Last Updated: February 9, 2023
Baby & Solo
by Lisabeth Posthuma
Hoping for a fresh start when his therapist recommends a part-time job, seventeen-year-old Joel forges a deep bond with a smart-mouthed co-worker before circumstances force him to share the truth about his past.
Concrete Rose
by Angie Thomas
Maverick feels strongly about family ties, making choices he feels necessary to help support his mom while his King father serves time, and leave him literally holding his son in a doctor’s waiting room after he gets paternity test results back and his baby momma ghosts. Now the child he’s raising is impacting the lives of his family and his girlfriend, and the gang life he led to support them all financially could leave them all bearing his responsibilities since it endangers his life. It looks like he may have been offered a chance to go straight, but leaving the King Lords won’t be easy, and a “real” job has high demand for low return.
Incredible Doom
by Matthew Bogart
Allison is drowning under the weight of her manipulative stage magician father. When he brings home the family’s first computer, she escapes into a thrilling new world where she meetings Samir, a like-minded new online friend who has just agreed to run away from home with her. After moving to a new town and leaving all of his friends behind, Richard receives a mysterious note in his locker with instructions on how to connect to ‘Evol BBS,’ a dial-in bulletin board system, and meets a fierce punk named Tina who comes into his life and shakes his entire worldview loose. Unlikely alliances, first love, and minor crime sprees abound in this graphic novel debut about making connections while your world is falling apart.
Let Me Hear a Rhyme
by Tiffany D. Jackson
When a young black teen is murdered, his two best friends decide to keep his memory alive by promoting his music — rhymes that could turn any hangout into a party — with the help of his younger sister, Jasmine, who is out for justice. As the buzz builds, it forces Quadir, Jarrell, and Jasmine, to each confront the death in their own ways.
Skim
by Mariko Tamaki
“Skim” (Kimberly Keiko Cameron) is a not-slim would-be Wiccan goth who goes to a private girls’ school. When her classmate Katie is dumped by her boyfriend, who then kills himself, the entire school goes into mourning overdrive. The popular clique stars a club to boost school spirit, but Skim sinks into an ever-deepening depression.
The Black Kids
by Christina Hammonds Reed
With the Rodney King riots closing in on high school senior Ashley and her family, the privileged bubble she has enjoyed, protecting her from the difficult realities most black people face, begins to crumble.
Those Who Prey
by Jennifer Moffett
Emily expected to spend freshman year strolling through the ivy-covered campus with new friends, finally feeling like she belonged. Instead, she walks the campus alone, still not having found her place or her people so far away from home. Then the Kingdom, an exclusive on-campus group, offers everything Emily expected of college and more: acceptance, friends, a potential boyfriend, and a chance to spend the summer in Italy on a mission trip. But the trip is not what she thought it would be.
Your Heart, My Sky
by Margarita Engle
In Cuba’s “special period in times of peace” of 1991, Liana and Amado find love after their severe hunger gives both courage to risk government retribution by skipping a summer of labor to seek food. Told in their two voices plus that of the stray dog that brought them together.