
      • Debut YA Novels
      • Get Genrefied
      • On The Radar
    • Cover Designs
      • Cover Doubles
      • Cover Redesigns
      • Cover Trends
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      • Feminism For The Real World Anthology
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      • Challenges & Censorship
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      • Book Riot
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Teens of Color on 2021 YA Books

August 31, 2020 |

It’s amazing to think about how different YA book covers looked back in 2014, when I first began to look closely at representation of teens of color. There didn’t used to be too many of them, but over the course of continuing this annual series highlighting YA books with teens of color on the cover, it’s gotten so much better. It’s far from perfect, but the steps forward here are heartening.

Last year, I did three separate roundups of 2020 YA covers with teens of color on the cover, and that didn’t even capture all of them. I suspect that the same is going to be true of 2021 YA book covers. This is but the beginning, especially as not all covers for the coming year have been released yet.

This list is compiled through a number of resources, including publisher catalogs, Goodreads, and more. It won’t be comprehensive, but it’s going to be pretty darn close this soon into the 2021 YA release world. I’ve stuck to books where it is very obvious the teen on the cover is a teen of color. Not all of these will be #OwnVoices books. Also note that publication dates are tentative in the best of circumstances, but in light of the pandemic and printer backlog issues, it’s very possible these dates will change.

All descriptions of the books come from Goodreads, as I have not read a single book for next year yet — I’m still working my way through summer 2020 new titles!

What covers are you drooling over? Because I know for me, these are just all standouts.

A look at some of the incredible 2021 YA book covers featuring teens of color on them.    book covers | YA book covers | 2021 YA books | 2021 YA book covers | Diverse YA 2021

 

2021 YA Books Featuring Teens of Color On The Cover

 

A Crown So Cursed by LL McKinney (1/19)

In the third book in L.L. McKinney’s Nightmare-Verse trilogy, Alice gets one last chance to save Wonderland from itself.

Alice and the gang are trying to recover from recent events—but members of her crew start having weird dreams. The same dreams. It seems the evil in Wonderland may not be as defeated as they thought—because someone’s building an army of Nightmares to attack the mortal world. But before Alice jumps into battle, she discovers she has a personal connection to Wonderland, and she must face what it means for the fight ahead.

 

 

 

 

A Pho Love Story by Loan Lee (2/9)

When Dimple Met Rishi meets Ugly Delicious in this funny, smart romantic comedy, in which two Vietnamese-American teens fall in love and must navigate their newfound relationship amid their families’ age-old feud about their competing, neighboring restaurants.

If Bao Nguyen had to describe himself, he’d say he was a rock. Steady and strong, but not particularly interesting. His grades are average, his social status unremarkable. He works at his parents’ pho restaurant, and even there, he is his parents’ fifth favorite employee. Not ideal.

If Linh Mai had to describe herself, she’d say she was a firecracker. Stable when unlit, but full of potential for joy and fire. She loves art and dreams pursuing a career in it. The only problem? Her parents rely on her in ways they’re not willing to admit, including working practically full-time at her family’s pho restaurant.

For years, the Mais and the Nguyens have been at odds, having owned competing, neighboring pho restaurants. Bao and Linh, who’ve avoided each other for most of their lives, both suspect that the feud stems from feelings much deeper than friendly competition.

But then a chance encounter brings Linh and Bao in the same vicinity despite their best efforts and sparks fly, leading them both to wonder what took so long for them to connect. But then, of course, they immediately remember.

Can Linh and Bao find love in the midst of feuding families and complicated histories?

American Betiya by Anuradha D. Rajurkar (3/9)

Fans of Sandhya Menon, Erika Sanchez and Jandy Nelson will identify with this story of a young artist grappling with first love, family boundaries and the complications of a cross-cultural relationship.

Rani Kelkar has never lied to her parents, until she meets Oliver. The same qualities that draw her in–his tattoos, his charisma, his passion for art–make him her mother’s worst nightmare.

They begin dating in secret, but when Oliver’s troubled home life unravels, he starts to ask more of Rani than she knows how to give, desperately trying to fit into her world, no matter how high the cost. Their relationship is nearly at the breaking point, when a family tragedy draws Rani to India for a summer. There, she gains perspective on what it means to be true to herself and what that means for her and Oliver.

Winner of SCBWI’s Emerging Voices award, Anuradha Rajurkar takes an honest look at the ways cultures can clash in an interracial relationship. Rani’s journey to hold onto her cultural identity amid the push-and-pull of first love, will resonate with anyone who’s ever navigated a cross-cultural relationship.

 

Anna K Away by Jenny Lee (3/9)

How the mighty have fallen. Anna K, once the golden girl of Greenwich, CT, and New York City, has been brought low by a scandalous sex tape and the tragic death of her first love, Alexia Vronsky. At the beginning of the summer, her father takes her to the other side of the world, to connect with his family in South Korea and teach his daughter about her roots. Is Anna in exile? Or could this be her chance to finally figure out who she really is?

Back in the U.S., Anna’s brother, Stephen, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are falling even more deeply in love. But when Lolly learns about unexpected consequences from Stephen’s cheating the previous year, she has to consider how much she is willing to forgive. Lolly’s little sister, Kimmie, and her new boyfriend, Dustin, are thinking about having sex together for the first time. And Bea, Vronsky’s cousin, is having her own romantic and sexual awakening, though she hasn’t forgiven her ex-BFF, Anna, for her role in Vronsky’s death.

Set over the course of a single, life-changing summer, Anna K Away is full of the risk, joy, heartbreak, and adventure that marks the three months between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next.

 

The Awakening of Malcolm X by Ilyasah Shabazz and Tiffany D. Jackson (1/5)

No one can be at peace until he has his freedom.

In Charlestown Prison, Malcolm Little struggles with the weight of his past. Plagued by nightmares, Malcolm drifts through days unsure of his future. Slowly, he befriends other prisoners and writes to his family. He reads all the books in the prison library, joins the debate team and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm grapples with race, politics, religion, and justice in the 1940s. And as his time in jail comes to an end, he begins to awaken — emerging from prison more than just Malcolm Little: Now, he is Malcolm X.

Here is an intimate look at Malcolm X’s young adult years. While this book chronologically follows X: A Novel, it can be read as a stand-alone historical novel that invites larger discussions on black power, prison reform, and civil rights.

 

 

 

Bruised by Tanya Boteju (3/23)

Whip It meets We Are Okay in this vibrant coming-of-age story, about a teen girl navigates first love, identity, and grief when she immerses herself in the colorful, brutal, beautiful world of roller derby—from the acclaimed author of Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens.

To Daya Wijesinghe, a bruise is a mixture of comfort and control. Since her parents died in an accident she survived, bruises have become a way to keep her pain on the surface of her skin so she doesn’t need to deal with the ache deep in her heart.

So when chance and circumstances bring her to a roller derby bout, Daya is hooked. Yes, the rules are confusing and the sport seems to require the kind of teamwork and human interaction Daya generally avoids. But the opportunities to bruise are countless, and Daya realizes that if she’s going to keep her emotional pain at bay, she’ll need all the opportunities she can get.

The deeper Daya immerses herself into the world of roller derby, though, the more she realizes it’s not the simple physical pain-fest she was hoping for. Her rough-and-tumble teammates and their fans push her limits in ways she never imagined, bringing Daya to big truths about love, loss, strength, and healing.

 

Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne (1/12)

A novel-in-verse about a young girl coming-of-age and stepping out of the shadow of her former best friend. Perfect for readers of Elizabeth Acevedo and Nikki Grimes.

She looks me hard in my eyes
& my knees lock into tree trunks
My eyes don’t dance like my heartbeat racing
They stare straight back hot daggers.
I remember things will never be the same.
I remember things.

With gritty and heartbreaking honesty, Mahogany L. Browne delivers a novel-in-verse about broken promises, fast rumors, and when growing up means growing apart from your best friend.

 

Concrete Rose Angie Thomas
https://app.asana.com/0/1135954362417873/1168658175790681/f

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas (1/12)

If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison.

Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control.

Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father.

Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different.

When King Lord blood runs through your veins, though, you can’t just walk away. Loyalty, revenge, and responsibility threaten to tear Mav apart, especially after the brutal murder of a loved one. He’ll have to figure out for himself what it really means to be a man.

 

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado (2/2)

Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard.
Harder when your whole life is on fire, though.

Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.

People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.

But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing–he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? UGHHH. Everything is now officially a MESS.

A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

 

Fire with Fire by Destiny Soria (6/8)

Dani and Eden Rivera were both born to kill dragons, but the sisters couldn’t be more different. For Dani, dragon slaying takes a back seat to normal high school life, while Eden prioritizes training above everything else. Yet they both agree on one thing: it’s kill or be killed where dragons are concerned.

Until Dani comes face-to-face with one and forges a rare and magical bond with him. As she gets to know Nox, she realizes that everything she thought she knew about dragons is wrong. With Dani lost to the dragons, Eden turns to the mysterious and alluring sorcerers to help save her sister. Now on opposite sides of the conflict, the sisters will do whatever it takes to save the other. But the two are playing with magic that is more dangerous than they know, and there is another, more powerful enemy waiting for them both in the shadows.

 

 

 

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley (3/2)

Debut author Angeline Boulley crafts a groundbreaking YA thriller about a Native teen who must root out the corruption in her community, for readers of Angie Thomas and Tommy Orange.

As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Daunis dreams of studying medicine, but when her family is struck by tragedy, she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother.

The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, certain details don’t add up and she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into the heart of a criminal investigation.

Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, but secretly pursues her own investigation, tracking down the criminals with her knowledge of chemistry and traditional medicine. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home.

Now, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go to protect her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.

 

Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur (4/20)

After her father vanishes while investigating the disappearance of 13 young women, a teen returns to her secretive hometown to pick up the trail in this second YA historical mystery from the author of The Silence of Bones.

Hwani’s family has never been the same since she and her younger sister went missing and were later found unconscious in the forest, near a gruesome crime scene. The only thing they remember: Their captor wore a painted-white mask.

To escape the haunting memories of this incident, the family flees their hometown. Years later, Detective Min—Hwani’s father—learns that thirteen girls have recently disappeared under similar circumstances, and so he returns to their hometown to investigate… only to vanish as well.

Determined to find her father and solve the case that tore their family apart, Hwani returns home to pick up the trail. As she digs into the secrets of the small village—and reconnects with her now estranged sister—Hwani comes to realize that the answer lies within her own buried memories of what happened in the forest all those years ago.

Suspenseful and richly atmospheric, June Hur’s The Forest of Stolen Girls is a haunting historical mystery sure to keep readers guessing until the last page.

 

Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant (1/5)

Sixteen-year-old Tessa Johnson has never felt like the protagonist in her own life. She’s rarely seen herself reflected in the pages of the romance novels she loves. The only place she’s a true leading lady is in her own writing—in the swoony love stories she shares only with Caroline, her best friend and #1 devoted reader.

When Tessa is accepted into the creative writing program of a prestigious art school, she’s excited to finally let her stories shine. But when she goes to her first workshop, the words are just…gone. Fortunately, Caroline has a solution: Tessa just needs to find some inspiration in a real-life love story of her own. And she’s ready with a list of romance novel-inspired steps to a happily ever after. Nico, the brooding artist who looks like he walked out of one of Tessa’s stories, is cast as the perfect Prince Charming.

But as Tessa checks off each item off Caroline’s list, she gets further and further away from herself. She risks losing everything she cares about—including the surprising bond she develops with sweet Sam, who lives across the street. She’s well on her way to having her own real-life love story, but is it the one she wants, after all?

 

How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao (8/3)

In a YA thriller that is Crazy Rich Asians meets One of Us is Lying, students at an elite prep school are forced to confront their secrets when their ex-best friend turns up dead and they’re the prime suspects in her murder.

When Nancy Luo’s former best friend Jamie Ruan, the top ranked junior at Sinclair Prep, goes missing, Nancy is shocked. She’s even more shocked when Jamie is found dead.

The police suspect murder, and Nancy and her three friends become the prime suspects-thanks to The Proctor, someone set on publicly incriminating them via the school’s social media app. The quartet used to be Jamie’s closest friends – and she knew dangerous secrets about each of them that could ruin their reputations as the other top- ranking students. For Nancy, the stakes are even higher, because unlike her wealthy friends, she could lose her full ride scholarship, too.

As the group struggles to dear their names while maintaining their perfect GPAS, they race to uncover Jamie’s true killer-before the Proctor exposes al of their darkest secrets. But Nancy can’t help but suspect that one of her friends is lying. Or is there a missing piece in her own memory that could expose the truth-not just about Jamie’s fate, but also about herself?

 

Last Night At The Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo (1/19)

“That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other.” And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.

America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

 

 

Like Home by Louisa Onomé (2/23)

Fans of Netflix’s On My Block, In the Heights, and readers of Elizabeth Acevedo and Ibi Zoboi will love this debut novel about a girl whose life is turned upside down after one local act of vandalism throws her relationships and even her neighborhood into turmoil.

Chinelo, or Nelo as her best friend Kate calls her, is all about her neighborhood Ginger East. She loves its chill vibe, ride-or-die sense of community, and her memories of growing up there. Ginger East isn’t what it used to be, though. After a deadly incident at the local arcade, all her closest friends moved away, except for Kate. But as long as they have each other, Nelo’s good.

Only, Kate’s parents’ corner store is vandalized, leaving Nelo shaken to her core. The police and the media are quick to point fingers, and soon more of the outside world descends on Ginger East with promises to “fix” it. Suddenly, Nelo finds herself in the middle of a drama unfolding on a national scale.

Worse yet, Kate is acting strange. She’s pushing Nelo away at the exact moment they need each other most. Nelo’s entire world is morphing into something she hates, and she must figure out how to get things back on track or risk losing everything⁠—and everyone⁠—she loves.

 

Muted by Tami Charles (2/2)

Be bold. Get seen. Be Heard.

For seventeen-year-old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very white hometown.

So Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean “Mercury” Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights — plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the girls have to tell are all worth it.

Until they’re not.

Denver begins to realize that she’s trapped in Merc’s world, struggling to hold on to her own voice. As the dream turns into a nightmare, she must make a choice: lose her big break, or get broken.

Inspired by true events, Muted is a fearless exploration of the dark side of the music industry, the business of exploitation, how a girl’s dreams can be used against her — and what it takes to fight back.

 

Nubia: Real One by LL McKinney, illustrated by Robyn Smith (2/2)

Can you be a hero…if society doesn’t see you as a person?

Nubia has always been a little bit…different. As a baby she showcased Amazonian-like strength by pushing over a tree to rescue her neighbor’s cat. But, despite having similar abilities, the world has no problem telling her that she’s no Wonder Woman. And even if she was, they wouldn’t want her. Every time she comes to the rescue, she’s reminded of how people see her; as a threat. Her Moms do their best to keep her safe, but Nubia can’t deny the fire within her, even if she’s a little awkward about it sometimes. Even if it means people assume the worst.

When Nubia’s best friend, Quisha, is threatened by a boy who thinks he owns the town, Nubia will risk it all—her safety, her home, and her crush on that cute kid in English class—to become the hero society tells her she isn’t.

