Young Adult Books
These are the books vying for the winners crown!
Ace of spades
Àbíké-Íyímídé, Faridah, author
2021
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.
Everything sad is untrue : (a true story)
Nayeri, Daniel, author
2020
At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy and further back to the fields near the river Aras, where rain-soaked flowers bled red like the yolk of sunset burst over everything, and further back still to the Jasmine-scented city of Isfahan.
Four for the road
Reilly, K. J. (Writer of young adult fiction), author
2022
"When seventeen-year-old Asher embarks on a road trip from New Jersey to Graceland to get revenge on the drunk driver who killed his mom, he brings along three new friends from his bereavement groups"-- Provided by publisher.
In the wild light
Zentner, Jeff, author
2021
Attending an elite prep school in Connecticut on a scholarship with his best friend (and secret love) science genius Delaney Doyle, sixteen-year-old Cash Pruitt, from a small town in East Tennessee, struggles with emotional pain and loss until his English teacher suggests writing poetry.
Monsters born and made
Berwah, Tanvi, author
2022
To ensure her family's survival, sixteen-year-old Koral cheats her way into the Glory Race, a dangerous chariot tournament using sea monsters meant for the ruling elite.
Queen of the tiles
Hanna Alkaf, author.
2022
Fifteen-year-old Najwa Bakri is forced to investigate the mysterious death of her best friend and Scrabble Queen, Trina, a year after the fact when her Instagram comes back to life with cryptic posts and messages.
Rust in the root
Ireland, Justina, author
2022
"It is 1937, and Laura Ann Langston lives in an America divided--between those who work the mystical arts and those who do not. Ever since the Great Rust, a catastrophic event that blighted the arcane force called the Dynamism and threw America into disarray, the country has been rebuilding for a better future. And everyone knows the future is industry and technology--otherwise known as Mechomancy--not the traditional mystical arts. Laura disagrees. A talented young queer mage from Pennsylvania, Laura hopped a portal to New York City on her seventeenth birthday with hopes of earning her mage's license and becoming something more than a rootworker. But four months later, she's got little to show for it other than an empty pocket and broken dreams. With nowhere else to turn, Laura applies for a job with the Bureau of the Arcane's Conservation Corps, a branch of the US government dedicated to repairing the Dynamism so that Mechomancy can thrive. There she meets the Skylark, a powerful mage with a mysterious past, who reluctantly takes Laura on as an apprentice. As they're sent off on their first mission together into the heart of the country's oldest and most mysterious Blight, they discover the work of mages not encountered since the darkest period in America's past, when Black mages were killed for their power--work that could threaten Laura's and the Skylark's lives, and everything they've worked for"-- Provided by publisher.