Book Lists for Teens and Young Adults

Avery is an exceptional child. Everything he does is precise, from the way he washes his face in the morning, to the way he completes his homework - without complaint, without fuss, without prompt. Zib is also an exceptional child, because all children are, in their own way. But where everything Avery does and is can be measured, nothing Zib does can possibly be predicted, except for the fact that she can always be relied upon to be unpredictable. They live on the same street. They live in different worlds. On an unplanned detour from home to school one morning, Avery and Zib find themselves climbing over a stone wall into the Up and Under - an impossible land filled with mystery, adventure and the strangest creatures. And they must find themselves and each other if they are to also find their way out and back to their own lives.

Bugz is caught between two worlds. In the real world, she's a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and reserve life. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a massive multiplayer video game universe. Feng is a teen boy who has been sent from China to live with his aunt, a doctor on the reserve, after his online activity suggests he may be developing extremist sympathies. Meeting each other in real life, as well as in the virtual world, Bugz and Feng immediately relate to each other as outsiders and as avid gamers. As their connection is strengthened through their virtual adventures, they find they have much in common in the real world, too: both must decide what to do in the face of temptations and pitfalls, and both must grapple with the impact of family and community trauma. But betrayal threatens everything Bugz has built in the virtual world, as well as her relationships in the real world, and it will take all her newfound strength to restore her friendship with Feng and reconcile the parallel aspects of her life: the traditional and the mainstream, the east and the west, the real and the virtual.

In an age of 100-foot-tall mechanical deities run by a tyrannical regime, two teenaged girls on opposite sides of a war discover they are figting for a common purpose--and falling for each other.

An honors student at Jefferson Academy, seventeen-year-old Keira enjoys developing and playing Slay, a secret, multiplayer online role-playing game celebrating black culture, until the two worlds collide.

In 2172, when much of the world is unlivable, sisters Onyii and Ify dream of escaping war-torn Nigeria and finding a better future together but are, instead, torn apart.

When ZombieCon comes to their small town, June and her best friends battle long lines for photo ops, meet their favorite actors, and save the world from actual zombies when things get real.

News stations across the country are reporting mysterious messages that Earth has been receiving from a planet--Alma--claiming to be its creator. If they're being interpreted correctly, in seven days Alma will hit the kill switch on their "colony" Earth. True or not, for teenagers Jesse Hewitt, Cate Collins, and Adeem Khan, the prospect of this ticking time bomb will change their lives forever. Jesse, who has been dealt one bad blow after another, wonders if it even matters what happens to the world. Cate, on the other hand, is desperate to use this time to find the father she never met. And Adeem, who hasn't spoken to his estranged sister in years, must find out if he has it in him to forgive her for leaving. With only a week to face their truths and right their wrongs, Jesse, Cate, and Adeem's paths collide as their worlds are pulled apart.

In the last days of the twenty-first century, sea creatures swim through the ruins of London. Trapped in the abyss, humankind wavers between fear and hope--fear of what lurks in the depths around them, and hope that they might one day find a way back to the surface. When sixteen-year-old submersible racer Leyla McQueen is chosen to participate in the prestigious annual marathon, she sees an opportunity to save her father, who has been arrested on false charges. The Prime Minister promises the champion whatever their heart desires. But the race takes an unexpected turn, forcing Leyla to make an impossible choice. Now she must brave unfathomable waters and defy a corrupt government determined to keep its secrets, all the while dealing with a guarded, hotheaded companion she never asked for in the first place. If Leyla fails to discover the truths at the heart of her world, or falls prey to her own fears, she risks capture--or worse. And her father will be lost to her forever.

Seventeen-year-old Clara runs away from home to join a vigilante monster-flghting squad, only to discover that sometimes the most dangerous monsters are where you least expect them.

Artemisia (Sia) Martinez's mother was deported to Mexico by ICE and disappeared in the Sonoran Desert trying to make it back to her American family; Sia believes that she was as-good-as murdered by ICE and the sheriff in their small Arizona town on the edge of the national park, and wants revenge against him and his son, Jeremy--but her search for the truth will uncover many more secrets than she counted on.

On a frozen wasteland of a plant, seventeen-year-old Sena and a she-wolf, Iska, are on the run from a ruthless leader intent on trapping them both, but as they try to escape one question drives them relentlessly forward--where do you turn when there is nowhere to hide?