From the witty and powerful voice behind A Blade So Black, L.L. McKinney, and with endearing and expressive art by Robyn Smith, comes a vital story for today about equality, identity and kicking it with your squad.

 

Once Upon a Quinceanera by Monica Gomez-Hira (3/2)

Jenny Han meets “Jane the Virgin” in this flashy and fun Own Voices romcom from debut author Monica Gomez-Hira.

Carmen Aguilar just wants to make her happily ever after come true. Except apparently “happily ever after” for Carmen involves being stuck in an unpaid summer internship! All she has to do is perform! In a ball gown! During the summer. In Miami.

Fine. Except that Carmen’s company is hired for her spoiled cousin Ariana’s over the top quinceañera.

And of course, her new dance partner at work is none other than Mauro Reyes, Carmen’s most deeply regrettable ex.

If Carmen is going to move into the future she wants, she needs to leave the past behind. And if she can manage dancing in the blistering heat, fending off Mauro’s texts, and stopping Ariana from ruining her own quinceañera Carmen might just get that happily ever after after all.

 

One Carefree Day by Whitney Amazeen (2/7)

Imagine being forced to face your worst fear.

For eighteen-year-old Willow Bates, anxiety is just a part of life. With her every decision ruled by intrusive thoughts, she’s worried she sometimes seems a little odd. Despite Willow’s efforts to hide her OCD from those around her, it isn’t always possible. Her rituals are her coping mechanism, and Willow’s past has left her with a lot to cope with.

But when Willow takes things too far, her mother breaks and gives her an ultimatum: Willow must finally start taking meds to treat her obsessive-compulsive disorder, or she’ll have to move out within three months. But Willow is terrified of both options, and can’t afford to support herself as a new cosmetology student.

Only when Theo Tate moves in next door does Willow begin to see hope. Theo might have a way for Willow to avoid taking meds and still resist her rituals. But falling for Theo is definitely not part of the plan. And mingling with him has risks not even Willow could possibly control, let alone be prepared for.

 

One Of The Good Ones by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite (1/5)

ISN’T BEING HUMAN ENOUGH?

When teen social activist and history buff Kezi Smith is killed under mysterious circumstances after attending a social justice rally, her devastated sister Happi and their family are left reeling in the aftermath. As Kezi becomes another immortalized victim in the fight against police brutality, Happi begins to question the idealized way her sister is remembered. Perfect. Angelic.

One of the good ones.

Even as the phrase rings wrong in her mind—why are only certain people deemed worthy to be missed?—Happi and her sister Genny embark on a journey to honor Kezi in their own way, using an heirloom copy of The Negro Motorist Green Book as their guide. But there’s a twist to Kezi’s story that no one could’ve ever expected—one that will change everything all over again.

 

Queen of Gilded Horns by Amanda Joy (3/16)

On the run and desperate for answers, Eva and her friends have fled Ternain. With them they have brought captive Isa who is chained and magicked to prevent her from making trouble. Their lives bonded after the Entwining ceremony, each sister’s life is now in the other’s hand. Having fled to the northern part of the Arym Plain, Eva hopes she might find her father’s family and learn more of his plan to unite the country. However, the welcome she receives at her father’s ancestral home puts her at death’s door, and leaves more questions than answers. Without Baccha to guide and train her magick, Eva must find a way not only to survive her own metamorphosis, but to unite all the people of Myre, including her sister, before it is too late.

 

 

 

 

Reaper of Souls by Rena Barron (2/18)

After so many years yearning for the gift of magic, Arrah has the one thing she’s always wanted—at a terrible price. Now the last surviving witchdoctor, she’s been left to pick up the shattered pieces of a family that betrayed her, a kingdom in shambles, and long-buried secrets about who she is.

Desperate not to repeat her mother’s mistakes, Arrah must return to the tribal lands to search for help from the remnants of her parents’ people. But the Demon King’s shadow looms closer than she thinks. And as Arrah struggles to unravel her connection to him, defeating him begins to seem more and more impossible—if it’s something she can bring herself to do at all.

 

 

 

Renegade Flight by Andrea Tang (2/16)

Aurora Rising meets Top Gun, with the addition of cybernetic dragons, in this is the witty, romantic, and electrifying sci-fi novel by Andrea Tang.

Viola Park’s life is over. She’s gone from planning her future as a pilot-in-training to resigning herself to life on the ground. And it’s all because she made one tiny, not-altogether-legal maneuver on the prestigious GAN Academy’s entrance exam. It’s bad enough that she didn’t get into the Academy, but getting caught cheating? It’s probably the worst thing Vi could imagine.

Still, there are perks that come with Vi’s family legacy at the school, and when Vi learns that recent pilot disappearances have left the Academy desperate for recruits, she does what any good Park would do–uses her connections to wiggle her way back in. But instead of matriculating with the regular class of future Peacekeepers, Vi is forced to enter as a probationary student, which means she’ll have to work twice as hard to prove herself worthy of a place in the cockpit of one of the legendary dragon mechs.

Lucky for Vi, the Academy has set up a combat tournament for all students, and the prize is a guaranteed spot in the Peacekeeper corps. Unlucky for Vi, she’ll have to compete against her probie classmates, including Nicholas Lee, a mysterious boy prone to throwing Vi off her game. And as more Peacekeepers go missing, what starts out as a ploy to save her reputation turns into a fight for the future of Peacekeepers everywhere, and if Vi can’t master her mech combat skills, she might not survive the battle.

Set fifteen years after Prudence Wu took flight in Rebelwing, a new generation of scrappy young pilots challenge corruption, competition, and more dangerous mechs than ever, as they redefine what it means to be a revolutionary.

 

Revenge of the Sluts by Natalie Walton (2/2)

Double standards are about to get singled out.

In this stunning debut, author Natalie Walton tackles privacy and relationships in the digital age.

As a lead reporter for The Warrior Weekly, Eden has covered her fair share of stories at St. Joseph’s High School. And when intimate pictures of seven female students are anonymously emailed to the entire school, Eden is determined to get to the bottom of it.

In tracking down leads, Eden is shocked to discover not everyone agrees the students are victims. Some people feel the girls “brought it on themselves.” Even worse, the school’s administration seems more concerned about protecting its reputation than its students.

With the anonymous sender threatening more emails, Eden finds an unlikely ally: the seven young women themselves. Banding together to find the perpetrator, the tables are about to be turned. The Slut Squad is fighting back!

 

Roman and Jewel by Dana L. Davis (1/5)

If Romeo and Juliet got the Hamilton treatment…who would play the leads? This vividly funny, honest, and charming romantic novel by Dana L. Davis is the story of a girl who thinks she has what it takes…and the world thinks so, too.

Jerzie Jhames will do anything to land the lead role in Broadway’s hottest new show, Roman and Jewel, a Romeo and Juliet inspired hip-hopera featuring a diverse cast and modern twists on the play. But her hopes are crushed when she learns mega-star Cinny won the lead…and Jerzie is her understudy.

Falling for male lead Zeppelin Reid is a terrible idea–especially once Jerzie learns Cinny wants him for herself. Star-crossed love always ends badly. But when a video of Jerzie and Zepp practicing goes viral and the entire world weighs in on who should play Jewel, Jerzie learns that while the price of fame is high, friendship, family, and love are priceless.

 

 

She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen (4/20)

High school nemeses fall in love in this queer YA rom com perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Casey McQuisten.

After losing spectacularly to her ex-girlfriend in their first game since their break up, Scottie Zajac gets into a fender bender with the worst possible person: her nemesis, the incredibly beautiful and incredibly mean Irene Abraham. Things only get worse when their nosey, do-gooder moms get involved and the girls are forced to carpool together until Irene’s car gets out of the shop.

Their bumpy start the only gets bumpier the more time they spend together. But when an opportunity presents itself for Scottie to get back at her toxic ex (and climb her school’s social ladder at the same time), she bribes Irene into playing along. Hijinks, heartbreak, and gay fake-dating scheme for the ages. From author Kelly Quindlen comes a new laugh-out-loud romp through the ups and downs of teen romance.

 

Some Other Now by Sarah Everett (2/23)

This Is Us for teens, this luminous and heartbreaking contemporary novel follows a girl caught between two brothers as the three of them navigate family, loss, and love over the course of two summers. For fans of Far From the Tree, Emergency Contact, and Nina LaCour.

Before she kissed one of the Cohen boys, seventeen-year-old Jessi Rumfield knew what it was like to have a family—even if, technically, that family didn’t belong to her. She’d spent her childhood in the house next door, challenging Rowan Cohen to tennis matches while his older brother, Luke, studied in the background and Mel watched over the three like the mother Jessi always wished she had.

But then everything changed. It’s been almost a year since Jessi last visited the Cohen house. Rowan is gone. Mel is in remission and Luke hates Jessi for the role she played in breaking his family apart. Now Jessi spends her days at a dead-end summer job avoiding her real mother, who suddenly wants to play a role in Jessi’s life after being absent for so long. But when Luke comes home from college, it’s hard to ignore the past. And when he asks Jessi to pretend to be his girlfriend for the final months of Mel’s life, Jessi finds herself drawn back into the world of the Cohens. Everything’s changed, but Jessi can’t help wanting to be a Cohen, even if it means playing pretend for one final summer.

 

Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet by Laekan Zea Kemp (4/6)

I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter meets Emergency Contact in this stunning story of first love, familial expectations, the power of food, and finding where you belong.

As an aspiring pastry chef, Penelope Prado has always dreamed of opening her own pastelería next to her father’s restaurant, Nacho’s Tacos. But her mom and dad have different plans — leaving Pen to choose between disappointing her traditional Mexican-American parents or following her own path. When she confesses a secret she’s been keeping, her world is sent into a tailspin. But then she meets a cute new hire at Nacho’s who sees through her hard exterior and asks the questions she’s been too afraid to ask herself.

Xander Amaro has been searching for home since he was a little boy. For him, a job at Nacho’s is an opportunity for just that — a chance at a normal life, to settle in at his abuelo’s, and to find the father who left him behind. But when both the restaurant and Xander’s immigrant status are threatened, he will do whatever it takes to protect his new found family and himself.

Together, Pen and Xander must navigate first love and discovering where they belong — both within their families and their fiercely loyal Chicanx community — in order to save the place they all call home.

 

The Backups: A Summer of Stardom by Alex de Campi and Lara Margarida (4/13)

Spending an entire summer on tour as a backup singer for pop star Nika Nitro? What?! That’s the DREAM, right? Especially for Jenni, Lauren, and Maggie, three misfit performing arts students with hopes of making it in the music world.

But being twenty feet from fame isn’t easy. Between crushes, constant rehearsals, Nika’s sky-high expectations, and their own insecurities, this dream is starting to feel more like a nightmare. And that’s before they accidentally start a beef with a rival band threatening to reveal a secret that could end Nika’s career.

Can this trio of new friends come together to save the tour, or will the Backups be kept out of the spotlight forever?

 

 

 

The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates (1/12)

Coates grew up in the tumultuous 1980’s in Baltimore, known as the murder capital back then. With seven siblings, four mothers, and one highly unconventional father: Paul Coates, a larger-than-life Vietnam Vet, Black Panther, Afrocentric scholar, Ta-Nehisi’s coming of age story is gripping and lays bare the struggles of inner-city kids.

With candor, Ta-Nehisi Coates details the challenges on the streets and within one’s family, especially the eternal struggle for peace between a father and son and the important role family plays in such circumstances.

 

 

 

 

The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris (3/16)

Dear Martin meets They Both Die at the End in this gripping, evocative novel about a Black teen who has the power to see into the future, whose life turns upside down when he foresees his younger brother’s imminent death, from the acclaimed author of SLAY.

Sixteen-year-old Alex Rufus is trying his best. He tries to be the best employee he can be at the local ice cream shop; the best boyfriend he can be to his amazing girlfriend, Talia; the best protector he can be over his little brother, Isaiah. But as much as Alex tries, he often comes up short.

It’s hard to for him to be present when every time he touches an object or person, Alex sees into its future. When he touches a scoop, he has a vision of him using it to scoop ice cream. When he touches his car, he sees it years from now, totaled and underwater. When he touches Talia, he sees them at the precipice of breaking up, and that terrifies him. Alex feels these visions are a curse, distracting him, making him anxious and unable to live an ordinary life.

And when Alex touches a photo that gives him a vision of his brother’s imminent death, everything changes.

With Alex now in a race against time, death, and circumstances, he and Isaiah must grapple with their past, their future, and what it means to be a young Black man in America in the present.

 

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna (2/9)

Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.

But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.

Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki–near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire’s greatest threat.

Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she’s ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be–not even Deka herself.

 

The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman (4/6)

Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her—including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years.

The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there.

When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she’d been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all.

As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human.

 

The Knockout by Sajni Patel (1/26)

A rising star in Muay Thai figures out what (and who) is worth fighting for in this #ownvoices YA debut full of heart.

If seventeen-year-old Kareena Thakkar is going to alienate herself from the entire Indian community, she might as well do it gloriously. She’s landed the chance of a lifetime, an invitation to the US Muay Thai Open, which could lead to a spot on the first-ever Olympic team. If only her sport wasn’t seen as something too rough for girls, something she’s afraid to share with anyone outside of her family. Despite pleasing her parents, exceling at school, and making plans to get her family out of debt, Kareena’s never felt quite Indian enough, and her training is only making it worse.

Which is inconvenient, since she’s starting to fall for Amit Patel, who just might be the world’s most perfect Indian. Admitting her feelings for Amit will cost Kareena more than just her pride–she’ll have to face his parents’ disapproval, battle her own insecurities, and remain focused for the big fight. Kareena’s bid for the Olympics could very well make history–if she has the courage to go for it.

 

The Life I’m In by Sharon G. Flake (1/5)

The powerful and long-anticipated companion to The Skin I’m In, Sharon Flake’s bestselling modern classic, presents the unflinching story of Char, a young woman trapped in the underworld of human trafficking.

My feet are heavy as stones when I walk up the block wondering why I can’t find my old self.

In The Skin I’m In, readers saw into the life of Maleeka Madison, a teen who suffered from the ridicule she received because of her dark skin color. For decades fans have wanted to know the fate of the bully who made Maleeka’s life miserable, Char.

Now in Sharon Flake’s latest and unflinching novel, The Life I’m In, we follow Charlese Jones, who, with her raw, blistering voice speaks the truths many girls face, offering insight to some of the causes and conditions that make a bully. Turned out of the only home she has known, Char boards a bus to nowhere where she is lured into the dangerous web of human trafficking. Much is revealed behind the complex system of men who take advantage of vulnerable teens in the underbelly of society. While Char might be frightened, she remains strong and determined to bring herself and her fellow victims out of the dark and back into the light, reminding us why compassion is a powerful cure to the ills of the world.

 

The Meet-Cute Project by Rhiannon Richardson (1/12)

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before meets Save the Date in this sweet and hijinks-filled rom-com about a teen girl who will do whatever it takes to find a date for her sister’s wedding.

Mia’s friends love rom-coms. Mia hates them. They’re silly, contrived, and not at all realistic. Besides, there are more important things to worry about—like how to handle living with her bridezilla sister, Sam, who’s never appreciated Mia, and surviving junior year juggling every school club offered and acing all of her classes.

So when Mia is tasked with finding a date to her sister’s wedding, her options are practically nonexistent.

