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Chains
By Laurie Halse Anderson
J AND / Also available on Playaway
After being sold to a cruel couple in New York City, a slave named Isabel spies for the rebels during the Revolutionary War.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
By Ann Brashares
J BRA / Also available as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook and on DVD
During their first summer apart, four teenage girls, best friends from earliest childhood, stay in touch through a shared pair of secondhand jeans that magically adapts to each of their figures and affects their attitudes to their different summer experiences.
Efren Divided
By Ernesto Cisneros
J CIS / Also available on Playaway and as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
While his father works two jobs, seventh-grader Efrén Nava must take care of his twin siblings, kindergartners Max and Mia, after their mother is deported to Mexico.
The Truth about Forever
By Sarah Dessen
J DES / Also available on CD and as an Ebook
The summer following her father’s death, Macy plans to work at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where she makes new friends and finally faces her grief.
Dress Coded
By Carrie Firestone
J FIR / Also available as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
An eighth grader starts a podcast to protest the unfair dress code enforcement at her middle school and sparks a rebellion.
Grenade
By Alan Gratz
J GRA / Also available on CD and as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
On April 1, 1945, with the battle of Okinawa beginning, fourteen-year-old native Okinawan Hideki, drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps, is handed two grenades and told to go kill American soldiers; small for his age, Hideki does not really want to kill anyone, he just wants to find his family, and his struggle across the island will finally bring him face-to-face with Ray, a marine in his very first battle—and the choice he makes then will change his life forever.
Warrior on the Mound
By Sandra W. Headen
J HEA / Also available as an Ebook
Twelve-year-old Cato wants nothing more than to play baseball, perfect his pitch, and meet Mr. Satchel Paige––the best pitcher in Negro League baseball. But when he and his teammates “trespass” on their town’s whites-only baseball field for a practice, the resulting racial outrage burns like a brushfire through the entire community, threatening Cato, his family, and every one of his friends. There’s only one way this can end without violence: It has to be settled on the mound, between the white team and the Black. Winner takes all.
Wrecker
By Carl Hiaasen
J HIA / Aso available as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
Valdez Jones VIII calls himself Wrecker because his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather salvaged shipwrecks for a living. So is it destiny, irony, or just bad luck when Wrecker comes across a speedboat that has run hard aground on a sand flat? The men in the boat don’t want Wrecker to call for help—in fact, they’ll pay him to forget he ever saw them. Wrecker would be happy to forget, but he keeps seeing these men all over Key West. And now they want a lookout. He’ll have to dive deep into their shady dealings to figure out a way to escape this tangled net.
A Spy in the House
By Y.S. Lee
J LEE / Also available as an Ebook
Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, where she is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant’s home in hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships.
The Giver
By Lois Lowry
J LOW / Also available on CD, Playaway, DVD and Blu-ray, and as a graphic novel, an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
Given his lifetime assignment at the ceremony of twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community, and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.
A Mango-Shaped Space
By Wendy Mass
J MAS / Also available as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
Afraid that she is crazy, thirteen-year-old Mia, who sees a special color with every letter, number, and sound, keeps this a secret until she becomes overwhelmed by school, changing relationships, and the loss of something important to her.
Gone Wolf
By Amber McBride
J MCB / Also available on Playaway, CD and as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
In the future, a Black girl known only as Inmate Eleven is kept confined—to be used as a biological match for the president’s son, should he fall ill. She is called a Blue—the color of sadness. She lives in small room with her dog, who is going wolf more often—he’s pacing and imagining he’s free. Inmate Eleven wants to go wolf too, she wants to know why she feels so Blue and what is beyond her small room. In the present, Imogen lives outside of Washington DC. The pandemic has distanced her from everyone but her mother and her therapist. Imogen has intense phobias and nightmares of confinement. Her two older brothers used to help her, but now she’s on her own, until a college student helps her see the difference between being Blue and sad, and Black and empowered.
Life as We Knew It
By Susan Beth Pfeffer
J PFE / Also available as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
Through journal entries sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family’s struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.
Long Way Down
By Jason Reynolds
J REY / Also available on CD and as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook, and as a graphic novel
As Will, fifteen, sets out to avenge his brother Shawn’s fatal shooting, seven ghosts who knew Shawn board the elevator and reveal truths Will needs to know.
