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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.

Berlin, 1942: When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move to a new house far, far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people in the distance.While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different from his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

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)

Emi is filled with sadness as she prepares to leave her home for the internment camp where she and her fellow Japanese-Americans will be forced to live. Just before she leaves, her best friend Laurie brings her a special bracelet so that Emi will not forget her. When Emi loses the bracelet though in the crowds, she feels that has lost so much more and even more alone — until she realizes that maybe she doesn’t need the bracelet to remember Laurie after all.

Life is harsh in Chennai’s teeming streets, so when runaway sisters Viji and Rukku arrive, their prospects look grim. Very quickly, eleven-year-old Viji discovers how vulnerable they are in this uncaring, dangerous world. Fortunately, the girls find shelter — and friendship — on an abandoned bridge. With two homeless boys, Muthi and Arul, the group forms a family of sorts. And while making a living scavenging the city’s trash heaps is the pits, the kids find plenty to laugh about and take pride in too. After all, they are now the bosses of themselves and no longer dependent on untrustworthy adults. But when illness strikes, Viji must decide whether to risk seeking help from strangers or to keep holding on to their fragile, hard-fought freedom. Washington Post Best Books 2019.

“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.”

With speeches of Civil War leaders, Lewis’ poignant poetry gives young readers a vivid insight into the brutal conflict that tore America apart. 

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.

When Amra’s best friend said they couldn’t speak anymore, she realized that this was the first sign her world was changing. Amra, who was Muslim, lived in Bihac, Bosnia. Then Muslim refugees from other Bosnian cities started arriving, fleeing Serbian persecution. When the tanks rolled into Bihac, bringing her own city under seige, Amra’s happy life in her peaceful city vanished. But there is light even in the darkest of times, and she discovered that light in the warm, bonfire eyes of a stray cat. Here is the stunning true story of a teen who, even in the brutality of war, never wavered in her determination to obtain an education, maintain friendships, and even find a first love ― and the cat who gave comfort, hope, and maybe even served as the family’s guardian spirit. YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist.

Through moving photographs from the Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem, Israel, archivist Chana Byers Abells has created an unforgettable essay about the children who lived and died during the Holocaust. While it is a story of death and loss, it is also a story of courage and endurance, a story to be shared with today’s children.

One of the most controversial YA novels of all time, The Chocolate War made its debut in 1974, and quickly became a bestselling — and provocative — classic for young adults. This chilling portrait of an all-boys prep school casts an unflinching eye on the pitfalls of conformity and corruption in our most elite cultural institutions.

Fascinated by forensics, seventeen-year-old Cameryn Mahoney persuades her father, the county coroner in sleepy Silverton, CO, to take her on as his assistant. But she never expects her first case to involve the death of a friend!

Twelve—and only twelve—emerald-bedecked integers sleep somewhere in this nation’s soil. If you can find them, they’re yours to keep—and only this book can tell you where they are. 

A man struggles to come to terms with his parents’ brutal past at Auschwitz in this seminal graphic novel.

Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution is beautifully rendered in this graphic novel series.

This compilation of the worst-case scenario books that were a phenomenon in the late 90’s will be all new for today’s teens. Learn how to avoid an animal attack, or escape an avalanche — perfect for wanna-be Survivor contestants.

Fifteen-year old DeAndre lives in the projects of West Baltimore, and his parents, Fran and Gary, battle severe drug addiction. This book asks difficult questions: What happens when parents don’t parent? What is the community’s role? Simon and Burns went on to create the TV series “The Wire,” continuing their examination of life in Baltimore.

Everything was going great for Willie Weaver, renowned pitcher and star of his baseball team. Until his accident, that is. Faced with multiple losses, Willie runs away from his home, family, and friends in Montana to start all over in L.A. Will he be able to put the pieces of his life back together?

The Croc family is on a never-ending mission to eat Rat, Pig, Goat, and Zebra. Fans of graphic novels (or comic collections such as Calvin and Hobbes) and of the Timmy Failure series are sure to enjoy this collection.

The Bell twins are stars on the basketball court and comrades in life. While there are some differences — Josh shaves his head and Jordan loves his locks — both twins adhere to the Bell basketball rules: In this game of life, your family is the court, and the ball is your heart. When life intervenes in the form of a new girl, the balance shifts and growing apart proves painful. Alexander eloquently mashes up concrete poetry, hip-hop, a love of jazz, and a thriving family bond. The effect is poetry in motion. It is a rare verse novel that is fundamentally poetic rather than using this writing trend as a device. There is also a quirky vocabulary element that adds a fun intellectual note to the narrative. This may be just the right book for those hard-to-match youth who live for sports or music or both. (2015 Newbery Medal Winner)

Set in Salem, Massachusetts during the late 1600s, Miller uses the story of the infamous witch trials as an allegory for the anti-Communist feelings and the McCarthy hearings in America during the 1950’s. As the fervor over identifying witches gains traction, innocent people fall victim to unwarranted accusations, with devastating results. What happens when intolerance reigns in a society? Looking for a cross-curricular connection? Students can study the historical events and people involved in the Salem witch trials while reading this play. Teachers can help students uncover similarities and differences between the history and the text.