Mia’s friends, however, have an idea. It’s a little crazy, a little out there, and a lot inspired by the movies they love that Mia begrudgingly watches too.

Mia just needs a meet-cute.

 

We Free The Stars by Hafsah Faizal (1/19)

The sequel to the New York Times–bestselling We Hunt the Flame, Zafira and Nasir must conquer the darkness around—and inside of—them.

The battle on Sharr is over. The dark forest has fallen. Altair may be captive, but Zafira, Nasir, and Kifah are bound for Sultan’s Keep, determined to finish the plan he set in motion: restoring the hearts of the Sisters of Old to the minarets of each caliphate, and finally returning magic to all of Arawiya. But they are low on resources and allies alike, and the kingdom teems with fear of the Lion of the Night’s return.

As the zumra plots to overthrow the kingdom’s darkest threat, Nasir fights to command the magic in his blood. He must learn to hone his power into a weapon, to wield not only against the Lion but against his father, trapped under the Lion’s control. Zafira battles a very different darkness festering in her through her bond with the Jawarat—a darkness that hums with voices, pushing her to the brink of her sanity and to the edge of a chaos she dare not unleash. In spite of the darkness enclosing ever faster, Nasir and Zafira find themselves falling into a love they can’t stand to lose…but time is running out to achieve their ends, and if order is to be restored, drastic sacrifices will have to be made.

 

When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert (3/9)

All Beth wants is for her tight-knit circle of friends—Grace Nakamura, Brandon Lin, Sunny Chen, and Jason Tsou—to stay together. With her family splintered and her future a question mark, these friends are all she has—even if she sometimes wonders if she truly fits in with them. Besides, she’s certain she’ll never be able to tell Jason how she really feels about him, so friendship will have to be enough.

Then Beth witnesses a private act of violence in Jason’s home, and the whole group is shaken. Beth and her friends make a pact to do whatever it takes to protect Jason, no matter the sacrifice. But when even their fierce loyalty isn’t enough to stop Jason from making a life-altering choice, Beth must decide how far she’s willing to go for him—and how much of herself she’s willing to give up.

 

 

 

When You Look Like Us by Pamela Harris (1/5)

When you look like us—brown skin, brown eyes, black braids or fades—people think you’re trouble. No one looks twice at a missing black girl from the projects because she must’ve brought whatever happened to her upon herself. I, Jay Murphy, can admit that, for a minute, I thought my sister, Nicole, got too caught up with her boyfriend—a drug dealer—and his friends.

But she’s been gone too long now.

If I hadn’t hung up on her that night, she’d be spending time with our grandma. If I was a better brother, she’d be finishing senior year instead of being another name on a missing persons list. It’s time to step up and do what the Newport News police department won’t.

Nic, I’m bringing you home.

 

 

Wings of Ebony by J. Elle (2/23)

In this riveting, keenly emotional debut fantasy, a teen girl from Houston has her world upended when she learns about her godly ancestry—and with evil sinking its claws into humans and gods alike, she’ll have to master her abilities to save both her worlds.

Rue’s family is her whole life, and East Row, the Houston neighborhood she calls home, is her world. But then the unthinkable happens. Rue’s mom is murdered, and a father she’s never met snatches her away from her sister. Now Rue is far away from everything she knows, trapped in her father’s home, Ghazan, a secret country of gods.

Rue is the first half-god, half-human here, where leaders protect their magical powers at all costs and thrive on human suffering. Miserable and desperate to see her sister on the anniversary of their mother’s death, Rue breaks Ghazan’s most sacred law: she returns to Houston, only to discover that drugs flood the streets, black kids are being forced into crime and violence, and her sister, Tasha, is in danger of falling sway to the very forces that claimed their mother’s life.

Worse still, evidence mounts that the evil plaguing East Row is the same one that lurks in Ghazan—an evil that will stop at nothing until it has stolen everything from her. Rue must embrace her true identity and wield the full magnitude of her ancestors’ power to save her neighborhood before the gods burn it to the ground.

 

Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart (4/20)

Divided by their castes. United by their vengeance.

Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom—and vengeance.

Jazmyne is the queen’s daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother’s power.

Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain—except the lengths they will go to win this game.

Deadly, fierce, magnetically addictive: this Jamaican-inspired fantasy debut is a thrilling journey where dangerous magic reigns supreme and betrayal lurks beneath every word.

 

Woven in Starlight by Isabel Ibañez (1/26)

An adventerous South American Tomb Raider! This hotly anticipated companion to Woven in Moonlight follows an outcast Condesa, as she braves the jungle to forge an alliance with the lost city of gold.

If the jungle wants you, it will have you…

Catalina Quiroga is a Condesa without a country. She’s lost the Inkasisa throne, the loyalty of her people, and her best friend. Banished to the perilous Yanu Jungle, Catalina knows her chances of survival are slim, but that won’t stop her from trying to escape. It’s her duty to reclaim the throne.

When Manuel, the son of her former general, rescues Catalina from a jaguar, a plan forms. Deep in the jungle, the city of gold is hidden, home to the fierce Illari people, who she could strike an alliance with.

But the elusive Illari are fighting a battle of their own—a mysterious blight is corrupting the jungle, laying waste to everything they hold dear. As a seer, Catalina should be able to help, but her ability to read the future in the stars is as feeble as her survival instincts. While searching for the Illari, Catalina must reckon with her duty and her heart to find her true calling, which could be the key to stopping the corruption before it destroys the jungle completely.

 

Yesterday Is History by Kosoko Jackson (2/2)

Weeks ago, Andre Cobb received a much-needed liver transplant.

He’s ready for his life to finally begin, until one night, when he passes out and wakes up somewhere totally unexpected…in 1969, where he connects with a magnetic boy named Michael.

And then, just as suddenly as he arrived, he slips back to present-day Boston, where the family of his donor is waiting to explain that his new liver came with a side effect—the ability to time travel. And they’ve tasked their youngest son, Blake, with teaching Andre how to use his unexpected new gift.

Andre splits his time bouncing between the past and future. Between Michael and Blake. Michael is everything Andre wishes he could be, and Blake, still reeling from the death of his brother, Andre’s donor, keeps him at arm’s length despite their obvious attraction to each other.

Torn between two boys, one in the past and one in the present, Andre has to figure out where he belongs—and more importantly who he wants to be—before the consequences of jumping in time catch up to him and change his future for good.

 

Yolk by Mary HK Choi (3/2)

Jayne Baek is barely getting by. She shuffles through fashion school, saddled with a deadbeat boyfriend, clout-chasing friends, and a wretched eating disorder that she’s not fully ready to confront. But that’s New York City, right? At least she isn’t in Texas anymore, and is finally living in a city that feels right for her.

On the other hand, her sister June is dazzlingly rich with a high-flying finance job and a massive apartment. Unlike Jayne, June has never struggled a day in her life. Until she’s diagnosed with uterine cancer.

Suddenly, these estranged sisters who have nothing in common are living together. Because sisterly obligations are kind of important when one of you is dying.

 

 

 

Your Heart, My Sky by Margarita Engle (3/23)

The people of Cuba are living in el periodo especial en tiempos de paz—the special period in times of peace. That’s what the government insists that this era must be called, but the reality behind these words is starvation.

Liana is struggling to find enough to eat. Yet hunger has also made her brave: she finds the courage to skip a summer of so-called volunteer farm labor, even though she risks government retribution. Nearby, a quiet, handsome boy named Amado also refuses to comply, so he wanders alone, trying to discover rare sources of food.

A chance encounter with an enigmatic dog brings Liana and Amado together. United in hope and hunger, they soon discover that their feelings for each other run deep. Love can feed their souls and hearts—but is it enough to withstand el periodo especial?

 

 

Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan (4/6)

Zara’s family has waited years for their visa process to be finalized so that they can officially become US citizens. But it only takes one moment for that dream to come crashing down around them.

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant, Zara Hossain, has been leading a fairly typical life in Corpus Christi, Texas, since her family moved there for her father to work as a pediatrician. While dealing with the Islamophobia that she faces at school, Zara has to lay low, trying not to stir up any trouble and jeopardize their family’s dependent visa status while they await their green card approval, which has been in process for almost nine years.

But one day her tormentor, star football player Tyler Benson, takes things too far, leaving a threatening note in her locker, and gets suspended. As an act of revenge against her for speaking out, Tyler and his friends vandalize Zara’s house with racist graffiti, leading to a violent crime that puts Zara’s entire future at risk. Now she must pay the ultimate price and choose between fighting to stay in the only place she’s ever called home or losing the life she loves and everyone in it.

From the author of the “heart-wrenching yet hopeful” (Samira Ahmed) novel, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali, comes a timely, intimate look at what it means to be an immigrant in America today, and the endurance of hope and faith in the face of hate.

 

 

—–

I recommend taking a dive into the archives of these cover roundups, if for no reason to feel some hope things are shifting favorable in representing what today’s teens look like. Here are the teens of color roundups for 2020 (post one, post two, post three), 2019 (post one, post two), 2018, 2017 (I cannot find the post in our archives, so perhaps I missed it?), 2016, and as noted above, 2015 (post one, post two).

Filed Under: book covers, cover design, diversity, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult fiction, young adult non-fiction

July and August 2020 Debut YA Novels

August 24, 2020 |

With the break, I didn’t get the chance to highlight debut YA novels that hit shelves in July. Now with August coming to an end, it feels right to do that and to also include August’s fresh batch of debuts.

 

Debut YA Novels, July and August 2020 | Debut YA Novels | 2020 Debut YA books | YA books | #YANovels | YA book lists

 

This round-up includes debut novels, where “debut” is in its purest definition. These are first-time books by first-time authors. I’m not including books by authors who are using or have used a pseudonym in the past or those who have written in other categories (adult, middle grade, etc.) in the past. Authors who have self-published are not included here either.

All descriptions are from Goodreads, unless otherwise noted. If I’m missing any debuts that came out in July and August from traditional publishers — and I should clarify that indie/small presses are okay — let me know in the comments.

As always, not all noted titles included here are necessarily endorsements for those titles. List is arranged alphabetically by title. Starred titles are the beginning of a new series.

Note: for some reason, the 2020 debut groups that have been so helpful for me in the past in compiling these lists seem to be scant this year. Likewise, those groups which do exist don’t have book titles or publication dates readily accessible. Here’s my repeat plea for making that easily located, not just for me but for any reader, librarian, and teacher who wants the essential information without having to click a ton of links.

I’m aware some book releases have been shifted, but this list is as up-to-date as is possible.

 

July and August 2020 Debut YA Novels

Accidental by Alex Richards

Johanna has had more than enough trauma in her life. She lost her mom in a car accident, and her father went AWOL when Johanna was just a baby. At sixteen, life is steady, boring . . . maybe even stifling, since she’s being raised by her grandparents who never talk about their daughter, her mother Mandy.

Then he comes back: Robert Newsome, Johanna’s father, bringing memories and pictures of Mandy. But that’s not all he shares. A tragic car accident didn’t kill Mandy–it was Johanna, who at two years old, accidentally shot her own mother with an unsecured gun.

Now Johanna has to sort through it all–the return of her absentee father, her grandparents’ lies, her part in her mother’s death. But no one, neither her loyal best friends nor her sweet new boyfriend, can help her forgive them. Most of all, can she ever find a way to forgive herself?

In a searing, ultimately uplifting story, debut author Alex Richards tackles a different side of the important issue that has galvanized teens across our country.

The Black Kids by Christina Hammond

Los Angeles, 1992

Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It’s the end of senior year and they’re spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. They can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer.

Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of the black kids.

As violent protests engulf LA and the city burns, Ashley tries to continue on as if life were normal. Even as her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. Even as the model black family façade her wealthy and prominent parents have built starts to crumble. Even as her best friends help spread a rumor that could completely derail the future of her classmate and fellow black kid, LaShawn Johnson.

With her world splintering around her, Ashley, along with the rest of LA, is left to question who is the us? And who is the them?

 

Displacement by Kiku Hughes

Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II.

These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself “stuck” back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive.

Kiku Hughes weaves a riveting, bittersweet tale that highlights the intergenerational impact and power of memory.

 

 

Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon

Fifteen-year-old Liliana is fine, thank you very much. It’s fine that her best friend, Jade, is all caught up in her new boyfriend lately. It’s fine that her inner-city high school is disorganized and underfunded. It’s fine that her father took off again—okay, maybe that isn’t fine, but what is Liliana supposed to do? She’s fifteen! Being left with her increasingly crazy mom? Fine. Her heathen little brothers? Fine, fine, fine. But it turns out Dad did leave one thing behind besides her crazy family. Before he left, he signed Liliana up for a school desegregation program called METCO. And she’s been accepted.

Being accepted into METCO, however, isn’t the same as being accepted at her new school. In her old school, Liliana—half-Guatemalan and half-Salvadorian—was part of the majority where almost everyone was a person of color. But now at Westburg, where almost everyone is white, the struggles of being a minority are unavoidable. It becomes clear that the only way to survive is to lighten up—whiten up. And if Dad signed her up for this program, he wouldn’t have just wanted Liliana to survive, he would have wanted her to thrive. So what if Liliana is now going by Lili? So what if she’s acting like she thinks she’s better than her old friends? It’s not a big deal. It’s fine.

But then she discovers the gutting truth about her father: He’s not on one of his side trips. And it isn’t that he doesn’t want to come home…he can’t. He’s undocumented and he’s been deported back to Guatemala. Soon, nothing is fine, and Lili has to make a choice: She’s done trying to make her white classmates and teachers feel more comfortable. Done changing who she is, denying her culture and where she came from. They want to know where she’s from, what she’s about? Liliana is ready to tell them.

 

Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

If I could have a fiddle made of Daddy’s bones, I’d play it. I’d learn all the secrets he kept.

Shady Grove inherited her father’s ability to call ghosts from the grave with his fiddle, but she also knows the fiddle’s tunes bring nothing but trouble and darkness.

But when her brother is accused of murder, she can’t let the dead keep their secrets.

In order to clear his name, she’s going to have to make those ghosts sing.

Family secrets, a gorgeously resonant LGBTQ love triangle, and just the right amount of creepiness make this young adult debut a haunting and hopeful story about facing everything that haunts us in the dark.

 

 

Girl From Nowhere by Tiffany Rosenhan

Ninety-four countries. Thirty-one schools. Two bullets.
Now it’s over…or so she thinks.

Sophia arrives in Montana with the promise of a normal high school experience. But after a turbulent few years abroad with her diplomat parents, forgetting the past is easier said than done. After all, “normal” high schoolers aren’t trained in several forms of combat.
Then Sophia meets Aksel and finds herself opening up in ways she never thought she could. Except Sophia’s past is about to catch up with her, and she must confront who she really is, why she was betrayed, and what she is capable of in the name of love and survival.

 

 

 

Ironspark by C.M. McGuire

For the past nine years, ever since a bunch of those evil Tinkerbells abducted her mother, cursed her father, and forced her family into hiding, Bryn has devoted herself to learning everything she can about killing the Fae. Now it’s time to put those lessons to use.

Then the Court Fae finally show up, and Bryn realizes she can’t handle this on her own. Thankfully, three friends offer to help: Gwen, a kindhearted water witch; Dom, a new foster kid pulled into her world; and Jasika, a schoolmate with her own grudge against the Fae.

