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Recommended Reads for Teens

Don't know what to read? Here's what's new, what's good, what WE loved and what people are talking about

YALSA 2020 Teens Top 10

Nominate your favorite book to make the cut for the 2020 Teens' Top 10

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Alex Awards

This award, sponsored by the Margaret A. Edwards Trust, honors ten adult books with special appeal to teens. The Alex committee also publishes its official nomination list after the awards announcement.

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Edwards Award

The Margaret A. Edwards Award, sponsored by School Library Journal, honors an author and specific works by that author for significant and lasting contribution for writing to teens.

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Morris Award

The William C. Morris YA Debut Award, funded by the William C. Morris Endowment, honors the best book by a previously unpublished author writing for teens. A shortlist is announced in December each year.

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Nonfiction Award

The YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award honors the best nonfiction written for teens each year. The Nonfiction committee also publishes its official nomination list after the awards announcement.

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Odyssey

The Odyssey Award honors the producer of the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States. The award is co-administered with the Association for Library Service to Children

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Printz Award

The Michael L. Printz Award, sponsored by Booklist, honors the best book written for teens each year.

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YA Books Dealing with Racism, Police Brutality, and Social Justice

I'm Not Dying With You Tonight

Kimberly Jones

I'm Not Dying With You Tonight

Kimberly Jones

Told from two viewpoints, Atlanta high school seniors Lena and Campbell, one black, one white, must rely on each other to survive after a football rivalry escalates into a riot.

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Long Way Down

Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down

Jason Reynolds

Will's older brother, Shawn, has been shot.Dead. Will feels a sadness so great, he can't explain it.

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Allegedly

Tiffany D. Jackson

Allegedly

Tiffany D. Jackson

Mary Addison killed a baby. Allegedly. She didn't say much in that first interview with detectives, and the media filled in the only blanks that mattered: a white baby had died while under the care of a churchgoing black woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The public convicted Mary and the jury made it official. But did she do it

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Colorblind

Johnathan Harris

Colorblind

Johnathan Harris

When Johnathan was just eight years old, he and his brothers were roughed up and handcuffed by police officers. The experience left young Johnathan full of anger, suspicion, and hatred. His family - especially his incarcerated uncle - helped him overcome his own prejudices.

Place hold

Swing

Kwame Alexander

Swing

Kwame Alexander

When America is not so beautiful, or right, or just, it can be hard to know what to do. Best friends Walt and Noah decide to use their voices to grow more good in the world, but first they've got to find cool.

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Monster

Walter Dean Myers

Monster

Walter Dean Myers

Monster is a multi-award-winning, provocative coming-of-age story that was the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award recipient, an ALA Best Book, a Coretta Scott King Honor selection, and a National Book Award finalist.

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How It Went Down

Kekla Magoon

How It Went Down

Kekla Magoon

When sixteen-year-old Tariq Johnson dies from two gunshot wounds, his community is thrown into an uproar. Tariq was black. The shooter, Jack Franklin, is white.

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Internment

Samira Ahmed

Internment

Samira Ahmed

Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens.

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The 57 Bus

Dashka Slater

The 57 Bus

Dashka Slater

One teenager in a skirt. One teenager with a lighter. One moment that changes both of their lives forever.

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The Hate U Give

Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give

Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

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American Street

Ibi Zoboi

American Street

Ibi Zoboi

In this stunning debut novel, Pushcart-nominated author Ibi Zoboi draws on her own experience as a young Haitian immigrant, infusing this lyrical exploration of America with magical realism and vodou culture.

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Piecing Me Together

Renee Watson

Piecing Me Together

Renee Watson

Acclaimed author Renee Watson offers a powerful story about a girl striving for success in a world that too often seems like it's trying to break her.

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Let Me Hear a Rhyme

Tiffany D. Jackson

Let Me Hear a Rhyme

Tiffany D. Jackson

Brooklyn, 1998. Biggie Smalls was right: Things done changed. But that doesn't mean that Quadir and Jarrell are cool letting their best friend Steph's music lie forgotten under his bed after he's murdered—not when his rhymes could turn any Bed Stuy corner into a party.

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Stamped: Racism, Anti-Rac...

Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism, and You

Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

This is NOT a history book. This is a book about the here and now. A book to help us better understand why we are where we are. A book about race.

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Spring 2020 YA Releases

A Breath Too Late

Rocky Callen

A Breath Too Late

Rocky Callen

Seventeen-year-old Ellie had no hope left. Yet the day after she dies by suicide, she finds herself in the midst of an out-of-body experience. She is a spectator, swaying between past and present, retracing the events that unfolded prior to her death.

Title Coming Soon

All Boys Aren't Blue

George M. Johnson

All Boys Aren't Blue

George M. Johnson

Farrar, Straus and Giroux has bought world rights to journalist and LGBTQ+ activist George M. Johnson's YA memoir, All Boys Aren't Blue. The memoir takes stories from his life growing up as a queer black teen to show readers how they can fight for themselves or be allies in the struggle for equity and equality.

