Seventeen year old Nigerian Canadian Adanna Nkwachi must deal with an estranged older brother, uncertainty about her future, and helping her cousin plan a big Nigerian wedding.
Young Adult (ages 14-18)
Material appropriate for young adults
The Quiet And The Loud
George’s life is loud. On the water, though, with everything hushed above and below, she is steady, silent. Then her estranged dad says he needs to talk, and George’s past begins to wake up, looping around her ankles, trying to drag her under. But there’s no time to sink. George’s best friend, Tess, is about to become, officially, a teen mom, her friend Laz is in despair about the climate crisis, her gramps would literally misplace his teeth if not for her, and her moms fill the house with fuss and chatter. Before long, heat and smoke join the noise as distant wildfires begin to burn. George tries to stay steady. When her father tells her his news and the painful memories roar back to life, George turns to Calliope, the girl who has just cartwheeled into her world and shot it through with colors. And it’s here George would stay quiet and safe, if she could. But then Tess has her baby, and the earth burns hotter, and the past just will not stay put. A novel about the contours of friendship, family, forgiveness, trauma, and love, and about our hopeless, hopeful world, Helena Fox’s gorgeous follow up to How It Feels to Float explores the stories we suppress and the stories we speak and the healing that comes when we voice the things we’ve kept quiet for so long.
The Melancholy Of Summer
After seventeen year old Summer’s parents go on the run, she is placed in the care of Olu, a cousin she barely knows, but with Olu and friends’ efforts, stoic Summer eventually learns to open up.
Chloe And The Kaishao Boys
Seventeen year old Chinese Filipina Chloe’s father sets her up on a marathon of arranged dates in hopes of convincing her to stay close to their Manila home for college.
Warrior Girl Unearthed
Perry Firekeeper Birch has always known who she is the laidback twin, the troublemaker, the best fisher on Sugar Island. Her aspirations won’t ever take her far from home, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. But as the rising number of missing Indigenous women starts circling closer to home, as her family becomes embroiled in a high profile murder investigation, and as greedy grave robbers seek to profit off of what belongs to her Anishinaabe tribe, Perry begins to question everything. In order to reclaim this inheritance for her people, Perry has no choice but to take matters into her own hands. She can only count on her friends and allies, including her overachieving twin and a charming new boy in town with unwavering morals. Old rivalries, sister secrets, and botched heists cannot will not stop her from uncovering the mystery before the ancestors and missing women are lost forever. Sometimes, the truth shouldn’t stay buried.
Thunderous
If Aiyana hears one more traditional Lakota story, she’ll scream! More interested in her social media presence than her Native American heritage, Aiyana is shocked when she suddenly finds herself in a magical world-with no cell coverage! Pursued by the trickster Raven, Aiyana struggles to get back home, but is helped by friends and allies she meets along the way. Her dangerous journey through the Spirit World tests her fortitude and challenges her to embrace her Lakota heritage. But will it be enough to defeat the cruel and powerful Raven?
A Hunger Of Thorns
When Maud hit puberty she lost her wild magic and her best friend, Odette, rejected her but now Odette has disappeared, her magic leading her down dark paths, and Maud knows that to rescue her former friend she will have to tread the same paths into a wild, dangerous world.
Self-Made Boys
Three teens chase their own version of the American Dream during the Roaring 20s in this YA remix of The Great Gatsby.
Viva Lola Espinoza
Book smart teen Lola’s summer plans are derailed when she is sent to live with her grandmother in Mexico City and learns a family secret that changes her life forever.
Islands Apart: Becoming Dominican American
Jasminne Mendez didn’t speak English when she started kindergarten, and her young, white teacher thought the girl was deaf because in Louisiana, you were either Black or white. She had no idea that a Black girl could be a Spanish speaker. In this memoir for teens about growing up Afro Latina in the Deep South, Jasminne writes about feeling torn between her Dominican, Spanish speaking culture at home and the American, English speaking one around her. She desperately wanted to fit in, to be seen as American, and she realized early on that language mattered. Learning to read and write English well was the road to acceptance. Mendez shares typical childhood experiences such as having an imaginary friend, boys and puberty, but she also exposes the anti-Black racism within her own family and the conflict created by her family’s conservative traditions.