But trust is hard-won, and what little Bryn has gained is put to the test when she uncovers a book of Fae magic that belonged to her mother. With the Fae threat mounting every day, Bryn must choose between faith in her friends and power from a magic that could threaten her very humanity.

 

Keep My Heart in San Francisco by Amelia Diane Coombs

Caroline “Chuck” Wilson has big plans for spring break—hit up estate sales to score vintage fashion finds and tour the fashion school she dreams of attending. But her dad wrecks those plans when he asks her to spend vacation working the counter at Bigmouth’s Bowl, her family’s failing bowling alley. Making things astronomically worse, Chuck finds out her dad is way behind on back rent—meaning they might be losing Bigmouth’s, the only thing keeping Chuck’s family in San Francisco.

And the one person other than Chuck who wants to do anything about it? Beckett Porter, her annoyingly attractive ex-best friend.

So when Beckett propositions Chuck with a plan to make serious cash infiltrating the Bay Area action bowling scene, she accepts. But she can’t shake the nagging feeling that she’s acting reckless—too much like her mother for comfort. Plus, despite her best efforts to keep things strictly business, Beckett’s charm is winning her back over…in ways that go beyond friendship.

If Chuck fails, Bigmouth’s Bowl and their San Francisco legacy are gone forever. But if she succeeds, she might just get everything she ever wanted.

 

More Than Just a Pretty Face by Syed M. Masood

Danyal Jilani doesn’t lack confidence. He may not be the smartest guy in the room, but he’s funny, gorgeous, and going to make a great chef one day. His father doesn’t approve of his career choice, but that hardly matters. What does matter is the opinion of Danyal’s longtime crush, the perfect-in-all-ways Kaval, and her family, who consider him a less than ideal arranged marriage prospect.

When Danyal gets selected for Renaissance Man–a school-wide academic championship–it’s the perfect opportunity to show everyone he’s smarter than they think. He recruits the brilliant, totally-uninterested-in-him Bisma to help with the competition, but the more time Danyal spends with her…the more he learns from her…the more he cooks for her…the more he realizes that happiness may be staring him right in his pretty face.

 

 

 

*Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

Nothing is more important than loyalty.
But what if you’ve sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy?

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn—but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself? With extraordinary world-building and breathtaking prose, Raybearer is the story of loyalty, fate, and the lengths we’re willing to go for the ones we love.

 

 

River of Dreams by Jan Nash

Finn Driscoll is counting down the days until she can leave for college. With her beloved brother, Noah, in a coma and her high school social life sinking every day, she’s ready for a fresh start.

Until the night she sees Noah in a dream. He begs for her help. At first, she shakes it off as just a nightmare. Then it happens again. And again. Frightened, Finn confides in her grandmother, only to learn the shocking truth about her family. They’re Dreamwalkers–heroes who step into the River of Dreams and fight the monsters in other people’s nightmares, freeing them to face the problems in their real lives.

Awake or asleep, Finn has never thought of herself as any kind of hero, and walking through other people’s dreams seems much worse than just hiding at school. But as hard as facing this challenge might be, Finn knows she has no choice: she will do anything she can to save her brother.

 

*Shielded by KayLynn Flanders

The kingdom of Hálendi is in trouble. It’s losing the war at its borders, and rumors of a new, deadlier threat on the horizon have surfaced. Princess Jennesara knows her skills on the battlefield would make her an asset and wants to help, but her father has other plans.

As the second-born heir to the throne, Jenna lacks the firstborn’s–her brother’s–magical abilities, so the king promises her hand in marriage to the prince of neighboring Turia in exchange for resources Hálendi needs. Jenna must leave behind everything she has ever known if she is to give her people a chance at peace.

Only, on the journey to reach her betrothed and new home, the royal caravan is ambushed, and Jenna realizes the rumors were wrong–the new threat is worse than anyone imagined. Now Jenna must decide if revealing a dangerous secret is worth the cost before it’s too late–for her and for her entire kingdom.

 

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

The daughter of a star and a mortal, Sheetal is used to keeping secrets. Pretending to be “normal.” But when an accidental flare of her starfire puts her human father in the hospital, Sheetal needs a full star’s help to heal him. A star like her mother, who returned to the sky long ago.

Sheetal’s quest to save her father will take her to a celestial court of shining wonders and dark shadows, where she must take the stage as her family’s champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of the heavens–and win, or risk never returning to Earth at all.

 

 

 

 

They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman

In Gold Coast, Long Island, everything from the expensive downtown shops to the manicured beaches, to the pressed uniforms of Jill Newman and her friends, looks perfect. But as Jill found out three years ago, nothing is as it seems.

Freshman year Jill’s best friend, the brilliant, dazzling Shaila Arnold, was killed by her boyfriend. After that dark night on the beach, Graham confessed, the case was closed, and Jill tried to move on.

Now, it’s Jill’s senior year and she’s determined to make it her best yet. After all, she’s a senior and a Player–a member of Gold Coast Prep’s exclusive, not-so-secret secret society. Senior Players have the best parties, highest grades and the admiration of the entire school. This is going to be Jill’s year. She’s sure of it.

But when Jill starts getting texts proclaiming Graham’s innocence, her dreams of the perfect senior year start to crumble. If Graham didn’t kill Shaila, who did? Jill is vows to find out, but digging deeper could mean putting her friendships, and her future, in jeopardy.

 

*Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles

In a city covered in ice and ruin, a group of magicians face off in a daring game of magical feats to find the next headliner of the Conquering Circus, only to find themselves under the threat of an unseen danger striking behind the scenes.

As each act becomes more and more risky and the number of missing magicians piles up, three are forced to reckon with their secrets before the darkness comes for them next.

The Star: Kallia, a powerful showgirl out to prove she’s the best no matter the cost

The Master: Jack, the enigmatic keeper of the club, and more than one lie told

The Magician: Demarco, the brooding judge with a dark past he can no longer hide.

 

You’re Next by Kylie Schachte

Flora Calhoun has a reputation for sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. After stumbling upon a classmate’s body years ago, the trauma of that discovery and the police’s failure to find the killer has haunted her ever since. One night, she gets a midnight text from Ava McQueen, the beautiful girl who had ignited Flora’s heart last summer, then never spoke to her again.

Just in time to witness Ava’s death from a gunshot wound, Flora is set on a path of rage and vengeance for all the dead girls whose killer is never found. Her tunnel-visioned sleuthing leads to valuable clues about a shocking conspiracy involving her school and beyond, but also earns her sinister threats from the murderer. She has a choice—to give up the hunt for answers, or keep digging and risk her loved ones’ lives. Either way, Flora will regret the consequences. Who’s next on the killer’s list?

 

Filed Under: book lists, debut authors, debut novels, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult fiction

Booklist: Getting Lost in a Book

June 24, 2020 |

If you’re reading this blog, you likely know what it’s like to get lost in a book: to read so deeply and intently that you lose track of time, forgetting to eat or go to sleep. The characters in the books listed here have an altogether different problem: they literally get lost in books. By choice or by chance, they open a book and travel inside its pages, becoming a part of the story – and perhaps changing it.

I was prompted to write this booklist by the announcement of Shannon Hale’s new book, Kind of a Big Deal, which features this trope. While it’s one I feel is pretty familiar to most readers, I struggled to find many middle grade or young adult books that focused on it. Perhaps the popularity of Inkheart in the early 2000s has misled me as to how widespread the trope is. I found plenty of books featuring characters from books visiting our world, but only four titles where someone in our world visits the book’s world (or, like Inkheart, where they can do both). Do you know of any others?

 

Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book by Jennifer Donnelly

Smart, bookish Belle, a captive in the Beast’s castle, has become accustomed to her new home and has befriended its inhabitants. When she comes upon Nevermore, an enchanted book unlike anything else she has seen in the castle, Belle finds herself pulled into its pages and transported to a world of glamour and intrigue. The adventures Belle has always imagined, the dreams she was forced to give up when she became a prisoner, seem within reach again.

The charming and mysterious characters Belle meets within the pages of Nevermore offer her glamorous conversation, a life of dazzling Parisian luxury, and even a reunion she never thought possible. Here Belle can have everything she has ever wished for. But what about her friends in the Beast’s castle? Can Belle trust her new companions inside the pages of Nevermore? Is Nevermore’s world even real? Belle must uncover the truth about the book, before she loses herself in it forever.

 

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

12 year-old Meggie lives with her father, Mortimer, a bookbinder. Mo never reads stories aloud to Meggie because he has a special gift: when he reads a book aloud, the characters come out of the book and into the real world.

One night, when Meggie was a small child, Mortimer was reading aloud from a book named Inkheart when an evil villain named Capricorn, his aide Basta, and a fire-eater named Dustfinger escape from the book and into their living room. At the same time, Mo’s wife Resa gets trapped within the book.

Twelve years later, Capricorn is on a hunt to find and destroy all copies of Inkheart and use Mo’s abilities to gain more power for himself in the real world. Meggie discovers her father’s secret and, along with the help of Dustfinger and Meggie’s eccentric aunt Elinor, fights to free her father and destroy Capricorn.

 

The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser

Amy Lennox doesn’t know quite what to expect when she and her mother pick up and leave Germany for Scotland, heading to her mother’s childhood home of Lennox House on the island of Stormsay.

Amy’s grandmother, Lady Mairead, insists that Amy must read while she resides at Lennox House—but not in the usual way. It turns out that Amy is a book jumper, able to leap into a story and interact with the world inside. As thrilling as Amy’s new power is, it also brings danger: someone is stealing from the books she visits, and that person may be after her life. Teaming up with fellow book jumper Will, Amy vows to get to the bottom of the thefts—at whatever cost.

 

Kind of a Big Deal by Shannon Hale

From bestselling author Shannon Hale comes Kind of a Big Deal: a hilarious, deliciously readable YA novel that will suck you in—literally.

There’s nothing worse than peaking in high school. Nobody knows that better than Josie Pie.

She was kind of a big deal—she dropped out of high school to be a star! But the bigger you are, the harder you fall. And Josie fell. Hard. Ouch. Broadway dream: dead.

Meanwhile, her life keeps imploding. Best friend: distant. Boyfriend: busy. Mom: not playing with a full deck? Desperate to escape, Josie gets into reading.

Literally. She reads a book and suddenly she’s inside it. And with each book, she’s a different character: a post-apocalyptic heroine, the lead in a YA rom-com, a 17th century wench in a corset.

It’s alarming. But also . . . kind of amazing?

It’s the perfect way to live out her fantasies. Book after book, Josie the failed star finds a new way to shine. But the longer she stays in a story, the harder it becomes to escape.

Will Josie find a story so good that she just stays forever?

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: book lists, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult

What I’ve Raved About On All The Books

June 15, 2020 |

Back in February, I highlighted eight books I’d raved about on Book Riot’s “All The Books” podcast.  Now that a few more months have gone by and I’ve now had the chance to highlight even more amazing new books, here’s a roundup of the titles I selected for March, April, May, and June.

Pooling these books into reviews like this is especially helpful now, as so many books released in these four months have fallen under the weight of the many things going on in the world around us. Here’s a reminder of what’s out there and why you should want to get reading. As always, I try to pick books that aren’t necessarily ones that get talked about a lot, though some of the below definitely have seen some talk (which is great!). There’s a mix of adult fiction and nonfiction, YA fiction and nonfiction, and maybe even a middle grade book or two. I like to think of these book picks to be a real glimpse into the ways my reading life moves.

 

March

The Story of More: How We Got To Climate Change and Where To Go From Here by Hope Jahren

One-sixth of the global population uses ⅓ of the world’s energy and half the world’s electricity. They’re responsible for ⅓ of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, ⅓ of the world’s meat consumption, and ⅓ of the world’s sugar consumption. It’s statistics and data like this that Jahren breaks down for readers in a book that’s meant not to terrify readers about the overwhelming scope of global warming and climate change but instead, to instill hope that indeed, small changes add up over time. 

“Having hope requires courage” is her big message throughout the book, which was inspired by the classes she’s taught at universities. The book breaks down big topics, such as meat consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, energy creation and consumption, the growth in the use of plastics, and more, and looks at how just over the course of her own life the richest countries in the world have consumed more than their fair share and how that’s impacted less-wealthy countries, as well as the world as a whole. 

Unlike a number of climate change books, this one is data-driven and extremely accessible for the average reader. It doesn’t feel overwhelming — in fact, Jahren is reassuring that doing even the tiniest things adds up over the long haul. Can you go one night without eating meat? That can make a difference. Can you swap a flight for a trip on a train? What about purchasing lower-energy appliances, washing clothes with cold water, purchasing less stuff including food that you ultimately end up throwing away? 

By using less, we allow more resources to be better distributed among those on Earth. That, in turn, reduces creation of more, which can and does impact the overall vitality of the globe. 

Encouraging, accessible, and written conversationally, Jahren’s book should be a first stop for anyone interested in reducing their own footprint. It’s short, too, making it feel completely doable, as opposed to overwhelming and complicated. Start small, as she does with her students: dump open your briefcase or purse and count up how many of those items are made from plastic. What can you swap out for something not plastic when it runs the course of its life? 

And more, change in your own life doesn’t need to be global in scope, either. Choosing one area in your life to target for change is good work. If you change your consumption habits and swap soda for water at more meals, buy fewer processed goods, consume less meat (and she never says you need to go vegetarian or vegan, like other books preach), that does make an impact. 

The book doesn’t overlook the realities of living in a capitalist society and that it’s big corporations that have done this to us. That’s the binding thread throughout. But, by choosing to battle back with changes in our lifestyle as dictated by capitalism, we can better help our fellow inhabitants on Earth by sharing resources. 

 

Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

The title of this book is inspired by Psalm 22, which is the verse prior to the one everyone seems to know. And that’s the most apt metaphor for what this book is, as well as who Ashley, our main character, is too.

Ashley is the main character in this story, and she’s got a hard and sharp edge to her. She’s a little rough, a little tumble, and she grew up with her father after her mom abandoned the family. They make do in a trailer, with very little money. It’s a small town in Tennessee and everyone knows everyone else. Tonight, Ashley is joined by her friends Meredith and Kavita for a party deep in the Smokies, where everyone will get drunk and do stupid things. That’s what you do when you’re a small towner on the edge of the wild. 

Except, as the party progresses and Ashley awakes needing to pee….she finds her boyfriend Duke having sex with someone who isn’t her. Drunk brain tells her the best course of action here is to run, so run she does. And that’s when things turn from bad to worse. 

She awakes deeply lost, with a mangled foot, and no idea where she ended up. She’s now on her own to find her way out of the woods and make her way back home.

Told over the course of roughly two weeks, we get to know not only Ashley’s current circumstances, we get to know her grit and determination. Turns out what can be off-putting in school can be extremely useful in the woods. She’s not afraid to make due with the things she finds, including a shelter in the form of a former meth lab, eating possum when there’s nothing else to eat, and using flint to remove parts of her own body so that infection doesn’t take over. But the longer she’s gone and further she attempts to feebly travel, she shares how and why it is she has these survival skills. 

