Young Adult

This one reads like Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. On the cusp of adulthood, Vera grows up in a small town that faces a singular affliction: some mothers vanish, disappearing into the clouds. As her peers begin to marry and become mothers, they speculate about who might be the first to go, each wondering about her own fate. When motherhood comes for Vera, she is faced with the question: will she be able to stay and mother her beloved child, or will she disappear?

The second entry about a girls’ boarding school in Cornwall in Colgan’s charming School by the Sea series. For the second year at Downey House, it's getting harder and harder to stick to the rules.

Great writing prompt for middle school and high school teachers. Two sisters coped with the pandemic by using Wordles to inspire one-page stories that they exchanged with one another. This collection includes 104 one-page stories using the words of 52 Wordle puzzles and is a great idea for teachers seeking ways to excite students about writing.

Wonderful book that explores the complexities of living with OCD and offers the prospect of hope, happiness and healing. Perfect for teen readers looking for a happy ending.

Haunting novel set in Japan that follows a murder’s chief suspect, Lucy Fly – a young, vulnerable English girl living and working in Tokyo as a translator. As Lucy is interrogated by the police, she reveals her past to the reader, and it is a past which is dangerously ambiguous and compromising. My teenage girls especially loved this one.

Set in the near future, Johnson tells the stories of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.

An expansive, moving poetry anthology, celebrating 20 years of poetry from students and alumni of Chicago's Oak Park River Forest High School Spoken Word Club.

Haunting novel about a group of five terminally ill teenagers whose midnight stories become their reality. Perhaps your teens have watched the Netflix series?

When the YouTube-famous Ghost Gang (Chrissy, Chase, Emma and Kiki) visit a haunted LA hotel notorious for tragedy to secretly film after dark, they expect it to be just like their previous paranormal huntings… spooky enough to attract subscribers – and ultimately harmless. But when they stumble upon something unexpected in the former room of a gruesome serial killer, they quickly realize that they’re in over their heads. Not for the faint of heart.

Daddy duty. As I have a teenage daughter who is a fan of The Selection Stories, I decided to check it out for myself. And while I may not be captivated by an inside look the hearts and minds of the two men fighting to win America Singer’s love, I can assure you that this book series is a great way to start conversations with teenage girls. 

My older teenage daughter is into the Shadow and Bone trilogy (there’s a series on Netflix, if you’re a REALLY lazy reader), so we checked out collection of stories, beautifully illustrated by Daniel J. Zollinger.

And since I have a teenage son who is fascinated by war and the military, I had to include this entry for red meat readers. Danny Manion has been fighting his entire life. Sometimes with his fists; sometimes with his words. But when his actions finally land him in real trouble, he can't fight the judge who offers him a choice: jail... or the army. Turns out there's a perfect place for him in the US military: the Studies and Observation Group (SOG), an elite volunteer-only task force comprised of US Air Force Commandos, Army Green Berets, Navy SEALS, and even a CIA agent or two. With the SOG's focus on covert action and psychological warfare, Danny is guaranteed an unusual tour of duty, and a hugely dangerous one. Fortunately, the very same qualities that got him in trouble at home make him a natural-born commando in a secret war. Even if almost nobody knows he's there.

Before Miss Peregrine gave them a home, the story of peculiars was written in the Tales. Wealthy cannibals who dine on the discarded limbs of peculiars. A fork-tongued princess. These are but a few of the truly brilliant stories in Tales of the Peculiar—the collection of fairy tales known to hide information about the peculiar world, including clues to the locations of time loops. Perfect for fans of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series.

After spending her early years in Wuhan, China, riding water buffalos and devouring stinky tofu, Laura immigrates to Texas, where her hometown is as foreign as Mars – at least until 2020, when COVID-19 makes Wuhan a household name. Terrific coming-of-age graphic novel about a girl who simply wants to make the basketball team, escape Chinese school and figure out why girls make her heart flutter.

In this captivating fantasy, Talia must solve a multigenerational mystery and break a curse, all the while being torn between making her family proud and regaining the trust of the boy she loves.