2022 Teen Services Staff Picks

""What if I played football?" I ask. As soon as it's out of my mouth, I feel stupid. Even suggesting it feels like I've overstepped some kind of invisible line we've all agreed not to discuss. We don't talk about how Mara is different from other girls. We don't talk about how Mara is gay but no one says so. But when I do stuff like this, I worry it gets harder for us all to ignore what's right in front of us. I direct my gaze to Quinn. "What do you...

"When Donovan left his copy of 'The Adventurers' on the kitchen counter, he didn't think his mom would read it--much less have a problem with it. It's just an adventure novel about two characters trying to stop an evil genius. But soon the entire town is freaking out about whether the book's main characters are gay, Donovan's mom is trying to get the book removed from the school curriculum, and Donovan is caught in the middle"--Provided by publisher....

Two seventeen-year-old trans boys in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, struggling to understand themselves and their love for each other, are inspired by an online story about trans soldiers who fell in love during the American Revolution.

Lahore, Pakistan. Then. Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start. Juniper, California. Now. Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one...

"At a high school where the students are literally divided into predators and prey, friendships maintain the fragile peace. Who among them will become a Beastar- a hero destined to lead in a society naturally rife with mistrust?"--Cover.

Roll for initiative! Jay, Lana, Drew, Walter, and Shen have played Dice & Deathtraps together since high school. Now, on the verge of graduating college and scattering, they've decided to finally complete their unfinished first campaign. But when Jay's partner Cassandra joins as a new player, Lana's afraid the party won't ever finish their quest...

For Ning, the only thing worse than losing her mother is knowing that it is her own fault. She was the one who unknowingly brewed the poison tea that killed her -- the poison tea that now threatens to also take her sister, Shu. She hears of a competition to find the kingdom's greatest shénnóng-shi -- masters of the ancient and magical art of tea-making -- where the winner will receive a favor from the princess. It may be Ning's only chance to...

When twelve-year-old Olive, who suffers from brittle bone disease and has been homeschooled all her life, finally attends school in person she soon discovers fitting in is not that easy, but if she can find the magical wish-granting hummingbird that supposedly lives nearby, and prove herself worthy, maybe her deepest wish will be granted.

When time stopped on June 23, 2020, the world's youth were enlisted to spend part of their school days trying to come up with a solution. Sixteen-year-old Truda Becker has a theory that the time stoppage is a result of people not caring for one another, but she must work around her father's strange habit of obsessively covering up a light switch in their home, her mother's absence, and her sister's psychopathic tendencies, to get at the truth.

"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet. So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue-in Marilyn's case that her daughter become...