Ashley’s experiences with religion play a fascinating role in her story, as does a relationship she fostered with a slightly older boy named Davey Beet.  He, too, was a person who liked the outdoors and respected it. Like Ashley, he found himself alone in the woods. But when he never returned, the community mourned his loss. No body was ever found, and Ashley keeps thinking about him and the lessons he taught her about survival as she herself fights for those very things. 

Perhaps Davey isn’t far away at all.

This one is pitched as Hatchet meets Wild and yes to both, except like I will forever argue, it’s a million times more compelling than Hatchet. You see the actions required to survive in such a place, but it’s not mundane or drawn out. We get to know Ashley very well, even though the story itself is pretty tight and fast paced. The tactics she takes can be pretty raw and unflinching but they’re absolutely in line not only with the realities of surviving in the wilderness alone, but also to who she is as a character. It’s a pretty insular read, insofar as we don’t get to know many other characters at all, save for Davey and Ashley’s father, both through flashbacks, but that is what makes it so compelling.

Hand to readers who like challenging protagonists, survival stories, and wilderness adventure books where things go really wrong. Then make sure you don’t go party too hard in the woods. 

 

Spirit Run: A 6000 Mile Marathon Through North America’s Stolen Land by Noé Alvarez

Noé grew up in Yakima, Washington, alongside his mother who worked in an apple-packing plant. As the son of two Mexican immigrants, he knew he was lucky to receive a scholarship to attend college, but a year into his program he is having a hard time fitting in and figuring out what it is he wants to make of himself as a first-generation Mexican American. This is a theme that will carry throughout the book, with no definitive ending, but along the way, Alvarez does a great job highlighting why this space of indecision, of opportunity, and of longing for connection and a place to fit in IS the immigrant story. 

At 19, Alvarez discovers the Peace and Dignity Journey, which is a movement by Native American and First Nations people meant to create cultural connections across the Americas through marathoning. He drops out of school as he realizes this is something he needs to do, and he begins his journey in Canada, where he runs along side individuals of a whole array of Native and Indigenous backgrounds and experiences. The journey takes him through all kinds of terrain, experiences of hunger and thirst and exhaustion, as well as land that has been stolen by colonizers and turned to profit at the loss of original culture, tradition, and pride. Throughout the marathon, he not only finds himself being pushed to his physical, mental, and emotional limits, but he faces being kicked out of the race over and over — which fuels his determination to fight harder, until the moment he knows he wants to end. 

When he finishes his race through Mexico and lands in Guatemala, Alvarez boards a plane and heads back home. He doesn’t have any answers, but he has found passion and connection with the land and the people of the land. 

What makes this book special is there’s actually very little about the race itself — something I could have read so many more pages on. Instead, woven into the runs are Alvarez’s anecdotes about his parents, about his home life, about the ways he’s lived what could be seen as a classic tale of a Mexican-American immigrant’s life. It’s a short read, but it’s packed with so much heart and soul, along with a tremendous sense of desire for finding one’s place in space and time, while understanding that being a person who isn’t white and privileged and living on stolen land in a country that isn’t his own makes finding oneself fraught and complicated. 

Readers wanting a story of an immigrant, of the child of Mexican migrants, will do well with this memoir. The ways it ties into Native American history and culture, too, adds a whole layer of complexity that’s necessary to better seeing immigration through a wide, thoughtful, and nuanced lens. Likewise, the marathon itself is a fascinating event and one I know I want to read a heck of a lot more about. 

 

Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales

Before diving into the deeper parts of the book, I want to note this is the first YA book outside of my own where a character has polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and talks openly about it that I’ve read. The description of it isn’t 1000% accurate, but that’s a thing only someone who has been seeing a specialist about it for a while and knows the ins and outs of the chronic and invisible illness would know — it is an incredible thing to see in a YA book, given it impacts 10% of those with internal reproductive organs. More please!

That said…

This is a queer riff on Grease. Ollie and Will had a whirlwind romance during  the summer when Ollie spent time in North Carolina with his family. He’s preparing to head back home to California for the new school year when his parents break the news they’re going  to be staying. His aunt, who has cancer, is really struggling, and being in North Carolina will be a way for them to help out with her husband and kids as she attends to appointments and caring for her own health. She will have ups and downs in the story, and it’s worth noting that she will die in the book. That’s not  really a spoiler nor something that impacts the romance here, but worth noting for anyone who might be tender about reading death. It’s handled extremely well. 

Ollie immediately finds a friendship with a group of girls at his new school — and immediately learns that, despite the fact Will doesn’t live in the same town he does, he does attend the same high school. But Will has stopped responding to texts and is cold at the sight of Ollie. What happened to their connection? Can it be kindled again?

Will isn’t out at school, among his basketball peers — many of whom are homophobic — and he worries that coming out will mean disappointment from his parents. This is why he’s keeping Ollie at arm’s distance and why, again and again, the two of them come close then once again fall apart. 

The thing is, neither Will nor Ollie can resist one another, and it’s this magnetism that keeps them working toward a goal of connecting, of finding the same romance they had  that summer. It will require Will being honest about who he is, as much as it will require Ollie to let down his preconceived notions of who he is and what it means to be a good partner in a relationship (for him, the challenge is understanding that it’s not only about his interests — he has to also participate in the interests and passions of his partner and show up for him). 

This is a capital-R romance, so Will and Ollie will have their happily ever after. It’s cute and sweet, but more than anything, this is a funny read. Ollie has a way with descriptions and words that is at times laugh-out-loud goofy, and his passion for Will is so whole-hearted. Given we see the world only through Ollie’s eyes, we don’t get the whole of who Will is or how he sees Ollie, but it is obvious Will wants to be with him, but he has to have a reckoning with himself and his world first to have that. 

Need a feel-good queer romance? This is a great pick. Even the loss is handled well and doesn’t make the book too heavy. The grief is explored thoughtfully, but not at the expense of what readers come to the book for: L-O-V-E. 

 

April

Goodbye From Nowhere by Sara Zarr

One thing that’s been consistent in Kyle Baker’s life is his family. It’s big, full of personalities, and every summer, they all gather at the Nowhere Farm to celebrate one another. This year, he’s bringing his serious girlfriend Nadia and cannot wait for her to meet them and get to know where he comes from. 

Things go well — Nadia loves his family and they seem to love her. But it’s not too long before everything Kyle thought he knew about himself and his family comes crashing down. His father breaks the news that his mother is having an affair. 

Kyle promises not to share that news with his sisters, but the silence begins to kill him. . . and it kills the relationship he has with Nadia, as he becomes distant and cold toward everyone. He’s struggling with how to process the news and it comes to a head the more he begins to think about the woman and child who are connected to the man with whom his mother is having her relationship. They don’t know, and when Kyle meets them both by chance, he’s further devastated carrying the truth around with him. 

So he does what feels right: he reaches out to his cousin, who helps him navigate the ups and downs of discovering family secrets and navigating what it means to see someone in a light different than one in which you’ve always held them. 

Sara Zarr’s latest book feels a lot like a Sarah Dessen book, and that’s a compliment. There’s tremendous real-world world building, with a complex family relationship that Kyle has to navigate. His relationship with Nadia at the beginning doesn’t last, though what we see of it is fascinating. They’re extremely mature on the outside, joking even about potentially getting married. But it becomes clear how immature Kyle is as he wrestles with the bomb his father delivered. He doesn’t seek support but distance, becoming cold and unapproachable toward someone he had such strong feelings for — as well as worries about what she might now think about the family he’d shown her to be something out of dream. 

This well-paced book is perfect for readers who love family stories, who love flawed but likable main characters — and Kyle is both of those things, even when he becomes extremely frustrating to watch — and those who want stories about what happens when the next generation of a family is poised to take over traditions that span their entire lives and the lives of their own parents. In the story, we learn that the Farm might not be around much longer, and this shift causes turmoil for Kyle and his generation who have to decide what stays, what goes, and what’s most important to hold onto when it comes to family. 

A quiet read that packs in a lot of really good stuff. I can’t recall the last time I saw a parental affair in a YA novel addressed quite like this, and I appreciate how much that will resonate with readers, both going through it or those who themselves have been through it. Kyle’s mom is certainly not given a pass here, but she is allowed to be a little more nuanced in regards to why she made the choice she did to pursue an extramarital relationship.  

 

Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life by Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshine

Even before the world descended into a pandemic, I saw little talk about Marie Kondo’s new book. I know we all read Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and without question, readers who loved that book are going to absolutely eat up her new title. But even more than that, I think this is a book that readers who are looking for a book about how to be their best at work or enjoy their job more will want to page through. It’s a shorty and reads quickly. 

The book flips between Marie Kondo sharing her insights and Scott Sonenshine, who is a business professor/researcher on organizational psychology — the study of how people operate in a workplace. 

Rather than give a blow-by-blow of this book, which is hard to do, here were some of the key takeaways for me while reading the book. I really and truly did take notes while reading and I plan on trying to implement or think about some of these things. This will likely apply more to white collar workers than those working in blue collar jobs or those in service industries, but chances are some of these principles will apply there, too. 

There are three key pieces of joy at work when it comes to what is on or in your desk: 1. It needs to spark joy personally, 2. It needs to be functional and aid in your work (these things might not spark joy), and 3. It needs to lead to future joy (things like receipts which lead to reimbursements).  When you focus on these three things, you’re better able to realize what your ideal work life looks like. 

When you sit down to clean, it’ll be through the same method as KonMari: books, papers, komono, and sentimental. 

The way that this book talks about organizing your digital work was especially helpful. Digital work includes documents, emails, and phone apps, and like with home KonMari, you’re instructed to thank everything you let go of for the service it provided. Recommendations included keeping the number of files and folders you have on your computer as low as possible. I loved a line about when it comes to social media, it pays to be choosy about who you follow, as that can help detract from overwhelm when it comes to cleaning out your profiles. 

Although this book is definitely about “stuff,” it’s much more than that, just as Tidying Up is. This is far more about the process of self-discovery than it is organizing, and it’s about the importance and power of choosing your things. That they offer how to look at what’s important in your work routines, meetings, and tasks is extremely helpful and straightforward: it’s a notecard methodology anyone can do. 

The biggest takeaway is that tidying should be part of your decision making process, and they give you the roadmap to make it so.

 

We Didn’t Ask For This by Adi Alsaid

Tonight is the night of the International School’s annual lock-in. It’s a beloved tradition and one that’s always legendary. All kinds of activities take place, from decathlons to dance parties, and  this year, Peejay is eager to be the master of ceremonies. His brother earned incredible respect when he was in charge, and Peejay is desperate to top him. 

Tonight, Amira wants to win the decathlon, keeping her passion for sports and her interest in other girls from her conservative mother. 

Omar wants to finally kiss Peejay tonight. 

Kenji wants to star in the improv show, proving acting chops are alive and well. 

And Celeste? As the new girl in the school, she’s hoping tonight she can make her first real friend since moving to another country from her Chicago suburban home. 

All of it looks like it should go on….until it doesn’t. Tonight, driven by her passion to make change in the world, Marisa Cuevas and a group of fellow environmentally-conscious students chain themselves to the doors of the school and refuse to let anyone else enter or exit the building until all of their demands are met. And those demands are many, ranging from the school banning single-use plastics to protective measures being enacted to protect a local island from destruction. 

As the night drags on, it becomes Marisa and her team won’t back down until their demands are heard — and not just heard, but met. 

One night bleeds into the next and then the next, and the protest goes on for a full week before things reach a breaking point. Students once  inconvenienced and angered by Marisa are now listening and even stepping up to help her. They know people who know people who can make change happen. So they do what they can now, hoping that meeting those demands not only gets them set free but also really does help change the world for the better.

It’s not smooth sailing, of course, as there’s a group within the school who are hoping to take down Marisa and her team, and they get closer and closer through the story.

Will all of her demands be met? How? And will everyone else be able to achieve the things they desperately hoped for when the lockin began?

Alsaid’s book is a smart look at standing up for what you believe in, and it’s really creative in execution. Marisa isn’t seen as a hero for championing these causes for a long time. She’s rather seen as the enemy until something drastic happens to her, and her peers not only begin to listen to her, but they begin to understand why it is she chose this as her hill to die on and why it is she chose to execute her protest during the lockin. 

I’ve read a ton of books this year on student activism and student activists, and this is a worthy addition to that collection. It’s especially noteworthy for the lack of immediate agreement seen among students, though — and this is an extremely diverse student body, as well as a student body with the means to make change happen, as they come from wealthier families. It’s a reminder that even though this generation of teenagers is vocal and stands up for their beliefs, it’s not universally agreed-upon or followed. It’s easy to forget that sometimes kids want to be kids and that in and of itself can be the challenge with making change. Are they supposed to be anything more? And why do we expect that? 

Creative, thought-provoking, and timely. 

 

Hidden Valley Road: Inside The Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

Trigger warnings on this one for mental health depictions that may be unsettling, for suicide, and for sexual assault and rape. 

Don and Mimi Galvin had 10 kids between the years 1945 and 1965, eight boys and two girls, who were the youngest of the family. Of the siblings, six of the boys were diagnosed as schizophrenic over the course of their lives, and this book explores how this family at this time and place highlight how far our understanding of schizophrenia has come, as well as how much is still largely unknown about it. 

The book alternates between telling the siblings’ and parents’ stories — how they came to have so many kids, the sorts of challenges they experienced with living with schizophrenia or being witness to it — with what science was doing in terms of researching schizophrenia through the generations. There’s a lot of argument about nature vs. nurture, and the Galvins became the first family ever studied by National Institute of Mental Health. They also became a way of understanding where and how schizophrenia may be genetic and along which bloodlines. Why was it none of the girls in the family experienced this illness but just the boys? 

Through the Galvin family, schizophrenia’s history and the treatment of those experiencing it are explored, from lobotomy to institutionalization to medication, and the fallouts of each of those treatments. Still to this day, the Galvin family DNA is being used in research to better understand the disease, and at the end of the day, even decades later, there’s still so little understanding. 

This book is extremely compassionate and empathetic, even as it delves into how troubled the Galvin family was outside of their mental health crisis. Don, the patriarch, turned out to be someone wholly different than anyone thought, while both of the sisters in the family and potentially a brother experienced sexual assault or rape from another brother. There’s the possibility some of the boys were victims of sesual abuse from a beloved church leader, as well. All of these things, combined with tremendous secrets Mimi kept from her kids about her own trauma growing up, only further make their story more fascinating, heartbreaking, and powerful. 

A slower read, but wholly immersive, this is an incredible well-done, balanced, and moving look at mental illness, schizophrenia, and a family that experienced the illness in many manifestations, ultimately highlighting the complexity, severity, and the need to continue researching what it is and how it works. 

 

May

 

Goldilocks by Laura Lam

The comps for this book are The Martian meets The Handmaid’s Tale and I don’t especially like either of those for comparison. This book is something different and, I suspect, given how eerily relevant and realistic it feels right now, maybe the marketing will be shifting, too.

Thirty years after the Atalanta took five pioneering women to space in hopes to settling a far-away planet named Cavandish, Naomi, one of  the Atalanta 5, is finally telling her story. It begins with grand theft spaceship — yes, the spaceship was stolen — and ends with Earth’s humans falling victim to a pandemic that may have been started purposefully. 

