Join us January 16 at Cedar Hills Crossing for our Young
Adult Book Club with Brianna B! We will be discussing The Hate You Give
by Angie Thomas.
Brianna says, “I can’t stop telling
people to read The Hate U Give. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter
movement, the novel is about Starr Carter, who is the sole witness to a
blatant injustice and now has to navigate the aftermath. Her struggle
between speaking up and preserving her (and her amazing family’s) safety
is painful, but it is an important and timely narrative that needs to
be discussed by everyone.”
This is
everything I could ever want in a fantasy novel AND more (the heroines part).
Be still my heart. I’m not sure which princess I’m in love with more! - Andy
(Staff Pick)
From
the author of The Wrath and the Dawn comes another action-packed adventure set in a lush,
Japanese-inspired fantasy with magic and samurai. (Staff Pick)
This book tackles it all: coming of age, grief, parental expectations, first love,
and friendship all intertwined into a big family secret. I appreciated the
honesty that Sánchez writes from: the angsty teenager (not always pleasant
but I related to her in a deep way). Only when we choose to see our parents
as people do our walls begin to break down and our rageful behaviors subside.
- Andy (Staff Pick)
If you liked
In Real Life by Cory Doctorow, and Jen Wang, then try…
“In Kekla Magoon’s Coretta Scott King award-winning debut, she tackles with aplomb the tension between the Black Panthers and the more pacifist groups of the Civil Rights Movement through the eyes of 13-year old Sam.”
“Are you looking for a smart, feminist, historical fiction kind of read? Look no further! Faith, our heroine, lives a double life in Victorian England. What secrets does her father keep? A fine read, this!”
“Infinitely better than the long, boring, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit is an excellent adventure for all ages! If you only saw the movies, you MUST read the book.”
“This graphic novel is the first in a two volume amazing adaptation of the novel. The artwork is so great and done by some of the best artists in the business, and the prose is faithful to the original story. It’s terrific.”
“When a devastating tsunami leaves behind only two survivors, they must rebuilt the Nation while battling starvation, sharks, mutineers, and cannibals.”
“Okay there is the tiniest bit of romance (and a one-panel kiss - I’m sorry) in the background of this inventive graphic novel, but it’s certainly not the point of the story. At its heart, Ghostopolis is about a boy getting to know his grandfather (and himself) while escapign a ghost dimension. Totally normal.”
“This wonderfully written book won the National Book Award in 2015. A teenager suffers from mental illness and delves between two realities. Shusterman’s son drew the illustrations in this novel.”
“This dark historical thriller is not for the faint of heart, but for those who love a spine-tingling mystery, this book will grip you and not let go.”
“The narrator of this book is a 15 year old autistic boy who finds a neighbor’s dog dead one night. He sets out to solve the mystery of who killed the dog. This book will make you think about the world in a different way.”
“Frighteningly similar to the true and brutal murders of Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, and countless others, this fictional masterpiece uncovers all sides of the story and reminds us that no one is merely a ‘bystander’ in systemic racism.”
“Baba Yaga, eater of children, fearsome witch, needs an assistant, and Masha, determined to follow in her beloved grandmother’s footsteps, needs an adventure.”
“This book is so much more than historical fiction about a Japanese and an American soldier stranded on a Pacific Island during W.W.II. It’s also about a mystery involving the diary kept by the Japanese soldiers and the complexity of the family dynamics of three generations of males affected by this diary and by war.”
Sundara fled Cambodia with her aunt’s family to escape the Khmer Rouge
army when she was thirteen, leaving behind her parents, her brother and
sister, and the boy she had loved since she was a child.
Now,
four years later, she struggles to fit in at her Oregon high school and
to be “a good Cambodian girl” at home. A good Cambodian girl never
dates; she waits for her family to arrange her marriage to a Cambodian
boy. Yet Sundara and Jonathan, an extraordinary American boy, are
powerfully drawn to each other.
Copper Sun is the epic story of a young girl torn from her
African village, sold into slavery, and stripped of everything she has
ever known—except hope.
Danny’s tall and skinny. Even though he’s not built, his arms are long
enough to give his pitch a power so fierce any college scout would sign
him on the spot. Ninety-five mile an hour fastball, but the boy’s not
even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound he loses it.
But at his private school, they don’t expect much else from him. Danny’ s
brown. Half-Mexican brown. And growing up in San Diego that close to
the border means everyone else knows exactly who he is before he even
opens his mouth. Before they find out he can’t speak Spanish, and
before they realize his mom has blond hair and blue eyes, they’ve got
him pegged. But it works the other way too. And Danny’s convinced it’s
his whiteness that sent his father back to Mexico.
