Young adult

Young adult

Mike Curato

In her groundbreaking and essential debut The Three Mothers, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates Black motherhood by telling the story of the three women who raised and shaped some of America's most pivotal heroes.

Young adult

Robin Ha

This nonfiction graphic novel with four starred reviews is an excellent choice for teens and also accelerated tween readers, both for independent reading and units on immigration, memoirs, and the search for identity.

Young adult

Kiku Hughes

A teen time-travels into her grandmother's Japanese American incarceration during WWII.

Young adult

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin & Nate Powell

Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper’s farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president.

Young adult

Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. Racist ideas are woven into the fabric of this country, and the first step to building an antiracist America is acknowledging America's racist past and present. This book takes you on that journey, showing how racist ideas started and were spread, and how they can be discredited. Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative written by beloved award-winner Jason Reynolds with research from renowned author Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas-and on ways you can identify and stamp out racist thoughts, leading to a better future.

Young adult

Sandra Cisneros

She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one.” —The New York Times Book Review The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years.

Young adult

Randy Ribay

But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story.

Young adult

Traci Chee

For fourteen-year-old Minoru Ito and other members of the Japanese-American community in southern California, the three months since Pearl Harbor have been terrible, and soon their lives forever changed by mass incarcerations in relocation ...

Young adult

Gene Luen Yang

In his latest graphic novel, Dragon Hoops, New York Times bestselling author Gene Luen Yang turns the spotlight on his life, his family, and the high school where he teaches. Gene understands stories—comic book stories, in particular.

Young adult

Laurie Halse Anderson

"Speak up for yourself--we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication. In Laurie Halse Anderson's powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.

Young adult

Dhonielle Clayton

"Six . . . authors bring the . . . warmth and electricity of Black teen love to this interlinked novel of . . . stories that shine a bright light through the dark"--Provided by publisher.

Young adult

Mildred D. Taylor

Sadistically teased by two white boys in 1940's rural Mississippi, a black youth severely injures one of the boys with a tire iron and enlists Cassie's help in trying to flee the state.

Young adult

Echo Brown

A William C. Morris Award Finalist "Brown has written a guidebook of survival and wonder."—The New York Times "Just brilliant."—Kirkus Reviews Heavily autobiographical and infused with magical realism, Black Girl Unlimited fearlessly ...

Young adult

Tiffany D. Jackson

Now he’s dead, the police are at the door, and all signs point to Enchanted. “Never have I read a story that so flawlessly hits the highest high and lowest low notes of Black girlhood in pursuit of the American Dream.” —Nic Stone, ...

Young adult

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Someone who holds all the aces. And they're planning much more than a high-school game...Unputdownable and utterly compulsive, this high-octane thriller takes a powerful look at institutionalized racism.

Young adult

Tiffany D. Jackson

Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried. When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help. As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?

Young adult

Brittney Morris

An honors student at Jefferson Academy, seventeen-year-old Kiera enjoys developing and playing Slay, a secret, multiplayer online role-playing game celebrating black culture, until the two worlds collide.

Young adult

Nicola Yoon

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A charming, wholehearted love story that's sure to make readers swoon."—Entertainment Weekly "Nicola Yoon writes from the heart in this beautiful love story."—Good Morning America “It’s like ...

Young adult

Mark Oshiro

Something will have to change—but who will listen to a group of teens? When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes again, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.

Young adult

Ibi Aanu Zoboi

The story that I thought was my life didn’t start on the day I was born Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white. The story that I think will be my life starts today Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it? With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both. source: https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062996503/punching-the-air/

Young adult

Tiffany D Jackson

When her classmates discover her biracial identity, Maddy, a white-passing senior, becomes the target of their bullying and discovers she possesses secret powers that pose a risk to all who wronged her.

Young adult

Nic Stone

' Angie Thomas, bestselling author of The Hate U Give 'Powerful, wrenching and compulsively readable' John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars 'Earnest, funny, achingly human, and unshakably hopeful' Becky Albertalli, author ...

Young adult

J. Elle

Instant New York Times bestseller! “A remarkable, breathtaking, earthshaking, poetic thrillride.” —Daniel José Older, New York Times bestselling author of Shadowshaper ​In this riveting, keenly emotional debut fantasy, a Black teen ...

Young adult

Ibi Aanu Zoboi

A collection of short stories explore what it is like to be young and black, centering on the experiences of black teenagers and emphasizing that one person's experiences, reality, and personal identity are different than someone else's.