Naomi, who’d been raised by Valerie Black after the deaths of her mother and father, is deeply in love with the smart woman who invites her to be among the five women who will travel to the new planet in order to set up a new world, free of the flaws plaguing Earth. Right now, women’s rights have been decimated, the environment is collapsing, and the reality is there aren’t more than a few dozen “good” years left for it. Naomi, along with three other women, embark on the journey without permission from the government, but they believe in their heart of hearts they’re doing the right thing. 

Then Naomi finds out she’s pregnant, and the father is one of the people who might be able to help change the course of the future of planet Earth. But it won’t come easy and it won’t come without the power of these women to steer the ship right.

Wholly immersive and dark, this book is about what leadership is — and what it is not. Lam’s writing is captivating and engrossing, evoking a scarily close-to-home scenario of a global pandemic destroying the planet in conjunction with human consumption, climate change, and the revoking of liberties for women across the globe. What sounds like will ultimately be a utopian setting at Cavendish, though, isn’t: instead, the story takes a ton of twists and turns that are surprising and ultimately change what it is these women perceive to be good and flawed about human nature. 

When you’re destined to start something new, do you go for it? Burn down the past and try to forget it? Or do you learn from that past and build with the materials you have at hand to do better? 

Lam’s stand alone science fiction space novel grapples with a lot of big questions but does so in a compelling and interesting way. Naomi is a great character, and all of the motives of the women on board are parsed out just well enough to keep it clear that not everyone aboard has everyone’s best interests in mind. Will they make it to Cavendish and create the world they envision? 

I did a little poking around and this book was inspired by the Mercury 13, where a group of women went through the same battery of tests the men who want to join NASA did, and while the privately funded group who ran these tests found them successful, this was never actually a NASA program, no mission was taken, and the women never actually went to space. I don’t know much about it beyond that, but definitely plan to learn more and see the parallels with the book. 

We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly

I don’t read a lot of middle grade, but I do know EEK’s books always hit the spot when I do. Her latest is no different, as it follows a family in January 1986 experiencing a whole host of discontent and challenge amid the Challenger launch. 

Bird and Fitch — short for Bernadette and “Pitch a Fit” — are twins. Their older brother Cash has been having a hard time in school, and despite being older than them, he’s in the same grade, 7th, they are. Early in the story, things begin to spiral when Cash breaks his wrist and loses any and all interest in school again, threatening the chance he might have to move on to the next grade. Fitch spends his free time at the local arcade, winning at a game that’s been unpopular with his peers but which he defends to the death as a great game. He’s got a temper he can’t control or understand and it comes out at really inopportune times. Bird dreams of being the first female space commander, and she’s absolutely fascinated with machinery, which is something we get to see via her art in the book — but Bird worries she’s being overlooked again and again, disappearing behind her two brothers. 

Home life isn’t especially great. Mom and dad have a rocky relationship, which comes out again and again in unsettling ways. It impacts each of the kids, and the only way that the siblings are hanging on is through their shared science teacher who applied for the Teacher in Space program but didn’t get accepted. Fitch and Cash aren’t as invested in it as Bird, but it’s this teacher and space which keep all of the threads of this story together.

This slice-of-life book is aching and hard, and when the Challenger launches, all of the pain built up in each of the siblings explodes. Bird, feeling her dreams fall apart and feeling the immense weight of loneliness. Fitch has an extremely violent outburst in class because of how he’s been a bit bullied but also because of how much he’s packed in from home. Cash continues to withdraw, knowing that he can’t play basketball because of his grades and now the broken bone. 

The Challenger Explosion happened when I was 2, so I don’t remember it, but I do remember my mom talking about it when it happened. This book really captures that era, without being nostalgic for the 80s. Rather, it’s extremely contemporary in terms of how it approaches family challenges, without attempting to make it sound as if family problems weren’t common then — they were. The book reminded me a lot of a younger YA title from many years back that really captured some similar feelings and experiences when it comes to space and the possibility of what exists beyond this planet and how young people were impacted by the Challenger tragedy — Jenny Moss’s Taking Off. 

Readers who want feelings-heavy books will be enraptured with this one. All of the characters are compelling, complex, and sympathetic, and they all experience those really painful moments of what it is to be in 7th grade: first crushes, not being seen as whole but rather parts of a whole (there’s a moment when Bird is told she can’t be pretty and smart but she’s rather smart and not pretty — to which she responds by turning to an imaginary conversation with one of the Challenger crew women and is comforted with the idea that there’s no singular thing defining what “pretty” is, anyway), a family that’s shifting and fracturing and changing, the desire to be anyone and anywhere else, and so much more. There’s a great thread in the story about interracial dating that, while small, is a powerful reminder of the role parents can play in a young person’s perception of themselves and others, as well as a reminder that even in the mid-80s, interracial relationships were even more fraught than they can be now. 

Grab some tissues, but also know you’ll be loving these characters deeply, too. This is a literary middle grade title that I suspect will get some award buzz when that time comes around. 

War and Speech by Don Zolidis

One of my favorite YAs in recent years is the wildly underrated The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig. It’s funny, with spot-on teen dialog. This is Zolidis’s follow up to that book and I’m thrilled it has equally enjoyable dialog and wit to it, while also offering some real depth. Zolidis is a playwright and that is especially evident in the dialog he writes. 

Sydney’s father is in jail for a white collar crime, and she flunked out of her last high school. She’s starting fresh at a performing arts school not because she’s got the talent in her but because she resides within the school’s residential boundaries and can. She and her mom are living together in a tiny apartment and money is supremely tight. The girl’s got a mega chip on her shoulder going into school but it only grows bigger when she learns that her school is famous for its speech and debate team. The kids on the team are, in her perception, utter jerks and with her new-found friends, Syd devises a plan to take down the speech team and in particular, ensure the top stars of the team have their lights dimmed. Why do they get to be special? Reign supreme in school?

And when she shows up for her first practice, imagine her surprise when the teacher happens to be the man who ran informational programs about how to make money and scam people that got her father wrapped up in tax issues in the first place.

Sydney begins by doing a speech she finds online about becoming a heroin addict. She does really well, too — winning her first competition and finding herself earning a surprise elite status in the eyes of her coach. She begins to better understand the team and the stars of it, almost seeing them as humans who don’t deserve to be taken down…

Until she changes her speech, getting raw and honest about her father being incarcerated and how much that’s impacted her. Her mom has a new boyfriend and doesn’t want to visit her father on Saturdays like she does, and she’s alone to see her dad’s humanity and the way the system convinced him that having all the best in life was the purpose of life all together. He broke the law and is serving time for it, but he was caught up in a system that rewards others for the very same thing. Like her speech coach, who believes her speech about her dad needs more depth, despite it being popular with audiences. “Just make up stuff,” he encourages her. And it’s here — this moment of realizing he, along with his elite speech team members, Sydney discovers what it is she’s truly passionate about: speaking her truth and living fully into it, rather than believing she needs to be rich, polished, and a liar to get ahead. 

This book is very funny, while also being a smart look at social class. Syd and her family experienced wealth for a while during the time her father was evading tax laws, but then she and her mother became very poor, very quickly. Her mom works at the Mall of America, and Sydney, who hates the new man in her mom’s life, decides to get a part time job at the American Cookie shop at the mall too, thinking it might help them afford their apartment (spoiler — it won’t and doesn’t, but some of the cookie store moments are among the best in the book, as she chooses to write super snarky messages on the cookies and they sell like mad). 

At times, Sydney is downright mean, and some of the choices she makes to take down the fellow speech team members aren’t especially kind or justified. BUT she recognizes that along the way, and she realizes who the real enemy is — they’re collateral damage along the way to making her point about inequality and unfair preferential treatment. 

Smart dialog, which feels really teen and not adult-sounding-teen, with a teen who is sarcastic and snarky and also deeply hurting. She’s not especially likeable but that’s what makes her compelling: her rough edges don’t get softened, but rather, readers better see why she’s got those sharp parts. 

The speech and debate team and competitions being huge parts of the book were fun, even for someone who was never involved in either. Are they accurate? Who knows. What’s refreshing is it’s not a sports team being singled out for being treated as special at school but instead, a group that often doesn’t get that kind of golden treatment.

For readers who want humor, as well as a challenging main character. I especially found how she talked about Luke, her mom’s boyfriend, funny — and even though he’s pitted as an enemy in her mind, we discover he’s much deeper than she gives him credit for, and it explains why he  behaves the way he does. 

 

Almond by Won-Pyung Sohn, translated by Joosun Lee

This book is different, and it’s different in a way that’s purposeful as to leave readers wondering whether this was a love story or a complete tragedy. Maybe both? 

Yunjae was born with Alexithymia, which means his brain is wired so that he doesn’t know how to feel or respond to emotions. His mother and his grandmother love him despite his challenges, though he’s never been able to make friends. He’s an outsider, as others cannot relate with him and he, with others. He lives with his mother above the bookstore she owns, and she works to help him navigate responding to emotions with helpful sticky notes around their apartment. Yunjae isn’t especially bothered with his lot, but everything changes in one instant on Christmas Eve, when his grandmother and mother are victims of a random act of violence. His grandmother passes and his mother is comatose. Not knowing or understanding how to process emotions that are small, this big series of emotions lead Yungjae to withdraw.

That is, until he meets Gon. Gon isn’t nice to Yungjae, and in fact, he’s quite a bully. But Gon’s story is tragic as well, and it’s wrapped up in a favor that Yungjae agrees to with a man whose wife is on her deathbed. Yungjae may be a victim of bullying here, but he’s unable to stop wondering about — and being desperate to know — Gon and his story. He’s hot and angry, and by getting close to him, Yungjae hopes that he might be able to work through this emotions himself. Though we don’t get to know Gon through his own voice, we’re led to believe he’s bullying on Yungjae not because he’s nasty but instead because he’s impressed with how much he’s been through and never loses his cool. It becomes quite clear that Gon desires a friendship here, even if he doesn’t know how to approach making friends. Interestingly, the translator of the book put in the notes in the back of the book that she believes there might have been romantic feelings here, too, though in her translation she held back on pushing that narrative forward. It wasn’t until I read that where I could see it, but indeed, I could see it.

It’s through this friendship between two “monsters” that both Gon and Yungjae begin to really become themselves. Yungjae in particular begins to find he wants to spend time with a bookish girl named Dori who wanders into his life — something he never dreamed possible. Of course, pursuing that means his friendship with Gon takes a backseat. But when Gon’s life is in danger, Yungjae really pushes through all of his fears, all of the things he’s believed about himself, to step in and potentially become a hero in Gon’s story . . . as well as his own.

Don’t go into this one for plot. Go into it for fascinating character studies. It’s a short book, with small chapters, but each word and description is exacting and offers so much depth to Yungjae and his experience living with a disorder that doesn’t allow him to fully feel or express empathy, even though consciously he understands what it is. I wanted to blow through this one quickly because it reads quickly, but I found myself pausing a lot and setting it down frequently so I could think about it and think specifically about what it must be like to live like Yungjae. He’s far more than his traumas and he’s also not here to be a feel-good story of a character overcoming a challenging brain condition. That’s where, I think, this book is really smart. It’s complex, and the metaphor of the almond — referring to the shape of the amygdala — is apt. 

Almond is Sohn’s debut novel and an award-winner in Korea, and as the translator notes in the book (note: read the translator’s note!), this book being brought to the US market is a pretty incredible thing. It’s marketed as YA in Korea, and while it’s being marketed as adult in the US, it’s perfect for YA readers who want something literary and challenging. Readers who are familiar with the book Nothing by Janne Teller will for sure want to pick this up, but anyone who wants to read more broadly global literature, stories of adolescents that don’t often see the light, and stories of neuro atypical characters will find so much to enjoy here.

 

June

You Should See Me In A Crown by Leah Johnson

I LOVED this book. Loved it to bits and pieces. Loved reading it when I did, as it was the kind of hug in the shape of a book I needed. 

Liz Lighty cannot wait to leave her small Indiana town. She’s a poor Black girl, living with her grandparents after her mom has died and her dad disappeared. She also happens to be queer, but because of her situation, she’s not openly out. Liz cannot wait to get to Pennington College, three(ish) hours away from home, and she’s anticipating a nice scholarship to help her do it on her own, without the help of her grandparents. She’s got the grades and the extra curriculars to make it happen.

But when she discovers she didn’t get the scholarship, she doesn’t tell her grandparents. She will have to come up with another plan if she wants out of town and into a new life for herself.

Enter: prom.

The thing about where Liz lives is that Prom is a big deal. Think: big deal like football in small town Texas. There is a weeks-long competition for becoming part of the Prom court, and the king and queen of Prom earn a nice chunk of money for their future education. Getting on the court involves community service, grades, and being an upstanding citizen of the school community. 

It also means not being openly out and not attending the event with a same-sex partner.

Liz doesn’t want to do it, but because she so desperately wants to go to Pennington, she decides to run for Prom queen. It’d be good money, even if it means she has to hide who she is.

But things get even weirder when a new girl named Mack — Amanda, as we’ll learn Liz gets to call her — begins school mid-year and decides she, too, is going to run for Prom. She is part of a family legacy in town, so likely has good chances to get in. 

Instead of getting mad, though….Liz finds herself falling for Mack. And now, she’s crushing on her competition.

This is a sweet, fun, humorous story of a girl who wants to be so many things to so many people. She lost her mother to sickle cell, and her brother, who is only a year younger than her, struggles with it, too. She wants to protect him fiercely, while also being conscious of how little her grandparents have financially to help her go to school or to cover hospital bills or even the home they live in. She’s aware she’s among the less fortunate at school and even more painfully aware that she’s Black in a small town. So keeping her identity secret is important not just because of the rules for Prom, but also because she doesn’t want to stand out anymore than she does. 

Many readers will want to know there’s an outing in this book, but it’s not cruel. It doesn’t break Liz, though she certainly has to deal with the ramifications of being outed. Will she lose her chance at Prom queen and, ultimately, money to go to college over it? Or will she be further marginalized? 

This book has so much heart and it is swoony. Liz and Mack have a great relationship, as does Liz with her family. Her relationship with her brother is especially great, and the fact that Liz doesn’t know how much people rally behind her and want her to succeed feels authentic to someone in her shoes and, I think, more broadly to so many teens. 

I never went to prom and had no interest. But this book about prom, outlandish promposals (oh, the promposals are a hoot here), and a girl who just wants to go somewhere bigger where she can be her whole self is one I ate up. Leah Johnson’s writing is fun and easy, with plenty of references to today’s pop culture — including the title — that will be especially appealing. 

 

Again Again by E Lockhart

What if you made other choices? What if your life was playing out in a different way in another reality? I cannot believe how wildly close to today’s reality Lockhart’s new book was and it was such a refreshing return to her writing that I loved. I wasn’t a fan of her thrillers, but this….felt very much like the E Lockhart I found so compelling before.

Adelaide is at a boarding school, Alabaster Prep Academy, where her father is a teacher. Her mother and younger brother Toby are living still in Baltimore, hours away from her father. The why of this remains quiet for a while in a book, but it is revealed that Toby has a drug addiction and their mother is staying there to help ensure he finds a way to recover. Adelaide and her father move so he can continue to make an income for the family and so she can get a good education.

Except it won’t be that way. Or at least not in this reality. 

