In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.
An incendiary and utterly compelling thriller with a shocking twist that delves deep into the heart of institutionalized racism, from an exceptional new YA voice.
Welcome to Niveus Private Academy, where money paves the hallways, and the students are never less than perfect. Until now. Because anonymous texter, Aces, is bringing two students' dark secrets to light.
Talented musician Devon buries himself in rehearsals, but he can't escape the spotlight when his private photos go public. Head girl Chiamaka isn't afraid to get what she wants, but soon everyone will know the price she has paid for power.
Someone is out to get them both. Someone who holds all the aces. And they're planning much more than a high-school game...
Once, Misbah was a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start. Many years later, Salahudin and Noor are best friends. Growing up as outcasts in a small desert town, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding. Now, Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start. From one of today’s most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness—one that’s both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.
Acclaimed novelist Ibi Zoboi illuminates the young life of the visionary storyteller Octavia E. Butler in poems and prose. Born into the Space Race, the Red Scare, and the dawning Civil Rights Movement, Butler expereinced an American childhood that shaped her into the groundbreaking science-fiction storyteller whose novels continue to challenge and delight readers fifteen years after her death.
Celebrating a new generation of bestselling and acclaimed Black writers, The Black Girl Survives in This One makes space for Black girls in horror. Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and survivors who slay monsters, battle spirits, and face down death. Prepare to be terrified and left breathless by the pieces in this anthology.
A teenager on the run from his past finds the family he never knew existed and the community he never knew he needed at an HBCU for the young, Black, and magical . Enroll in this fresh fantasy debut with the emotional power of Legendborn and the redefined ancestral magic of Lovecraft Country .
In a wholly unique saga of family, history and community, Malik must embrace his legacy to save what's left of his old family as well as his new one. Exploring the roots and secrets that connect us in an unforgettable contemporary setting, this heart-pounding fantasy series opener is a rich tapestry of atmosphere, intrigue, and emotion.
Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi's hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder. Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source.Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she'll go for her community.
Gene understands stories—comic book stories, in particular. But Gene doesn’t get sports. As a kid, his friends called him “Stick” and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’s lives, but his own life as well.
When local girl Loren includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor Loren’s missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends on the Blackfeet reservation.
Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered.
Because the four members of the Giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation. And all of them—Mara, Loren, Brody, and Eli—have a complicated history with Samantha.
Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.
Blood holds all kinds of curses. Seven generations of women in Susana Prather’s family have been lost to the Georgia swamp behind her house. The morning after her eighteenth birthday, she awakens soaked with water, with no memory of sleepwalking. No matter how she tries to stop it, she’s pulled from her safe bed night after night, haunted by her own family history and legacy. Now, the truth feels it’s only a matter of time before she loses her mind and the swamp becomes her grave. Unless she can figure out how to break the curse. But Susana has something no one else has, the unflagging belief that all curses can be broken and that love can help a new future begin.
When Perry Firekeeper-Birch attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors’ remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer.
There are lots of awards for fiction and nonfiction young adult titles! It is easy to find the ones we have in our collection with a keyword search using the award name. When searching for phrases, use quotation marks to force the database to see the phrase as if it is one word as shown in this screenshot:
Lexile® Framework for Reading can identify the vocabulary level of books or other texts. Not all catalog records for YA and children's books in our collection include a Lexile level, but many do. Try the search lexile: 600HL to locate many books in our collection that have the HL lexile designation.
Most graphic novels for YA readers have call numbers beginning with PZ 5 741.5. The rest of the call number is based on the author’s name and book title.
Most graphic novels and comics for adults are shelved together in the call number range PN6710 - PN6798 on the second floor. Other graphic novels in our collection are found in the Library of Congress call number for that topic. For example, Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman, is about the Jewish Holocaust in Poland during World War II and found at the call number D810.J4 S6432 1997.
PZ 5 call numbers are used for non-picture books, which includes nonfiction for all ages and YA fiction. PZ 6 call numbers are picture books.
Advanced Search allows researchers to use a combination of search words and fields to find a more targeted result list. Click on the “Advanced Search” tab on the catalog screen as highlighted in the screenshot below.
Advanced search gives you several search boxes that can be joined to make a more specific catalog search possible. As an example, we'll search for a book about mermaids written for children or young adults.
Notice in the screenshot below that “mermaids” has been typed in the first box. The "as a phrase” and “keyword anywhere” options have not been changed, so we are search for "mermaids" anywhere in the catalog record.
On the second line, “juvenile fiction” has been typed in the search box. There may be exceptions, but generally "juvenile fiction" is used for fiction books, while "juvenile literature" is used for nonfiction books. This example keeps the default option "as a phrase," while “Subject” has been selected from the drop down menu as circled in the screenshot. In other words, we are also searching for "juvenile fiction" as a phrase in the subject field in the catalog record in this combination search. We could also choose to select a range of years on this screen.
Click the "search" button or hit the "enter" key on your keyboard to see the list of results.
Borrowing e-books is a bit more complicated than checking out print books. These are some of the limitations:
To access an e-book, click on the "click here for electronic book" link found in the library catalog as shown in this screenshot:
