Young Adult (ages 14-18)

Material appropriate for young adults

At The End Of Everything

A group of teens at the Hope Juvenile Treatment Center are shocked to discover their guards have abandoned them, but their joy turns to fear when they learn a catastrophic pandemic has occurred outside their walls, turning their new-found freedom into a fight for survival.

Halley’s Comet

in the final years of South Africa’s Apartheid era, an unlikely trio-a sheltered white rugby player, a black farmworker’s son, and an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter-discover the consequences of knowing the truth and having the courage to speak it. Halley’s Comet is the coming-of-age story of Pete de Lange, a white 16-year-old schoolboy, set in small-town South Africa in 1986. Pete lives a relatively sheltered life, primarily concerned with girls and rugby- until one January night changes everything.

Thrust together with two complete strangers-Petrus, a black farmworker’s son and Sarita, an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter-the trio find themselves running for their lives from the vicious Rudie, whose actions will ripple far beyond that fateful night. This era-defying friendship-sparked by a shared secret- challenges everything Pete thought he knew and believed. And when anti-Apartheid revolutionaries set their sights on the town, it will change the course of the three young people’s lives forever.

Halley’s Comet is a story of friendship, love, change, taking chances, hope, a comet, and some pretty cool 80s music.

Inuunira

In this harrowing survival story, Brian Koonoo takes off on a hunting trip in Canada’s Arctic. After his snowmobile breaks down, his GPS loses signal, and his camping fuel runs low, he is left alone to survive for seven days. Inuunira is an Inuktitut term that means “how I’m alive,” and this account shows exactly how Brian managed to stay alive. He experiences close encounters with planes, blizzards, and hunger, all while much of his gear is lost. Walking 60 kilometres in search of safety, he uses the knowledge his father and Elders taught him—modern and traditional means of navigation, finding water, making shelters, and keeping his spirits up—to continue on.

Blood Like Fate

While struggling with her new role as Matriarch, Voya has a vision of a terrifying, deadly future, and with a newfound sense of purpose, she vows to do whatever it takes to bring her shattered community together and prevent the destruction of them all.

One For All: A Novel

An Ownvoices, Gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains as a Mmusketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love. Tania De Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand. Everyone in town thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but a sick girl; even her mother is desperate to marry her off for security. But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father–a former musketeer and her greatest champion. Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend finishing school. But L’acad Mie Des Mari Es, Rania realizes, is no finishing school. It’s a secret training ground for a new kind of musketeer: women who are socialites on the surface, but strap daggers under their skirts, seduce men into giving up dangerous secrets, and protect France from downfall. And they don’t shy away from a swordfight.

With her newfound sisters at her side, Tania feels for the first time like she has a purpose, like she belongs. But then she meets Tienne, her first target in uncovering a potential assassination plot. He’s kind, charming, and breathlessly attractive–and he might have information about what really happened to her father. Torn between duty and dizzying emotion, Tania will have to lean on her friends, listen to her own body, and decide where her loyalties lie…or risk losing everything she’s ever wanted.

Accidental Czar: The Life And Lies Of Vladimir Putin

This riveting graphic novel biography chronicles Vladimir Putin’s rise from a mid-level KGB officer to the autocratic leader of Russia and reveals the truth behind the strongman persona he has spent his career cultivating.