Adelaide and her boyfriend broke up, and she’s feeling lonely and sad while walking the dogs she’s watching this summer. She meets Jack at the dog park and he looks familiar to her, but she can’t really place it. But she knows immediately she likes him and begins to pursue him hard. 

In the mean time, she’s failed to turn in a major project to her set design class and her teacher isn’t thrilled. Yes, it’s summer. Yes, it’s break. But she’s been given more time to complete it anyway, since her teacher believes she has talent. Set building is, you see, about executing an idea in a way that isn’t necessarily the real image of the thing, but as true a rendition as possible so the audience understands what it is. 

In Adelaide’s experience, the people in her life are the set, but none of it is real to her. She’s walking through it, but none of it is real, alive. 

Mired in grief and sadness, worry and fear, Adelaide begins to attach herself to Jack who isn’t interested in her in that way. When her ex reaches back out, in desperation, Adelaide feels compelled to forgive him. 

That’s the story in one reality. 

But this book is about the multiverse, or the idea of multiple realities. So the story plays out in a number of different ways throughout the book. Sometimes Adelaide and Jack are together. Sometimes Adelaide is a good sister to her sick brother. Sometimes, she’s a nasty human being — and in each of these realities, we see a complex picture of who she is.

This is a love story but the romance is no where near central. It’s purposefully peripheral, as it’s there as a means of Adelaide waking up to how she behaves towards others in her life and specifically, those people who are closest to her. She’s privileged and healthy, but she can’t take those blinders off to see the bigger picture and to see where she herself is falling apart or too dependent upon others to give her reason and purpose. 

Clever, unique, and packed with emotional moments, depth, and philosophical fun, Lockhart’s book is one that will delight many readers. It packs in a lot without saying too much — this is a slight book, with chapters written in broken-apart dialog and texts — and doesn’t rely on anything cheap to pack a punch. 

Fun fact: Alabaster Prep is where The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks was set as well, and Jack from this story was inspired by Jack in Lockhart’s short story in the “21 Proms” anthology. I love those little Easter eggs and more, love this book had signature Lockhart writing and smoothly-executed wit. 

Some of the marketing suggests this is funny, and it’s not really. It’s clever, but not necessarily funny. And important to note: none of the dogs die or get hurt. 

 

The Language of Butterflies: How Thieves, Hoarders, Scientists, and Other Obsessives Unlocked the Secrets of the World’s Favorite Insect  by Wendy Williams

It’s almost universal that people love butterflies. It’s almost equally universal people don’t like moths. But the difference between a butterfly and a moth isn’t what you might think it is. Instead, it’s a small body part that controls how the wings move and that’s about it.

If that has you intrigued, this book will be your jam like it was mine.

Set up in three parts: past, present, and future, Williams — who writes in a super approachable, delighted manner, but with great research to buoy the book — takes a deep dive into the butterfly and her allure. We go back deep into history with how Victorians became obsessed with collecting these creatures and highlight a few women who were leaders in butterfly research and discovery and yet never had their stories shared because sexism. The book highlights parts of the US where butterfly studies became hot beds and what made the ecosystem in those places so supportive of a vast array of butterfly species.

In the present section, Williams goes deep into the monarch. I loved this section in particular as someone who has a native garden meant to attract pollinators, and who, last year, watched a handful of monarchs reach maturity and make their lengthy trip down to Mexico. It digs into the reason why butterflies and other insects choose to eat milkweed, which is exceptionally toxic. If you have milkweed in your yard like I do, you know it’s not just the monarchs but a few other insects and they all share something similar: a bright orange coloring. It’s a warning of the insect’s toxicity to other creatures. 

The final section about the future traces the flight path of the monarch from the north to the south — at least in the central US. Not all monarchs make that journey, as those on the west coast take a different one, while even those in warmer climates like Florida may migrate while others may stay. And it’s this wide range of migratory habits that are fascinating to researchers and citizen scientists, and Williams digs into how wild these creatures truly are in terms of the incredible lives they live. They go from places they know they can find food to traveling thousands of miles, stopping along the way in unfamiliar places and still finding things they enjoy eating and that will fuel their travels. 

A wholly fascinating book, I learned so much about butterflies. Their wings are actually made of scales, which I didn’t know, and more, the blue butterflies that are so highly prized are such because they are among the few things in nature where blue is an actual hue, as opposed to a reflection of light upon their wings. Williams doesn’t go into the thievery of butterflies as much as I’d hoped, but with name drops, I know there are a ton of people whose stories and crimes I’ll be Googling later. I also had no idea the black on the wings of the monarch are actually veins. Oh, and the book digs into how horrible the male monarchs are toward the females when they want to mate . . . at least in the early generations. Once they’re onto the fourth generation, or the ones that will migrate, the females are much more safe, as the males have lost a lot of their machismo. If you’re unfamiliar with the ideas of monarch generations, you’ll get up to speed here, too.

Williams is delighted by everything she learns, and by turns, it makes the reader delighted, too. This isn’t an especially long book, and while it’s well-researched, it’s a breezy read. In the author’s note, Williams mentions being almost 70 (or in her 70s, I can’t entirely remember). I don’t remember the last time I read a book by an author who was older, so bonus points for that. It was neat to experience the world of butterflies through her eyes, and frankly, I’ll never look at them the same way through my own. 

I’ve always loved these little creatures, but for sure, now I might become even more in love with them. 

 

The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta

Michael is half Greek-Cypriot, half-Jamaican, and he lives in London with his mother. Dad isn’t in the picture, but early on in his life, a stepfather comes around for a bit, which brings to his life a half-sister named Anna. This book in verse begins from Michael’s young age — he’s six in the first section, coming to understand his mixed race heritage, as well as his family’s unique structure. 

As the book progresses into Michael’s teen years in high school, it becomes clearer and clearer that Michael is queer. He’s super lucky in that his family is mostly supportive, particularly his mother, who at times oversteps in trying to provide Michael a safe place to explore and express his identity while he’s not quite ready to step into it entirely himself. 

The book progresses then to Michael’s first year in college when everything changes — he’s eager to try on a new identity, eager to find people like him at school in a very queer-friendly college and community. And while he sidesteps the opportunity to take part in the Greek club and the LGBTQ+ club….he signs himself up for Drag Society, which plays deeply into his interests in acting and performance. He’s immediately overwhelmed by the idea of performing drag, but, as he begins to come into his drag identity as The Black Flamingo, Michael also begins to come to understand his identity can shift, can sway, and it can be whatever it is he desires it to be. And it’s the first Drag Society performance — one he almost misses — which helps him to this realization and allows him to become deeply, fully himself.

The Black Flamingo won a Stonewall Book Award last year, which I thought was interesting, given that this book wasn’t even available in the US. It was out in the UK first, and it hit shelves here last week. But I see why and how it was seen as such a vital addition to queer literature for young readers: Michael is a compelling character grappling with the intersections of his mixed race identity with that of his queerness. Although he doesn’t use the language in the book, it’s clear he’s not entirely sure he leans into being a cis man, and he’s pretty sure he’s not trans, either — instead, he starts to see all of the shades of identity between them and allows himself to be a flamingo in them.

This is a slice of life story, and it was great watching Michael from his young age to his coming-of-age. The poetry is fantastic, both that of which tells his story and that which he writes himself. The author, Dean Atta, is himself a performer and a poet, and those pieces of his own lived experience come alive in Michael. 

Though Michael’s mother and sister are supportive of him, as is the majority of his family, not everyone is, including some of the people Michael considers his closest friends. This isn’t one of those everything-is-rosy stories. It feels real and raw, and while Michael himself doesn’t make a lot of poor choices, his story is about not making many choices at all until forced to do so. So his coming into himself on stage is a huge moment for him, as well as readers, who understand how challenging — and how liberating — doing that is.

A great addition to the queer YA canon, as well as a great read for fans of Jason Reynolds and Elizabeth Acevedo. I’m super eager to see what Atta writes next, and I loved the setting outside of the US. We don’t get many UK imports to the YA market, and this one is a gem — a Black Flamingo, even.

Filed Under: Reviews, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult fiction

YA Biographies of Amazing Women Through Time

June 8, 2020 |

I’m always on the hunt for great YA nonfiction, and over the last half decade or so, we’ve been presented with so many incredible collective biographies. Most of those have highlighted women or folks who identify as trans, nonbinary, or something beyond the cis binary. It’s been a treasure trove of discovery. But in a lot of ways, it also seems to have made finding biographies of individual women of note through history harder to find. YA biographies of women are challenging to find in their own right.

What is exciting, though, is that the YA biographies of women that are being published now are so much more fascinating, immersive, and readable than those published in years past. Too often, these were biographies meant to help with book reports or research, as opposed to leisure reading. We all know teens and YA readers will go to the adult nonfiction section, but why is it finding biographies in YA nonfiction still challenging?

There are a few reasons, of course. Sexism is likely one that’s a broad stroke across all books. But another is that nonfiction for YA readers is still seen as lesser than its fictional counterparts. Biographies fall even further into the “lesser” category, making finding books that hit all three notes rare. Publishers don’t put the same kind of money into promoting these books because they’re destined to sell fewer copies than their fictional counterparts. Whether fair or not, it’s reality, and it means they don’t have the sex appeal coming out of the gate.

It’s not going to be surprising to hear how even among one of the most diverse subsets of YA — nonfiction — biographies of women tend toward white women more than women of color.

Something else worth thinking about when it comes to YA biographies is this: who gets their story told over and over again? There’s an outstanding piece on Tablet Magazine about how some girls and women through history have been written about ad nauseam. It’s not that they didn’t do remarkable things, but it’s a reminder to pause and think about what stories aren’t given shelf space in the same capacity (or at all).

Let’s take a look at a number of YA biographies of women throughout history. I’m sticking to books in the last ten years or so, and this will not be comprehensive. I’m not including those series biographies sold to libraries. Those are fine for what they are, but leisure reading isn’t their intent.

I’d love to hear of titles in the works or those which might be of particular interest that I overlooked or did not include. I’m not looking for memoirs or autobiographies. I want stories of historic women told by someone other than them.

As always, finding those YA nonfiction books is in and of itself a challenge, so going deeper increases the difficulty. Descriptions come from Goodreads. Though this list looks lengthy, remember this is 10+ years worth of books, and with that in mind, it’s shockingly short and narrow. It’s also narrow when you consider the liberal application of “YA” here, as many of these fall into middle grade (or in that wiggly 10-14 age range).

I’ve added a “*” beside the ones I’ve read and recommend.

 

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YA Biographies of Women Through History

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming

In alternating chapters, Fleming moves readers back and forth between Amelia’s life (from childhood up until her last flight) and the exhaustive search for her and her missing plane. With photos, maps, and handwritten notes from Amelia herself—plus informative sidebars tackling everything from the history of flight to what Amelia liked to eat while flying (tomato soup).

 

 

 

 

 

*Alice Paul and the Fight for Women’s Rights by Deborah Kops

Here is the story of leader Alice Paul, from the women’s suffrage movement—the long struggle for votes for women—to the “second wave,” when women demanded full equality with men. Paul made a significant impact on both. She reignited the sleepy suffrage moment with dramatic demonstrations and provocative banners. After women won the right to vote in 1920, Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would make all the laws that discriminated against women unconstitutional. Passage of the ERA became the rallying cry of a new movement of young women in the 1960s and ’70s. Paul saw another chance to advance women’s rights when the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 began moving through Congress. She set in motion the “sex amendment,” which remains a crucial legal tool for helping women fight discrimination in the workplace.

 

 

 

Becoming RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Journey to Justice by Debbie Levy and Whitney Gardner

Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a modern feminist icon—a leader in the fight for equal treatment of girls and women in society and the workplace. She blazed trails to the peaks of the male-centric worlds of education and law, where women had rarely risen before.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has often said that true and lasting change in society and law is accomplished slowly, one step at a time. This is how she has evolved, too. Step by step, the shy little girl became a child who questioned unfairness, who became a student who persisted despite obstacles, who became an advocate who resisted injustice, who became a judge who revered the rule of law, who became…RBG.

 

 

*California Dreamin’ by Pénélope Bagieu

Before she became the legendary Mama Cass—one quarter of the mega-huge folk group The Mamas and the Papas—Cass Eliot was a girl from Baltimore trying to make it in the big city. After losing parts to stars like Barbra Streisand on the Broadway circuit, Cass found her place in the music world with an unlikely group of cohorts.

The Mamas and the Papas released five studio albums in their three years of existence. It was at once one of the most productive (and profitable) three years any band has ever had, and also one of the most bizarre and dysfunctional groups of people to ever come together to make music. Through it all, Cass struggled to keep sight of her dreams—and her very identity.

 

 

 

*Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip M. Hoose

“When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can’t sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, ‘This is not right.’” – Claudette Colvin

On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South.

Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure, skillfully weaving her dramatic story into the fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history.

Dissenter on the Bench by Victoria Ortiz

The life and career of the fiercely principled Supreme Court Justice, now a popular icon, with dramatic accounts of her landmark cases that moved the needle on legal protection of human rights, illustrated with b/w archival photographs.

Dramatically narrated case histories from Justice Ginsburg’s stellar career are interwoven with an account of RBG’s life—childhood, family, beliefs, education, marriage, legal and judicial career, children, and achievements—and her many-faceted personality is captured. The cases described, many involving young people, demonstrate her passionate concern for gender equality, fairness, and our constitutional rights.

 

 

 

 

Eleanor Roosevelt: Fighter for Justice by Ilene Cooper

The riveting story of the most influential first lady in American history: Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt, Fighter for Justice shows young readers a different side of the former first lady. Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) was a politician, activist, diplomat, and the longest-serving first lady of the United States. But she was more than that. She was a protector and advocate for those without a voice, speaking out on the labor movement and civil rights. Though now seen as a cultural icon, she was a woman who was deeply insecure about her looks and her role in the world. She recognized her own prejudices and constantly strove to overcome them. Eleanor Roosevelt set the standard for the role of the first lady, and this biography gives young readers a fresh perspective on her extraordinary life. It includes an excerpt of one of her speeches, endnotes, a bibliography, and an index.

 

 

 

Florence Nightingale: The Courageous Life of the Legendary Nurse by Catherine Reef

Most people know Florence Nightingale was a compassionate and legendary nurse, but they don’t know her full story. This riveting biography explores the exceptional life of a woman who defied the stifling conventions of Victorian society to pursue what was considered an undesirable vocation. She is best known for her work during the Crimean War, when she vastly improved gruesome and deadly conditions and made nightly rounds to visit patients, becoming known around the world as the Lady with the Lamp. Her tireless and inspiring work continued after the war, and her modern methods in nursing became the defining standards still used today.

 

 

 

*A Girl Called Vincent by Krystyna Poray Goddu

There was never anything calm about Vincent. Her sisters used to say that she had a bee chasing her. Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950), known as Vincent, was an acclaimed American poet who came to embody the modern, liberated woman of the Jazz Age. From the fiery energy of her youth to the excitement and acclaim of her early adulthood in New York and Paris, to the demands of living in the public eye, Vincent’s life was characterized by creativity, hard work, and passion. A Girl Called Vincent traces her incredible journey from a unique and talented girl to an international celebrity and Pulitzer Prize–winning poet.