Barely Floating
By Lilliam Rivera
J RIV / Also available as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
Natalia De La Cruz Rivera y Santiago, also known as Nat, was swimming neighborhood kids out of their money at the local Inglewood pool when her life changed. The LA Mermaids performed, emerging out of the water with matching sequined swimsuits, and it was then that synchronized swimming stole her heart. The problem? Her activist mom and professor dad think it’s a sport with too much emphasis on looks-on being thin and white. Nat grew up the youngest in a house full of boys, so she knows how to fight for what she wants, often using her anger to fuel her. People often underestimate her swimming skills when they see her stomach rolls, but she knows better than to worry about what people think. Still, she feels more like a submarine than a mermaid, but she wonders if she might be both. Barely Floating explores what it means to sparkle in your skin, build community with those who lift you up, and keep floating when waters get rough.
Amber & Clay
By Laura Amy Schlitz
J SCH / Also available on Playaway and as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
In a warlike land of wind and sunlight, “ringed by a restless sea,” live Rhaskos and Melisto, spiritual twins with little in common beyond the violent and mysterious forces that dictate their lives. A Thracian slave in a Greek household, Rhaskos is as common as clay, a stable boy worth less than a donkey, much less a horse. Wrenched from his mother at a tender age, he nurtures in secret, aided by Socrates, his passions for art and philosophy. Melisto is a spoiled aristocrat, a girl as precious as amber but willful and wild. She’ll marry and be tamed—the curse of all highborn girls—but risk her life for a season first to serve Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Bound by destiny, Melisto and Rhaskos—Amber and Clay—never meet in the flesh. By the time they do, one of them is a ghost. But the thin line between life and death is just one boundary their unlikely friendship crosses.
Louder Than Hunger
By John Schu
J SCH / Also available as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age… and the cruelty of mirrors… and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears?
The Wednesday Wars
By Gary Schmidt
J SCH / Also available as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker’s classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in.
The N.O.A.H. Files: I Am the Walrus
By Neal Shusterman
J SHU / Also available as an Ebook
When fourteen-year-old Noah falls from the trees onto his classmate Sahara, he doesn’t understand how, or why, he would have been up there. It’s just one more in a string of strange things happening to Noah lately. Like when he keels over and every muscle in his body freezes when confronted by bullies. And when he vanishes into the background at a moment he doesn’t want to be noticed by his teacher. And when he unexpectedly blasts Sahara with a bird shriek while flapping his arms uncontrollably in the middle of a school dance. What does it all mean? And why do there suddenly seem to be so many mysterious people trying to kill him? Noah’s friend Ogden has an idea…but like all of Ogden’s ideas, it’s out there. Way out there.
Harbor Me
By Jacqueline Woodson
J WOO / Also available on CD and as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
When six students are chosen to participate in a weekly talk with no adults allowed, they discover that when they’re together, it’s safe to share the hopes and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
All’s Faire in Middle School
By Victoria Jamieson
J GN JAM / Also available on CD and as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
Homeschooled by Renaissance Fair enthusiasts, eleven-year-old Imogene has a hard time fitting in when her wish to enroll in public school is granted.
When Stars Are Scattered
By Victoria Jamieson
J GN JAM / Also available as an Ebook and an Eaudiobook
Omar and his younger brother Hassan live in a refugee camp, and when an opportunity for Omar to get an education comes along, he must decide between going to school every day or caring for his nonverbal brother in this intimate and touching portrayal of family and daily life in a refugee camp.
Picture Day
By Sarah Sax
J GN SAX / Also available as an Ebook
Viv never looks forward to picture day. Her mom always makes her wear a boring braid, and no one at school notices her—aside from her two best friends, Milo and Al, of course. But enough is enough. This year, Viv is taking matters into her own hands. Literally. Enter: a pair of scissors. And, well, a new hairstyle. Just in time for photos! Suddenly Viv is an overnight trendsetter at Brinkley Middle School. Everyone wants her help planning their next big moment—from makeovers to dance proposals, activist rallies to math-team celebrations. She hardly even has time for her friends anymore! It’s exactly how she dreamed of reinventing herself… right?