Teen Reads

"Environmental scientist Ferin Anderson and author Stephanie Sammartino McPherson examine how Indigenous people, farmers, and forestry departments have used fire to manage resources and how climate change is impacting the future of fire"--

"Musical lover Riley has big aspirations to become a director on Broadway. Crucial to this plan is to bring back her high school’s spring musical, but when Riley takes her mom’s car without permission, she's grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad’s game shop. Riley can't waste her time working when she has a musical to save, so she convinces Nathan--a nerdy teen employee--to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she’ll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous. But Riley didn’t realize that meant joining Nathan's Dungeons & Dragons game…or that role playing would be so fun. Soon, Riley starts to think that flirting with Nathan doesn't require as much acting as she would've thought" --

"Exiled to live as a Low, sixteen-year-old Conrad refuses to become heir to his murderous uncle. But Meritocracy is a harsh and unforgiving rule on the floating island of Holmstead, and when his ailing mother is killed by monstrous gorgantauns, Conrad cuts a deal to save the only family he has left. To rescue his sister from his uncle's clutches, Conrad must enter the Selection of the Twelve Trades. Hunter, the deadliest of all the Trades, gains a fresh recruit with Conrad. Now he must endure vigorous training, manipulative peers, and the Gauntlet--a brutal final test that yields riches and status to whichever skyship crew kills the most gorgantauns. Forced to serve in the lowest of stations and unseen by all, Conrad overhears whispers of rebellion in the dark. Conrad had never known anything existed below the toxic black clouds of the Skylands...until now" --

Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider--that her murdered sister is gone forever and there is nothing she can do about it. Rather than grieving and moving on, Zara decides she will do whatever it takes to claw her sister back from the grave--even trading in the occult. Jude Wolf may be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went horribly wrong, her soul has been slowly turning necrotic. It’s a miserable existence marred by pain, sickness, and monstrous things that taunt her in the night. Now that she’s glimpsed what’s beyond the veil, Jude’s desperate to find someone to undo the damage she’s done to herself. Enter Emer Byrne, an orphaned witch with a dark past and a deadly power, a.k.a. the solution to both Zara’s and Jude’s problems. Though Emer lives a hardscrabble life, she gives away her most valuable asset--her invocations--to women in desperate situations who are willing to sacrifice a piece of their soul in exchange for a scrap of power. Zara and Jude are willing, but they first have to find Emer. When Emer’s clients start turning up dead all over London, a vital clue leads Zara and Jude right to her. If a serial killer is targeting her clients, Emer wants to know why--and to stop them. She strikes a tenuous alliance with Zara and Jude to hunt a killer before they are next on his list, even if she can’t give them in return what Zara and Jude want most: a sister and a soul.

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors. When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon--or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister. As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world.

"Harriet Adu knows that her brother's death is her fault. I mean, it's not actually her fault, but it still kinda is, isn't it? She would do anything to live in a world where she could take back what she said that morning. Then a strange girl shows up at Harriet's high school – a girl who loves the same weird books Harriet does, who doesn't vibe with anyone at school the same way Harriet does – and that different world suddenly seems possible. The girl speaks of a place underneath the subways of New York, where people like them can go and find a home. A place away from the world of high school, grief, cool people, and depression. A place where one may be able to bend the lines of reality and get a second chance at being a better person."--

"In 1896, three best friends--Tirzah, Sophia and Polly--who are leading very different lives after boarding school share their dreams, hopes, frustrations and romances through a series of letters as they search for happiness and love near the dawn of the Edwardian era"--

November 1914. Clara Ketterling-Dunbar is one of twenty-eight crew members of The Resolute--a ship meant for an Antarctic expedition now marooned on ice one hundred miles from the shore of the continent. An eighteen-year-old American, Clara has told the crew she’s a twenty-one-year-old Canadian. Since the war broke out, sentiment toward Americans has not been the most favorable, and Clara will be underestimated enough simply for being a woman without also giving away just how young she is. Two members of the crew know her nationality, but no one knows the truth of her activities in England before The Resolute set sail. She and her suffragist sisters in the Women’s Social & Political Union were waging war of a different kind in London. They taught Clara to fight. And now, even marooned on the ice, she won’t stop fighting for women’s rights...or for survival. In the wilderness of Antarctica, Clara is determined to demonstrate what a woman is truly capable of--if the crew will let her.

Two brothers must come together to solve the murder of the most popular girl in school after one of them is caught fleeing the scene of her death.

Centuries ago, the heretic sorcerer Ruven raised a deadly briar around Runakhia's palace, casting the royal family into an enchanted sleep--and silencing the kingdom's gods. Born with a miraculous gift, Lia's destiny is to kill Ruven and wake the royals. But when she succeeds, she finds her duty is not yet complete, for now she must marry into the royal family and forge a pact with a god--or die. To make matters even worse, Ruven's spirit is haunting her. As discord grows between the old and new guards, the queen sends Lia and Prince Araunn, her betrothed, on a pilgrimage to awaken the gods. But the old gods are more dangerous than Lia ever knew--and Ruven may offer her only hope of survival. As the two work together, Lia learns that they're more alike than she expected. And with tensions rising, Lia must choose between what she was raised to believe and what she knows is right--and between the prince she is bound to by duty...and the boy she killed.

"Icarus Gallagher is a thief. He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father's impeccable forgeries. For years, one man--the wealthy Mr. Black--has been their target in revenge for his role in the death of Icarus's mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don't let anyone close. Don't let anyone touch you. And, above all, don't get caught. Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous--a friendship that breaks every single one of Icarus's rules. As reluctance and distrust become closeness and something more, they uncover the gilded cage that has trapped both their families for years. One Icarus is determined to escape. But his father's thirst for revenge shows no sign of fading, and soon it may force Icarus to choose: the escape he's dreamed of, or the boy he's come to love" 4/8

"Over the last half-billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Adapting from her New York Times-bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning adult nonfiction, Elizabeth Kolbert explores the Anthropocene era: the era defined by human impact. This young readers adaptation is made accessible with its additional explanations of scientific concepts. Along with photographs from the original book, the adaptation includes illustrations to help make the past, present, and future of extinction compelling for younger readers"--

In their comics debut, Theo Parish weaves an intimate and defiantly hopeful memoir about the journey one nonbinary person takes to find a home within themself. Combining traditional comics with organic journal-like interludes, Theo takes us through their experiences with the hundred arbitrary and unspoken gender binary rules of high school, from harrowing haircuts and finally the right haircut to the intersection of gender identity and sexuality--and through tiny everyday moments that all led up to Theo finding the term "nonbinary," which finally struck a chord.

"Stonebridge High's resident bad boy, Wesley 'Big Mac' Mackenzie, is failing senior year--thanks to his unchecked anger, rowdy friends, and a tendency to ditch his homework for skateboarding. So when his mom drags him to a production of The Nutcracker, Wes isn't interested at all until he sees Tristan Monroe. Wes knows he shouldn't like Tristan; after all, he's a ballet dancer. But when they start spending time together, Wes can't seem to get Tristan out of his head. Driven by a new sense of purpose, Wes begins to think that maybe he can change for the better. Wes realizes that being himself means taking a stand---and blowing up the bad-boy reputation he never wanted in the first place."--
5/2