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Kang recounts his life as a boy growing up in Pyongyang during the Sixties after his Korean family returns to North Korea from their affluent lives in Japan. After Kang’s grandfather is accused of high treason, Kang spends ten years of his life surviving in a remote labor camp or gulag. Kang was only nine years old when he was first imprisoned at the Yodok camp in 1977.

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. When Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time and find her mother, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. A luminous debut novel about finding oneself through family history, art, bravery, and love. Winner of the 2019 Walter Award and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature Honor.

Set during the American Revolution, Octavian is raised as a pampered African prince by a society of Enlightenment philosophers who view him as an experiment. Realizing that his freedom is an illusion, Octavian sets off on a journey to find freedom and a place in the world. These books will challenge everything you have ever learned about the Revolutionary War.

See also The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. II: The Kingdom on the Waves.

Fearing a death sentence, Octavian and his tutor, Dr. Trefusis, escape through rising tides and pouring rain to find shelter in British-occupied Boston. Sundered from all he knows — the College of Lucidity, the rebel cause — Octavian hopes to find safe harbor. Instead, he is soon to learn of Lord Dunmore’s proclamation offering freedom to slaves who join the counterrevolutionary forces.

The first of the Au-Pairs series sets the stage for a hot summer in the Hamptons. Eliza, who used to be rich but now has to be a nanny; Mara, a “regular” girl who just wants to work hard, and lovelorn, Brazilian Jacqui all work together as au-pairs for a wealthy family, but try to have some fun in the Hamptons at the same time.

While in Charlestown Prison in the 1940s, young Malcolm Little reads all the books in the library, joins the debate team and the Nation of Islam, and emerges as Malcolm X.

Spoon and Gabi are in love and decide to stay together, even after Spoon leaves Harlem to spend his senior year at a prestigious prep school. When he comes home during break, he discovers that Gabi is addicted to heroin — “the beast.” Will Spoon and Gabi be able to resist the lure of street life and maintain their love for each other?

As a child, Ta-Nehisi Coates was seen by his father, Paul, as too sensitive and lacking focus.  Coates details with candor the challenges of dealing with his tough-love father, the influence of his mother, and the dynamics of his extended family, including his brother Big Bill, who was on a very different path than Ta-Nehisi. Coates also tells of his struggles at school and with girls, making this a timely story to which many readers will relate. 

 A realistic and emotional novel about a woman battling mental illness and societal pressures written by the iconic American writer Sylvia Plath.The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. 

Learn about Justice Sotomayor’s rise and her amazing work as well as about the Supreme Court in this fascinating memoir that shows that no matter the obstacles, dreams can come true.

This volume includes more than 100 articles from 60 years of baseball writing by the best baseball journalists. Read classic articles about the game’s legendary players like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and Reggie Jackson. Best of all, there are nearly 100 compleeting photographs to complement the text.

Nora knows the secrets behind the horrifying things happening on Fear Street and reveals the dark legacy that marked the start of the terror three hundred years earlier, when a young girl was burned at the stake.

It isn’t hidden behind the bathroom door or quietly flushed down the toilet in this book: a look at the dirty details of what happens to human waste around the globe and how it affects our health and sanitation.

With the Rodney King riots closing in on Black high school senior Ashley and her family, the privileged bubble protecting her from the difficult realities most Black people face, begins to crumble.

Emily has had a rough senior year of high school. She has to move from Chicago back to Boston and her boyfriend dumps her! Luckily, Emily meets up with some old friends and the girls complain how boys don’t know how to treat girls. Together, they create a book with a list of ways boys should behave. The girls convince Emily to try out their tips and tricks on Luke, the cutest boy in school. Will Emily finally find a guy who treats her well or will Luke be like all of the rest?

Living in Nazi Germany, young Liesel and her foster family choose to lie and steal to protect a Jewish refugee hiding in their basement. Narrated by Death, this is not your typical World War II story.

Through the sweetness of apples, the beauty of tulips, the intoxication of marijuana, and potato control; Pollan presents case studies that mirror four types of human desires that are reflected in the way that we selectively grow, breed, and genetically engineer our plants.

Jason Bourne, a deep-cover CIA agent, loses his memory in an accident which was originally intended to kill him. In re-tracing his steps, he confounds Agency officials to the extent that they are not sure that he is the same man they sent into the field. The CIA orders him killed, as does his original enemy, the most dangerous assassin in the world.

Melissa Fuller, a New York City gossip columnist, lives a life filled with shopping, man troubles, and frivolity. But when her elderly neighbor is attacked, Melissa assumes responsibility for the woman’s pets, with help from the neighbor’s playboy nephew. Or so she thinks. This novel is written entirely in emails.

Just when seventeen-year-old Matt thinks he can’t handle one more piece of terrible news, he meets a girl who’s dealt with a lot more — and who just might be able to clue him in on how to rise up when life keeps knocking him down — in this vivid and ultimately upbeat tale of grief, redemption, and grace.

Fifteen-year-old Ruby “Roo” Oliver is having a tough year at Tate Prep. Through a series of social debacles, she loses her best friends, her boyfriend, her dignity, and the respect of her fellow Taters in less than two weeks’ time. Following nearly half a dozen panic attacks, Roo starts to spend some quality time on Doctor Z.’s couch, where she makes a list of boyfriends past and present, official and unofficial, and starts on a journey of self-discovery. Ruby is a likable and empathetic character whose quirks and behaviors will strike a chord with many readers. [This is the first book in the Ruby Oliver quartet.] (School Library Journal)

“Ghetto nerd,” outcast, and anime-loving Oscar Wao is the latest in a long line of doomed generations to suffer the dreaded fuku curse of his native Dominican Republic. With humor and talent as his weapons, he perseveres, knowing “you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.”

The Burning recreates Greenwood at the height of its prosperity, explores the currents of hatred, racism, and mistrust between its Black residents and Tulsa’s White population, narrates events leading up to and including Greenwood’s devastation, and documents the subsequent silence that surrounded this tragedy. Delving into history that’s long been pushed aside, this is the true story of Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre, with updates that connect the historical significance of the massacre to the ongoing struggle for racial justice in America.

This is the memoir of a Nazi Holocaust survivor. This grandmother speaks from her experiences in the Lodz ghetto in Poland and Auschwitz when she was a teenager. Riva Minska vividly shares how the Nazis destroyed her family, her community, and her way of life and tells how she managed to survive the death camps of World War II.