Symptoms of Being Human
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"A gender-fluid teenager who struggles with identity creates a blog on the topic that goes viral, and faces ridicule at the hands of fellow students"--Provided by publisher.
What If It's Us
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Critically acclaimed and bestselling authors Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera combine their talents in this smart, funny, heartfelt collaboration about two very different boys who can’t decide if the universe is pushing them together—or pulling them apart.--From Amazon
Out of My Mind
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Eleven-year-old Melody is not like most people. She can’t walk. She can’t talk. She can’t write. All because she has cerebral palsy. But she also has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She’s the smartest kid in her whole school, but NO ONE knows it. Most people—her teachers, her doctors, her classmates—dismiss her as mentally challenged because she can’t tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses to be defined by her disability. And she’s determined to let everyone know it…somehow.--From Amazon
Not If I See You First
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Parker Grant doesn't need 20/20 vision to see right through you. That's why she created the Rules: Don't treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart.
When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after being gone for years, Parker knows there's only one way to react--shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind already, like trying out for the track team (that's right, her eyes don't work but her legs still do), doling out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn't cried since her dad's death three months ago. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened--both with Scott, and her dad--the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem. Maybe, just maybe, some Rules are meant to be broken.
Combining a fiercely engaging voice with true heart, debut author Eric Lindstrom's Not If I See You First illuminates those blind spots that we all have in life, whether visually impaired or not.--From Amazon
How We Roll
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Quinn is a teen who loves her family, skateboarding, basketball, and her friends, but after she's diagnosed with a condition called alopecia which causes her to lose all of her hair, her friends abandon her. Jake was once a star football player, but because of a freak accident―caused by his brother―he loses both of his legs. Quinn and Jake meet and find the confidence to believe in themselves again, and maybe even love.--From Amazon
You're Welcome, Universe
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When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful (albeit illegal) graffiti mural.
Her supposed best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her two mothers set Julia up with a one-way ticket to a “mainstream” school in the suburbs, where she’s treated like an outcast as the only deaf student. The last thing she has left is her art, and not even Banksy himself could convince her to give that up.
Out in the ’burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone is adding to her tags, making them better, showing off—and showing Julia up in the process. She expected her art might get painted over by cops. But she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war.
Told with wit and grit by debut author Whitney Gardner, who also provides gorgeous interior illustrations of Julia’s graffiti tags, You’re Welcome, Universe introduces audiences to a one-of-a-kind protagonist who is unabashedly herself no matter what life throws in her way.
--From Amazon
Ghost Boys
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Jerome, a young black boy gunned down while playing in a park with a toy gun, invites readers to bear witness to his story, to the tragedy of being dispatched simply because of a policeman’s internalized prejudice masquerading as fear. One day at school, while he and his new friend Carlos are being bullied, Carlos pulls out a toy gun to scare their attackers. Afterward, he gives it to Jerome so he can have a chance to play with it, to pretend that he is in charge. But when he is shot in the back while running from the police, his soul leaves his body and he becomes one of the army of ghost boys hoping to communicate with those still consumed with racial bias. While looking in on the preliminary court hearing, Jerome realizes that the police officer’s daughter can see and talk to him, and together they try to understand how the world around them could be so cruel. Rhodes (Sugar, 2013; Towers Falling, 2016) beautifully weaves together the fictional and the historical—Jerome comes across the ghosts of real-life individuals like Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin—in this gripping and all-too-necessary novel about police brutality, injustice, and the power of bearing witness to the stories of those who are gone.
— Rob Bittner
American Street
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Julia’s older sister, Olga, was always polite, respected her parents, and eagerly took up the Mexican traditions her mother insisted upon. After Olga dies in a car accident, Julia is thrust into a spotlight she’s not ready for. She’s too angry, too unappreciative, too American, which results in her mother shutting out her social and love life. Then Julia discovers Olga’s trove of secrets, which hint at a hidden life. As Julia pursues the mystery of the real Olga, she begins to find out that more than one of her family members has secrets. This bildungsroman immigrant story captures the chaotic life of a young person trying to navigate two worlds while trying to follow her own path. Julia wants to leave Chicago and attend college, while a “perfect Mexican daughter” would stay put, get a job, and contribute to the family. Sánchez weaves these threads along with a tragic story of distant sisters to create an earnest and heartfelt tale that will resonate with teens.
— Reinhardt Suarez
A Step from Heaven
Young Ju’s parents don’t want her to become too American, and Young Ju is ashamed of them. It’s the classic immigrant child conflict, told here in the present tense with the immediacy of the girl’s voice, from the time she’s a toddler in a small Korean village wondering why the adults talk about America as “heaven.” Then there’s her bewilderment as a first-grader in the U.S. trying to learn the rules and understand the words and the accents. Each chapter is a story in itself, with dramatic surprise or quiet reversal. The tales blend together into a beautiful first novel that takes Ju through her teenage years until she’s an A-student ready to leave for college. The focus is on family and what happens at home. Her father, furious at having to work two laboring jobs and grief-stricken at his mother’s death in Korea, becomes an increasingly violent alcoholic. He forbids Young Ju from seeing her best friend. She disobeys him, but she’s careful never to bring her friends to her shabby home. Most moving is the chapter about her visit with her father to the Immigration Office. He’s distrustful, enraged that he’s so helpless and that she’s in control; she’s embarrassed by his behavior even as she feels his anguish. Young Ju’s mother is a strong figure in the background until the girl suddenly sees her as a person, who tells her, “In America, women have choices.” This isn’t a quick read, especially at the beginning when the child is trying to decipher American words and customs, but the coming-of-age drama will grab teens and make them think of their own conflicts between home and outside. As in the best writing, the particulars make the story universal. Steer teens who like this on to Amy Tan’s adult book The Joy Luck Club (1989).
Native Speaker
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Henry Park is a Korean American private investigator who, in the course of spying on a New York City politician, comes to terms with his own sense of identity, family, and culture.--From Destiny
Full Disclosure
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Simone, seventeen, HIV-positive and in love for the first time, decides that facing potential bullies head-on may be better than protecting her secret.--From TitlePeek
The Inside of Out
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When Hannah comes out as a lesbian, her best friend Daisy leads the charge to end their schoolâ??s ban on same-sex dates for dances, but as the story goes viral everyone believes Daisy is gay, and Hannah is left out.--From TitlePeek
Color Me In
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"Fifteen-year-old Nevaeh Levitz is torn between two worlds, passing for white while living in Harlem, being called Jewish while attending her mother's Baptist church, and experiencing first love while watching her parents' marriage crumble"--Provided by publisher.
Black Girl Unlimited
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"From age six through her high school valedictory speech, believing she and her mother are wizards helps young Echo cope with poverty, hunger, her mother's drug abuse, and much more"--Provided by publisher.
Felix Ever After
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Felix Love, a transgender seventeen-year-old, attempts to get revenge by catfishing his anonymous bully, but lands in a quasi-love triangle with his former enemy and his best friend.--From Destiny
The Poet X
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The daughter of devout immigrants discovers the power of slam poetry and begins participating in a school club as part of her effort to understand her mother's strict religious beliefs and her own developing relationship to the world. --From TitlePeek
Who Put This Song On?
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"Seventeen-year-old Morgan is a black teen triumphantly figuring out her identity when her conservative town deems depression as a lack of faith, and blackness as something to be politely ignored"--Provided by publisher.
Openly Straight
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Tired of being known as "the gay kid", Rafe Goldberg decides to assume a new persona when he comes east and enters an elite Massachusetts prep school-but trying to deny his identity has both complications and unexpected consequences.--From TitlePeek
Frankly in Love
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Frank Li has two names. There's Frank Li, his American name. Then there's Sung-Min Li, his Korean name. No one uses his Korean name, not even his parents. Frank barely speaks any Korean. He was born and raised in Southern California.
Even so, his parents still expect him to end up with a nice Korean girl--which is a problem, since Frank is finally dating the girl of his dreams: Brit Means. Brit, who is funny and nerdy just like him. Brit, who makes him laugh like no one else. Brit . . . who is white.
As Frank falls in love for the very first time, he's forced to confront the fact that while his parents sacrificed everything to raise him in the land of opportunity, their traditional expectations don't leave a lot of room for him to be a regular American teen. Desperate to be with Brit without his parents finding out, Frank turns to family friend Joy Song, who is in a similar bind. Together, they come up with a plan to help each other and keep their parents off their backs. Frank thinks he's found the solution to all his problems, but when life throws him a curveball, he's left wondering whether he ever really knew anything about love—or himself—at all.
In this moving debut novel—featuring striking blue stained edges and beautiful original endpaper art by the author—David Yoon takes on the question of who am I? with a result that is humorous, heartfelt, and ultimately unforgettable.--From Amazon
It's a Whole Spiel
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A Jewish boy falls in love with a fellow counselor at summer camp. A group of Jewish friends take the trip of a lifetime. A girl meets her new boyfriend's family over Shabbat dinner. Two best friends put their friendship to the test over the course of a Friday night. A Jewish girl feels pressure to date the only Jewish boy in her grade. Hilarious pranks and disaster ensue at a crush's Hanukkah party.
From stories of confronting their relationships with Judaism to rom-coms with a side of bagels and lox, It's a Whole Spiel features one story after another that says yes, we are Jewish, but we are also queer, and disabled, and creative, and political, and adventurous, and anything we want to be. You will fall in love with this insightful, funny, and romantic Jewish anthology from a collection of diverse Jewish authors.--From Amazon
Sick Kids in Love
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Isabel has one rule: no dating.
It’s easier―
It’s safer―
It’s better―
―for the other person.
She’s got issues. She’s got secrets. She’s got rheumatoid arthritis.
But then she meets another sick kid.
He’s got a chronic illness Isabel’s never heard of, something she can’t even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father who’s a doctor.
He’s gorgeous, fun, and foul-mouthed. And totally into her.
Isabel has one rule: no dating.
It’s complicated―
It’s dangerous―
It’s never felt better―
―to consider breaking that rule for him.--From Amazon
The Black Flamingo
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Michael is a mixed-race gay teen growing up in London. All his life, he’s navigated what it means to be Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican—but never quite feeling Greek or Black enough.
As he gets older, Michael’s coming out is only the start of learning who he is and where he fits in. When he discovers the Drag Society, he finally finds where he belongs—and the Black Flamingo is born.
Told with raw honesty, insight, and lyricism, this debut explores the layers of identity that make us who we are—and allow us to shine.--From Amazon