Young Adult
Ain't burned all the bright
Jason Reynolds
811.6 /Reynolds
Young Adult
"Jason Reynolds, using three longggggggg sentences, and Jason Griffin, using three hundred pages of a pocket-size moleskine, have mind-melded this fierce-vulnerable-brilliant-terrifying-whatiswrongwithumans-hopefilled-hopeful-tendere-heartbreaking-heartmaking manifesto on what it means not to be able to breathe, and how the people and things at your fingertips are actually the oxygen you most need." -- jacket flap
Concrete Rose
Angie Thomas
OverDrive Audiobook
Young Adult, Fiction, Black Lives Matter, Read Woke
International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood.
Dion Graham breathes life into the characters and setting of Angie Thomas's prequel to The Hate U Give. Don't miss this powerful chapter in Carter family history. -Casey
Aristotle and Dante dive into the waters of the world
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Saenz, Benjamin
Diverse Characters, Young Adult
High school seniors Aristotle and Dante find ways to spend time together despite being at different schools, having to keep their love secret, and nightly news of gay men dying from AIDS.
This second novel is equally as eloquent, captivating and heart-wrenching as the first. Characters are beautifully life-like, multi-faceted and layered and the story is realistic, thought-provoking and well worth waiting nine years for! -Victoria
With the fire on high
Elizabeth Acevedo
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Acevedo Elizabet
Young Adult
Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions—doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.
Added by Beth
Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Saenz Benjamin
LGBTQ+, Young Adult
Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.
I'm not sure how this book has escaped my clutches. It is a heart-warming, beautiful, soul-touching reminder that love is love! The sequel, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World is released later this month so you have time for a re-read before it comes out! -Victoria
Home is Not a Country
Safia Elhillo
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Elhillo, Safia
Young Adult
"Nima doesn't feel understood. By her mother, who grew up far away in a different land. By her suburban town, which makes her feel too much like an outsider to fit in and not enough like an outsider to feel like that she belongs somewhere else. At least she has her childhood friend Haitham, with whom she can let her guard down and be herself. Until she doesn't. As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen, the name her parents didn't give her at birth: Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might just be more real than Nima knows. And more hungry. And the life Nima has, the one she keeps wishing were someone else's...she might have to fight for it with a fierceness she never knew she had."--
I absolutely loved the brutal honesty, the language and slight mysticism of this book. The author tackles the Islamophobia of a post 9/11 world in a delicately poetic and human way. This is a great read into the lives of those forced to flee their motherland for hopes of better opportunities only to find the grass is often anything but greener on the other side. -Victoria
Ace of spades
Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Abike-Iyimide, Faridah
Young Adult, Thriller, Suspense, LGBTQ+
At Niveus Private Academy, Devon and Chiamaka are the only students chosen to be Senior Prefects who are also black, which makes them targets for a series of anonymous texts revealing their secrets to the entire student body. Both students were on track toward valedictorian and bright college futures, but this prank quickly turns into a very dangerous game and they are at more than one disadvantage as it looks like things could turn deadly.
This is a fantastic page-turner with a delectable plot, well-developed characters and an overall killer debut! Fans of One of Us is Lying, Get Out and Gossip Girl will delight in this read. -Victoria
The Wee Free Men
Terry Pratchett
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Pratchett, Terry
Young Adult, Humor
A young witch-to-be named Tiffany teams up with the Wee Free Men, a clan of six-inch-high blue men, to rescue her baby brother and ward off a sinister invasion from Fairyland.
Added by Beth
The Blue Castle
L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Montgomery, L. M.
Young Adult
In early 1920s Canada, drastic circumstances give Valancy, a twenty-nine-year-old unmarried woman resigned to being an "old maid," the courage to defy her controlling family and escape to a life of her own choosing.
Added by Beth
Little women
Louisa May Alcott
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Alcott, Louisa May
Young Adult
Little Women is many things: a coming-of-age story; a collection of anecdotes illustrating life in Civil War-era America; a pastiche of domestic and didactic fictions; a reflection on living morally and a proto-feminist critique of 19th-century “separate spheres” ideology. Louisa May Alcott’s best-known, beloved novel draws readers into the world of the four March sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy – and their mother, Marmee, and follows the girls as they grow from impulsive teens into mature young women. Alcott’s episodic narrative showcases the girls’ individuality and ambitions, their triumphs and trials, their shortcomings and evolving characters, and their relationships with one another, with their mother and with society at large. Its voice is in a manner that is, alternatingly, humorous, uplifting and, sometimes, heartbreaking. Alcott’s novel doesn’t resist sentimentality, but it balances, and, ultimately, transcends it with realistic depictions of the challenges inherent in the pursuit of true vocation and true love, the burden of domestic labor, and the effects of social pressures and life’s challenges – including illness – on female ambition.
Added by Beth
2020 was unprecedented. The news rarely had anything good to say and we're still on our way out of a social isolation experiment that has profoundly impacted the way we connect. Melding the pandemic, what has changed and what is painfully still the same for a black family in America, this book delves in and out of living and loving. The sparse text is brought to life when needed and muted at times by explosive and illuminating illustrations. I would read the back of a cereal box if it was written by Jason Reynolds. Though his words are few in this book, he has distilled them into what really matters. -Victoria