Raised in poverty in rural Maine, where she was often the sole caretaker of her two younger sisters, the rebellious, creative, red-haired Vincent always found time for writing, acting, singing, and playing piano. She became a sensation in young adulthood, bewitching audiences with her words, voice, and luminous appearance. She mixed with the literary figures of her time and broke many hearts. Her volumes of poetry were enormous bestsellers and audiences nationwide went wild when she recited her works onstage. In addition to poetry, Vincent’s body of work includes plays, translations, and an opera, and ranges from love sonnets to antiwar propaganda.

 

*Hillary Rodham Clinton: Do All The Good You Can by Cynthia Levinson

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a true leader. Growing up in Park Ridge, Illinois, Hillary was inspired by the philosophy of John Wesley, who urged his followers to “do all the good you can.” Rising to prominence in 1992 as the First Lady of the United States, Hillary captured the world’s attention with her bold ideas and political forcefulness.

From her time at Wellesley to her life at the White House and beyond, Hillary has been at the forefront of huge change—and despite setbacks and political scandals, she has worked for good in the world.

Acclaimed author Cynthia Levinson creates a compelling and personal portrait of Hillary’s historic journey from her childhood to her service as secretary of state and beyond. Includes a timeline of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s life and an eight-page photo insert.

 

 

 

Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History by Karen Blumenthal

As a young girl growing up in the fifties, Hillary Diane Rodham had an unusual upbringing for the time-her parents told her, “You can do or be whatever you choose, as long as you’re willing to work for it.” Hillary took those words and ran. Whether it was campaigning at the age of thirteen in the 1964 presidential election, receiving a standing ovation and being featured in LIFE magazine as the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley, or graduating from Yale Law School-she was always one to stand out from the pack.

And that was only the beginning. Today, we have seen Hillary in many roles. From First Lady of the United States to the first female Senator of New York and most recently as the United States Secretary of State. An activist all her life, she has been devoted to health care reform, child care, and women’s rights, among others. And she’s still not done.

Critically acclaimed author Karen Blumenthal gives us a sharp and intimate look at the life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, American politics, and what the future holds in store. Illustrated throughout with black and white photographs, this is the must-have biography on a woman who has always known her public responsibility, who continues to push boundaries, and who isn’t afraid to stand up for what she believes in.

 

I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee by Charles J Shields

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most widely read novels in American literature. It’s also a perennial favorite in high school English classrooms across the nation. Yet onetime author Harper Lee is a mysterious figure who leads a very private life in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, refusing to give interviews or talk about the novel that made her a household name. Lee’s life is as rich as her fiction, from her girlhood as a rebellious tomboy to her days at the University of Alabama and early years as a struggling writer in New York City.

Charles J. Shields is the author of the New York Times bestseller Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, which he has adapted here for younger readers. What emerges in this riveting portrait is the story of an unconventional, high-spirited woman who drew on her love of writing and her Southern home to create a book that continues to speak to new generations of readers. Anyone who has enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird will appreciate this glimpse into the life of its fascinating author.

 

 

Irena’s Children: A True Story of Courage by Tilar J. Mazzeo

The story of Irena Sendler the female Oskar Schindler who took staggering risks to save 2,500 children from death and deportation in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II now adapted for a younger audience.

Irena Sendler was a young Polish woman living in Warsaw during World War II. Irena smuggled thousands of children out of the walled Jewish ghetto in toolboxes and coffins, snuck them under overcoats at checkpoints, and slipped them through the dank sewers and into secret passages that led to abandoned buildings, where she convinced her friends and underground resistance network to hide them

 

 

 

*Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing by Ann Angel

Forty years after her death, Janis Joplin remains among the most compelling and influential figures in rock-and-roll history. Her story—told here with depth and sensitivity by author Ann Angel—is one of a girl who struggled against rules and limitations, yet worked diligently to improve as a singer. It’s the story of an outrageous rebel who wanted to be loved, and of a wild woman who wrote long, loving letters to her mom. And finally, it’s the story of one of the most iconic female musicians in American history, who died at twenty-seven.

Janis Joplin includes more than sixty photographs, and an assortment of anecdotes from Janis’s friends and band mates. This thoroughly researched and well-illustrated biography is a must-have for all young artists, music lovers, and pop-culture enthusiasts.

 

 

Madam CJ Walker: Entrepreneur and Self-Made Millionaire by P J Graham

Born into an African American family a few years after the end of the Civil War, the woman who became known as Madam C. J. Walker entered a world where slavery was still a very raw wound in American society. Although she was orphaned at a young age, C. J. Walker quickly learned about the world around her and how to adapt. The children of sharecroppers, she and her sister worked in cotton fields until Walker married at the age of fourteen. Eventually, she settled in St. Louis, Missouri, near her brothers. There, she started her own hair-care company, which grew into an empire and took her around the world. This is the story of Walker’s inspiring perseverance on her journey to entrepreneurial success, filled with highs and lows which culminated in her becoming one of the wealthiest women in the twentieth century.

 

 

 

 

The Many Faces of Josephine Baker by Peggy Caravantes

With determination and audacity, Josephine Baker turned her comic and musical abilities into becoming a worldwide icon of the Jazz Age. The Many Faces of Josephine Baker: Dancer, Singer, Activist, Spy provides the first in-depth portrait of this remarkable woman for young adults. Author Peggy Caravantes follows Baker’s life from her childhood in the depths of poverty to her comedic rise in vaudeville and fame in Europe. This lively biography covers her outspoken participation in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, espionage work for the French Resistance during World War II, and adoption of 12 children—her “rainbow tribe.” Also included are informative sidebars on relevant topics such as the 1917 East St. Louis riot, Pullman railway porters, the Charleston, and more. The lush photographs, appendix updating readers on the lives of the rainbow tribe, source notes, and bibliography make this is a must-have resource for any student, Baker fan, or history buff.

 

 

 

*Marooned in the Arctic: The True Story of Ada Blackjack by Peggy Caravantes

In 1921, four men ventured into the Arctic for a top-secret expedition: an attempt to claim uninhabited Wrangel Island in northern Siberia for Great Britain. With the men was a young Inuit woman named Ada Blackjack, who had signed on as cook and seamstress to earn money to care for her sick son. Conditions soon turned dire for the team when they were unable to kill enough game to survive. Three of the men tried to cross the frozen Chukchi Sea for help but were never seen again, leaving Ada with one remaining team member who soon died of scurvy. Determined to be reunited with her son, Ada learned to survive alone in the icy world by trapping foxes, catching seals, and avoiding polar bears. After she was finally rescued in August 1923, after two years total on the island, Ada became a celebrity, with newspapers calling her a real “female Robinson Crusoe.”

 

 

 

 

*Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein by Lita Judge

Mary Shelley first began penning Frankenstein as part of a dare to write a ghost story, but the seeds of that story were planted long before that night. Mary, just nineteen years old at the time, had been living on her own for three years and had already lost a baby days after birth. She was deeply in love with famed poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a mad man who both enthralled and terrified her, and her relationship with him was rife with scandal and ridicule. But rather than let it crush her, Mary fueled her grief, pain, and passion into a book that the world has still not forgotten 200 years later.

Dark, intense, and beautiful, this free-verse novel with over 300 pages of gorgeous black-and-white watercolor illustrations is a unique and unforgettable depiction of one of the greatest authors of all time.

 

 

 

Ms. Gloria Steinem by Winifred Conkling

Gloria Steinem was no stranger to injustice even from a young age.

Her mother, Ruth, having suffered a nervous breakdown at only 34, spent much of Gloria’s childhood in and out of mental health facilities. And when Gloria was only 10 years old, her father divorced her mother and left for California, unable to bear the stress of caring for Ruth any longer.

Gloria never blamed her mother for being unable to hold down a job to support them both after that, but rather blamed society’s intrinsic hostility toward women, and working women in particular. This was the spark that lit a fire in her that would burn for decades, and continues to burn brightly today.

 

 

 

Notorious RBG: Young Reader Edition by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become an icon to millions. Her tireless fight for equality and women’s rights has inspired not only great strides in the workforce but has impacted the law of the land. And now, perfect for a younger generation, comes an accessible biography of this fierce woman, detailing her searing dissents and powerful jurisprudence.

This entertaining and insightful young readers’ edition mixes pop culture, humor, and expert analysis for a remarkable account of the indomitable Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Heroine. Trailblazer. Pioneer.

 

 

 

 

 

*Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide by Isabel Quintero

Graciela Iturbide was born in México City in 1942, the oldest of 13 children. When tragedy struck Iturbide as a young mother, she turned to photography for solace and understanding. From then on Iturbide embarked on a photographic journey that has taken her throughout her native México, from the Sonora Desert to Juchitán to Frida Kahlo’s bathroom, to the United States, India, and beyond. Photographic is a symbolic, poetic, and deeply personal graphic biography of this iconic photographer. Iturbide’s journey will excite readers of all ages as well as budding photographers, who will be inspired by her resolve, talent, and curiosity.

 

 

 

 

*Radioactive: How Irène Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World by Winifred Conkling

In 1934, Irène Curie, working with her husband and fellow scientist, Frederic Joliot, made a discovery that would change the world: artificial radioactivity. This breakthrough allowed scientists to modify elements and create new ones by altering the structure of atoms. Curie shared a Nobel Prize with her husband for their work. But when she was nominated to the French Academy of Sciences, the academy denied her admission and voted to disqualify all women from membership. Four years later, Curie’s breakthrough led physicist Lise Meitner to a brilliant leap of understanding that unlocked the secret of nuclear fission. Meitner’s unique insight was critical to the revolution in science that led to nuclear energy and the race to build the atom bomb, yet her achievement was left unrecognized by the Nobel committee in favor of that of her male colleague.

Radioactive! presents the story of two women breaking ground in a male-dominated field, scientists still largely unknown despite their crucial contributions to cutting-edge research, in a nonfiction narrative that reads with the suspense of a thriller. Photographs and sidebars illuminate and clarify the science in the book.

 

*Sachiko:A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story by Caren Stelson

This striking work of narrative nonfiction tells the true story of six-year-old Sachiko Yasui’s survival of the Nagasaki atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, and the heartbreaking and lifelong aftermath. Having conducted extensive interviews with Sachiko Yasui, Caren Stelson chronicles Sachiko’s trauma and loss as well as her long journey to find peace. This book offers readers a remarkable new perspective on the final moments of World War II and their aftermath.

 

 

 

 

Sarah Bernhardt: The Divine and Dazzling Life of the World’s First Superstar by Catherine Reef

A tantalizing biography for teens on Sarah Bernhardt, the first international celebrity and one of the greatest actors of all time, who lived a highly unconventional, utterly fascinating life. Illustrated with more than sixty-five photos of Bernhardt on stage, in film, and in real life.  

Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage actor who became a global superstar in the late nineteenth century—the Lady Gaga of her day—and is still considered to be one of the greatest performers of all time. This fast-paced account of her life, filled with provocative detail, brilliantly follows the transformation of a girl of humble origins, born to a courtesan, into a fabulously talented, wealthy, and beloved icon. Not only was her acting trajectory remarkable, but her personal life was filled with jaw-dropping exploits, and she was extravagantly eccentric, living with a series of exotic animals and sleeping in a coffin. She grew to be deeply admired around the world, despite her unabashed and public promiscuity at a time when convention was king; she slept with each of her leading men and proudly raised a son without a husband. A fascinating and fast-paced deep dive into the world of the divine Sarah. Illustrated with more than sixty-five photos of Bernhardt on stage, in film, and in real life.

 

Sonia Sotomayor: A Biography by Sylvia Mendoza

Arguably one of the most prominent US Supreme Court Justices at the moment, Sonia Sotomayor has paved her own way to enact profound changes and reforms, despite the obstacles that stood in her way. And she certainly has had her share of adversity: she was diagnosed with diabetes when she was just eight years old, lived in housing projects in the Bronx in her youth, and fought (and still is fighting) against blatant discrimination throughout her career. Now in her early 60s, Justice Sotomayor has already made history in being appointed to the Court as the first Latina justice, the third woman justice, and one of the three youngest justices in this position.

In this new biography, journalist Sylvia Mendoza chronicles the true story of Sotomayor’s incredible journey in a narrative format. Readers will follow along to see how this powerhouse of a woman came to be who she is today, from growing up as a young girl reading Nancy Drew mysteries and learning to give herself insulin injections to attending school at Princeton, and finally to wearing the black robes of a Supreme Court Justice. Through courage, perseverance, and an indomitable spirit, Sotomayor proves that anyone can take hold of her own destiny if she works hard and stays true to herself.

 

*Ten Days a Madwoman: The Daring Life and Turbulent Times of The Original “Girl” Reporter Nellie Bly by Deborah Noyes

Work for a New York newspaper
Fall in love
Marry a millionaire
Change the world

Young Nellie Bly had ambitious goals, especially for a woman at the end of the nineteenth century, when the few female journalists were relegated to writing columns about cleaning or fashion. But fresh off a train from Pittsburgh, Nellie knew she was destined for more and pulled a major journalistic stunt that skyrocketed her to fame: feigning insanity, being committed to the notorious asylum on Blackwell’s Island, and writing a shocking exposé of the clinic’s horrific treatment of its patients.

Nellie Bly became a household name as the world followed her enthralling career in “stunt” journalism that raised awareness of political corruption, poverty, and abuses of human rights. Leading an uncommonly full life, Nellie circled the globe in a record seventy-two days and brought home a pet monkey before marrying an aged millionaire and running his company after his death.

With its sensational (and true!) plot, Ten Days a Madwoman dares its readers to live as boldly as its remarkable heroine

Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Bartoletti

What happens when a person’s reputation has been forever damaged?

With archival photographs and text among other primary sources, this riveting biography of Mary Mallon by the Sibert medalist and Newbery Honor winner Susan Bartoletti looks beyond the tabloid scandal of Mary’s controversial life.

How she was treated by medical and legal officials reveals a lesser-known story of human and constitutional rights, entangled with the science of pathology and enduring questions about who Mary Mallon really was.

How did her name become synonymous with deadly disease? And who is really responsible for the lasting legacy of Typhoid Mary?

This thorough exploration includes an author’s note, timeline, annotated source notes, and bibliography.

 

Victoria: Portrait of a Queen  by Catherine Reef

Victoria woke one morning at the age of eighteen to discover that her uncle had died and she was now queen. She went on to rule for sixty-three years, with an influence so far-reaching that the decades of her reign now bear her name—the Victorian period. Victoria is filled with the exciting comings and goings of royal life: intrigue and innuendo, scheming advisors, and assassination attempts, not to mention plenty of passion and discord. Includes bibliography, notes, British royal family tree, index.

 

 

 

 

*Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies by Nell Beram and Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky

This lyrical biography explores the life and art of Yoko Ono, from her childhood haiku to her avant-garde visual art and experimental music. An outcast throughout most of her life, and misunderstood by every group she was supposed to belong to, Yoko always followed her own unique vision to create art that was ahead of its time and would later be celebrated. Her focus remained on being an artist, even when the rest of world saw her only as the wife of John Lennon.

Yoko Ono’s moving story will inspire any young adult who has ever felt like an outsider, or who is developing or questioning ideas about being an artist, to follow their dreams and find beauty in all that surrounds them.

Filed Under: book lists, feminism, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult non-fiction

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