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Dancing at the Pity Party

Tyler Feder

Dancing at the Pity Party

Tyler Feder

From before her mother's first oncology appointment through the stages of her cancer to the funeral, sitting shiva, and afterward, when she must try to make sense of her life as a motherless daughter, Tyler Feder tells her story in this graphic novel that is full of piercing--but also often funny--details.

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Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know

Samira Ahmed

Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know

Samira Ahmed

It’s August in Paris and 17-year-old Khayyam Maquet is at a crossroads. This holiday with her professor parents should be a dream trip for the budding art historian. But her maybe-ex-boyfriend is probably ghosting her, she might have just blown her chance at getting into her dream college.

Title Coming Soon

Rules For Being a Girl

Candace Bushnell and Katie Cotugno

Rules For Being a Girl

Candace Bushnell and Katie Cotugno

Marin has always been good at navigating these unspoken guidelines. A star student and editor of the school paper, she dreams of getting into Brown University. Marin’s future seems bright―and her young, charismatic English teacher, Mr. Beckett, is always quick to admire her writing and talk books with her.

Title Coming Soon

Verona Comics

Jennifer Dugan

Verona Comics

Jennifer Dugan

From the author of Hot Dog Girl comes a fresh and funny queer YA contemporary novel about two teens who fall in love in an indie comic book shop.

Title Coming Shortly

We Didn't Ask for This

Adi Alsaid

We Didn't Ask for This

Adi Alsaid

Central International School’s annual lock-in is legendary — and for six students, this year’s lock-in is the answer to their dreams. The chance to finally win the contest. Kiss the guy. Make a friend. Become the star of a story that will be passed down from student to student for years to come.

Title Coming Shortly

Girl Crushed

Katie Heaney

Girl Crushed

Katie Heaney

Before Quinn Ryan was in love with Jamie Rudawski, she loved Jamie Rudawski, who was her best friend. But when Jamie dumps Quinn a month before their senior year, Quinn is suddenly girlfriend-less and best friend-less.

Title Coming Shortly

Staff Recommendations

We Were Liars

E. Lockhart

We Were Liars

E. Lockhart

Spending the summers on her family's private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer.

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Booked

Kwame Alexander

Booked

Kwame Alexander

Twelve-year-old Nick loves soccer and hates books, but soon learns the power of words as he wrestles with problems at home, stands up to a bully, and tries to impress the girl of his dreams.

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The Poet X

Elizabeth Acevedo

The Poet X

Elizabeth Acevedo

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers.

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Paper Towns

John Green

Paper Towns

John Green

One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears.

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Carry On

Rainbow Rowell

Carry On

Rainbow Rowell

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who's ever been chosen.That's what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right.

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Six of Crows

Leigh Bardugo

Six of Crows

Leigh Bardugo

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction--if they don't kill each other first

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Code Name Verity

Elizabeth Wein

Code Name Verity

Elizabeth Wein

In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.

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Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson

A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect of Melinda's freshman year in high school.

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Dear Martin

Nic Stone

Dear Martin

Nic Stone

Writing letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seventeen-year-old college-bound Justyce McAllister struggles to face the reality of race relations today and how they are shaping him.

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The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton

The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton

The struggle of three brothers to stay together after their parent's death and their quest for identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society.

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Forever

Judy Bloom

Forever

Judy Bloom

Katherine and Michael are in love, and Katherine knows it’s forever—especially after she loses her virginity to him. But when they’re separated for the summer, she begins to have feelings for another boy. What does this say about her love for Michael? And what does “forever” mean, anyway?

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Lips Touch: Three Times

Laini Taylor

Lips Touch: Three Times

Laini Taylor

Three short stories about kissing, featuring elements of the supernatural.

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Unforgiven

Lauren Kate

Unforgiven

Lauren Kate

Learning that Lilith has been in Hell since he broke her heart, Cam meets with Lucifer and makes a deal to become his slave for eternity if he cannot win back Lilith's heart in two weeks.

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Tam Lin

Pamela Dean

Tam Lin

Pamela Dean

Tam Lin is a 1991 contemporary fantasy novel by United States author Pamela Dean, who based it on the traditional Scottish border ballad "Tam Lin".

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YA Books Available to Read on Hoopla Right Now!

The Trials of Apollo: The...

Rick Riordan

The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracles

Rick Riordan

How do you punish an immortal? By making him human.

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The Giver

Lois Lowry

The Giver

Lois Lowry

The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community.

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They Both Die at the End

Adam Silvera

They Both Die at the End

Adam Silvera

On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They're going to die today.

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With the Fire on High

Elizabeth Acevedo

With the Fire on High

Elizabeth Acevedo

Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago's life has been about making the tough decisions-doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.

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Delirium

Lauren Oliver

Delirium

Lauren Oliver

In an alternate United States, love has been declared a dangerous disease, and the government forces everyone who reaches eighteen to have a procedure called the Cure.

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