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1) The tryout
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English
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As one of the only Asian Americans in her school, Christina confronts both well-meaning ignorance and cruel racism, but in middle school fitting in is important, which is why she and her best friend Megan are both excited and nervous to try out for the popular cheerleading squad.
2) Frizzy
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English
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Marlene loves three things: books, Her cool Tía Ruby and hanging out with her best friend Camila. But according to her mother, Paola, the only thing she needs to focus on is school and "growing up." That means straightening her hair every weekend so she could have "presentable good hair." But Marlene hates being in the salon and doesn't understand why her curls are not considered pretty by those around her. With a few hiccups, a dash of embarrassment,...
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"Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard University's library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve 'American culture' in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities...
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"The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian--who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray. In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. Pierpont Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books,...
5) Fast pitch
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English
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"Shenice Lockwood dreams of leading the Fulton Firebirds to the U12 softball regional championship. But Shenice's focus gets shaken when her great-uncle Jack reveals that a career-ending-and family-name-ruining-crime may have been a setup. It's up to Shenice to discover the truth about her family's past--and fast--before secrets take the Firebirds out of the game forever."--
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ALA 2019-2020 Top Banned Books
Awesome YA Books by Black Authors
High School Project Lit Titles
More Lists...
Awesome YA Books by Black Authors
High School Project Lit Titles
More Lists...
Description
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters...
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English
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"A woman and her husband admitted to a hospital to have a baby requests that their nurse be reassigned -- they are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is Black, to touch their baby. The hospital complies, but the baby later goes into cardiac distress when Ruth is on duty. She hesitates before rushing in to perform CPR. When her indecision ends in tragedy, Ruth finds herself on trial, represented by a white public defender who warns against...
8) Key player
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English
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"Mia Tang is going for the goal in the fourth Front Desk novel by New York Times bestselling author Kelly Yang! The Women's World Cup coming to Southern California, everyone is soccer-crazy -- especially Mia Tang! The U.S. is playing China in the finals, and Mia feels like her two identities are finally coming together. Less exciting, though? The fact that her P.E. teacher wants Mia to get out of the soccer field, too -- or fall short of the grade...
9) Ghost boys
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English
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Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that's been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing.
10) Invisible man
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English
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Banned Books That Shaped America
Juneteenth for All Ages
Nashville Reads 2023: Celebrating Our Freedom to Read!
Juneteenth for All Ages
Nashville Reads 2023: Celebrating Our Freedom to Read!
Description
In the course of his wanderings from a Southern college to New York's Harlem, an American Black man becomes involved in a series of adventures. Introduction explains circumstances under which the book was written. Ellison won the National Book Award for this searing record of a Black man's journey through contemporary America. Unquestionably, Ellison's book is a work of extraordinary intensity -- powerfully imagined and written with a savage, wryly...
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English
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YA/JUV Historical Fiction List
Children's and Middle Grade Novels in Spanish and English/Novelas juveniles en español e inglés
Children's and Middle Grade Novels in Spanish and English/Novelas juveniles en español e inglés
Description
Celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Newbery and Coretta Scott King Honoree about an unforgettable family on a road-trip during one of the most important times in the civil rights movement. When the Watson family--ten-year-old Kenny, Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron--sets out on a trip south to visit Grandma in Birmingham, Alabama, they don't realize that they're heading toward one of the darkest moments in America's history. The...
12) The bluest eye
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English
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ALA 2019-2020 Top Banned Books
Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Summer Challenge 2023: Banned & Challenged Books
Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022 | Right to Read Day | National Library Week 2023
Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Summer Challenge 2023: Banned & Challenged Books
Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022 | Right to Read Day | National Library Week 2023
Description
The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove -- a Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others -- who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare...
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Twelve-year-old Donte is the darker-skinned brother of Trey, which in his racist, mostly-white school has earned him the nickname Black Brother. When the captain of the school fencing team successfully frames him for something he didn't do, Donte is arrested and suspended from school. Joining a local youth center, Donte meets former Olympic fencer Arden Jones and begins training to defeat his school bully and find courage to confront the racist system...
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"Mia Tang thinks she's going to have the best year ever. She and her parents are the proud owners of the Calivista Motel, Mia gets to run the front desk with her best friend, Lupe, and she's finally getting somewhere with her writing! But as it turns out, sixth grade is no picnic"--Provided by publisher.
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English
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"Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing. Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she's thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They've only...
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English
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"After years of hard work, Mia Tang finally gets to go on vacation with her family--to China! A total dream come true. Mia can't wait to see all her cousins and grandparents again, especially her cousin Shen. As she roams around Beijing, witnessing some of the big changes China's going through, Mia thinks about the changes in her own life, like . . . 1. Lupe's taking classes at the high school! And Mia's own plans to be a big writer are . . . stuck....
17) Memphis: a novel
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English
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"In the summer of 1995, ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father's violence to the only place they have left: her mother's ancestral home in Memphis. Half a century ago, Joan's grandfather built this majestic house for her grandmother--only to be lynched, days after becoming the first Black detective in Memphis, by his all-white police squad. This wasn't the first time violence altered the course of Joan's family's trajectory,...
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BEST BOOKS 2019
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2000 to present
Teen Services Staff Picks 2021
Works of Colson Whitehead
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2000 to present
Teen Services Staff Picks 2021
Works of Colson Whitehead
Description
In this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award-winning The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as...
Author
Language
English
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YA/JUV Historical Fiction List
Children's and Middle Grade Novels in Spanish and English/Novelas juveniles en español e inglés
Nashville Reads 2023: Celebrating Our Freedom to Read!
Children's and Middle Grade Novels in Spanish and English/Novelas juveniles en español e inglés
Nashville Reads 2023: Celebrating Our Freedom to Read!
Description
Young Cassie Logan endures humiliation and witnesses the horrors of a KKK cross-burning rampage before she fully understands the importance her family places on having land of their own.
20) Dear Martin
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English
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"Justyce McAllister is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend--but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out. Then...