Young Adult Staff Picks

Sal used to know his place with his adoptive gay father, their loving Mexican American family, and his best friend, Samantha. But it's senior year, and suddenly Sal is throwing punches, questioning everything, and realizing he no longer knows himself. If Sal's not who he thought he was, who is he?

Delia Bridges is striving to become the compassionate doctor she's been unable to find in her journey to diagnose her excruciating period pain--but when a single rule-breaking incident jeopardizes her future, she must find a way to reclaim her dreams in this funny, period-positive novel. High school senior Delia Bridges has the most amazing mom and sister, a killer GPA--and periods that are so painful they make her scream, pass out, and throw up....

After her sister Elara forms an unbreakable bond with an enemy dragon, seventeen-year-old Faron, who once wielded the magic of the gods to save her island from those same dragon-riding colonizers, must find a way to save her sister and the fate of their world in the face of impossible odds.

Huda and her family just moved to Dearborn, Michigan, a small town with a big Muslim population. In her old town, Huda knew exactly who she was: She was the hijabi girl. But in Dearborn, everyone is the hijabi girl. Huda is lost in a sea of hijabis, and she can't rely on her hijab to define her anymore. She has to define herself. So she tries on a bunch of cliques, but she isn't a hijabi fashionista or a hijabi athlete or a hijabi gamer. She's not...

"Yolanda Alvarez is having a good year. She's starting to feel at home at Julia De Burgos High, her school in the Bronx. She has her best friend Victory, and maybe something with José, a senior boy she's getting to know. She's confident her initiation into her family's bruja tradition will happen soon. But then a white boy, the son of a politician, appears at Julia De Burgos High, and his vibes are off. And Yolanda's initiation begins with a series...

"In a world where the rain never stops, impoverished Jin Haldar is offered the score of a lifetime--a massive stash of gold hidden in the sunken ruins of Las Vegas and must do what she promised herself she'd never do again: dive"-- Provided by publisher.

"Our new home with its thick walls and locked doors wants me to stay trapped in my skin but I am fury and flame." Fifteen-year-old Marisol is the daughter of a soucouyant. Every new moon, she sheds her skin like the many women before her, shifting into a fireball witch who must fly into the night and slowly sip from the lives of others to sustain her own. But Brooklyn is no place for fireball witches with all its bright lights, shut windows, and bolt-locked...

"A surrealist novel about four teenagers who find unconventional ways to escape standardized tests and their perilous world, and discover that the only escape from reality is to face it"-- Provided by publisher.

Ning enters a cutthroat magical competition to find the kingdom's greatest master of the art of brewing tea, but political schemes and secrets make her goal of gaining access to royal physicians to cure her dying sister far more dangerous than she imagined. 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...

"Two enemy witches must enter into a deadly alliance to take down a tyrant who threatens both their worlds-with unpredictable results"-- Provided by publisher.