Told from alternating points of view, this historical novel draws upon
the experiences of three very different young women: Bella, who has just
emigrated from Italy and doesn’t speak a word of English; Yetta, a
Russian immigrant and crusader for labor rights; and Jane, the daughter
of a wealthy businessman. Bella and Yetta work together at the Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory under terrible conditions–their pay is docked for
even the slightest mistake, the bosses turn the clocks back so closing
time is delayed, and they are locked into the factory all day, only to
be frisked before they leave at night to make sure they haven’t stolen
any shirtwaists. When the situation worsens, Yetta leads the factory’s
effort to strike, and she meets Jane on the picket line. Jane, who feels
trapped by the limits of her own sheltered existence, joins a group of
high-society women who have taken an interest in the strike as a way of
supporting women’s suffrage. Through a series of twists and turns, the
three girls become fast friends–and all of them are in the Triangle
Shirtwast Factory on March 25, 1911, the day of the fateful fire.
When her father is killed in a coup, Laila and her mother and brother
leave their war-torn homeland for a fresh start in the suburbs of
Washington, D.C.
At her new high school, Laila makes mistakes,
makes friends, and even meets a boy who catches her eye. But this new
life brings unsettling facts to light. The American newspapers call her
father a brutal dictator and suggest that her family’s privilege came at
the expense of innocent lives. Meanwhile, her mother would like nothing
more than to avenge his death, and she’ll go to great lengths to regain
their position of power.
Naeem is far from the “model teen.” Moving fast in his immigrant
neighborhood in Queens is the only way he can outrun the eyes of his
hardworking Bangladeshi parents and their gossipy neighbors. Even worse,
they’re not the only ones watching. Cameras on poles. Mosques
infiltrated. Everyone knows: Be careful what you say and who you say it
to. Anyone might be a watcher.
As the Revolutionary War rages on, Isabel and Curzon have narrowly
escaped Valley Forge—but their relief is short-lived. Before long they
are reported as runaways, and the awful Bellingham is determined to
track them down. With purpose and faith, Isabel and Curzon march on,
fiercely determined to find Isabel’s little sister Ruth, who is enslaved
in a Southern state—where bounty hunters are thick as flies.
A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: humanity has
conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now Scythes
are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in
order to keep the size of the population under control.
Citra
and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither
wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that
the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.
Lirael lost one of her hands in the binding of Orannis, but now she has a
new hand, one of gilded steel and Charter Magic. On a dangerous
journey, Lirael returns to her childhood home, the Clayr’s Glacier,
where she was once a Second Assistant Librarian. There, a young woman
from the distant North brings her a message from her long-dead mother,
Arielle. It is a warning about the Witch with No Face. But who is the
Witch, and what is she planning? Lirael must use her new powers to save
the Old Kingdom from this great danger—and it must be forestalled not
only in the living world but also in the cold, remorseless river of
Death.
Emma Allen couldn’t be more excited to start her sophomore year.
Not only is she the assistant stage manager for the drama club’s
production of Hamlet, but her crush Brandon is directing, and
she’s rocking a new haircut that’s sure to get his attention. But soon
after school starts, everything goes haywire. Emma’s promoted to stage
manager with zero experience, her best friend Lulu stops talking to her,
and Josh–the adorable soccer boy who’s cast as the lead–turns out to
be a disaster. It’s up to Emma to fix it all, but she has no clue where
to start. One night after rehearsal, Emma stays
behind to think through her life’s latest crises and distractedly falls
through the stage’s trap door … landing in the basement of the
Globe Theater.
Rho, the courageous visionary from House Cancer, lost nearly everything
when she exposed and fought against the Marad, a mysterious terrorist
group bent on destroying balance in the Zodiac Galaxy. Now the Marad has
disappeared without a trace, and an uneasy peace has been declared.
But
Rho is suspicious. She believes the Master is still out there in some
other form. And looming over all are the eerie visions of her mother,
who died many years ago but is now appearing to Rho in the stars.
Lucky lives a relatively normal life on a remote moon of the planet
Aries One, safe from the turmoil and devastation of the interstellar war
between Humans and Aliens. Lucky has seen images of the horned,
cloven-hooved Aliens before, but he’s never seen one up close. Then one
night, he dreams that the stars are singing to him—and wakes to evidence
suggesting that he is not so normal after all. When Lucky’s mother
sacrifices herself to help him escape an elite Human military force
called the Shadow Guards, he must rely on the Alien crew of a ramshackle
starship, where he finds that humanity’s deadly enemies seem
surprisingly Human up close. In fact, they may be more Human than Lucky
himself, who has a dangerous power that could change the course of the
war and the fate of the galaxy—if he can learn how to use it. Star Wars
fans seeking another saga to love need look no further than this epic
middle-grade adventure from SF Said, illustrated by Dave McKean with
remarkable white-on-black spacescapes.
When her best friend dies under mysterious circumstances, Sophie sets
off to stay with her cousins on the remote Isle of Skye. It’s been years
since she last saw them–brooding Cameron with his scarred hand; Piper,
who seems too perfect to be real; and peculiar little Lilias with her
fear of bones.
Still, Sophie never expected the strange new rules
the family now lives by: Make no mention of Cameron’s accident. Never
leave the front gate unlocked. Above all, don’t speak of the girl who’s
no longer there, the sister whose death might have closer ties to
Sophie’s past–and more sinister consequences for her future–than she
ever knew.
