Special Collections
United States of YA
Description: Go on a vacation this summer without ever leaving your couch. Whether you choose to visit the Alaskan wilderness, the beaches of Hawaii, or the cornfields in Kansas, adventure awaits in this collection of young adult novels. Ages 13 and up. #teens
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The Rock and the River
by Kekla MagoonCoretta Scott King - John Steptoe Award winnerIn this &“taut, eloquent first novel&” (Booklist, starred review), a young Black boy wrestles with conflicting notions of revolution and family loyalty as he becomes involved with the Black Panthers in 1968 Chicago.The Time: 1968 The Place: ChicagoFor thirteen-year-old Sam, it&’s not easy being the son of known civil rights activist Roland Childs. Especially when his older (and best friend), Stick, begins to drift away from him for no apparent reason. And then it happens: Sam finds something that changes everything forever.Sam has always had faith in his father, but when he finds literature about the Black Panthers under Stick&’s bed, he&’s not sure who to believe: his father or his best friend. Suddenly, nothing feels certain anymore.Sam wants to believe that his father is right: You can effect change without using violence. But as time goes on, Sam grows weary of standing by and watching as his friends and family suffer at the hands of racism in their own community. Sam beings to explore the Panthers with Stick, but soon he&’s involved in something far more serious—and more dangerous—than he could have ever predicted. Sam is faced with a difficult decision. Will he follow his father or his brother? His mind or his heart? The rock or the river?
The Fault in Our Stars
by John GreenDespite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.
Young Readers Choice Award Winner, 2015
All the Bright Places
by Jennifer NivenTheodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.
Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.
When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.
Ashfall
by Mike MullinMany visitors to Yellowstone National Park don't realize that the boiling hot springs and spraying geysers are caused by an underlying supervolcano, so large that the caldera can only be seen by plane or satellite. And by some scientific measurements, it could be overdue for an eruption.
For Alex, being alone for the weekend means freedom from his parents and the chance to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother.
Then the supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek, searching for his family and finding help in Darla, his travel partner. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.
Squashed
by Joan BauerHumor, agriculture and young love all come together in Joan Bauer's first novel, set in rural Iowa.
Sixteen-year-old Ellie Morgan's life would be almost perfect if she could just get her potentially prize-winning pumpkin to put on about 200 more pounds--and if she could take off 20 herself...in hopes of attracting Wes, the new boy in town.
Noggin
by John Corey WhaleyListen - Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn't.
Now he's alive again.
Simple as that.
The in between part is still a little fuzzy, but Travis can tell you that, at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado.
Five years later, it was reattached to some other guy's body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he's still sixteen, but everything and everyone around him has changed. That includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend. Or maybe she's not his girlfriend anymore? That's a bit fuzzy too.
If the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way to exist together, it looks like there's going to be a few more scars.
Landry Park
by Bethany Hagen"Downton Abbey" meets The Selection in this dystopian tale of love and betrayal
Sixteen-year-old Madeline Landry is practically Gentry royalty. Her ancestor developed the nuclear energy that has replaced electricity, and her parents exemplify the glamour of the upper class.
As for Madeline, she would much rather read a book than attend yet another debutante ball. But when she learns about the devastating impact the Gentry lifestyle--her lifestyle--is having on those less fortunate, her whole world is turned upside down.
As Madeline begins to question everything she has been told, she finds herself increasingly drawn to handsome, beguiling David Dana, who seems to be hiding secrets of his own.
Soon, rumors of war and rebellion start to spread, and Madeline finds herself at the center of it all. Ultimately, she must make a choice between duty--her family and the estate she loves dearly--and desire.
Breakfast Served Anytime
by Sarah CombsA coming-of-age debut evokes the bittersweet joys and pangs of finding independence in one unforgettable summer away at "geek camp. "
When Gloria sets out to spend the summer before her senior year at a camp for gifted and talented students, she doesn’t know quite what to expect.
Fresh from the heartache of losing her grandmother and missing her best friend, Gloria resolves to make the best of her new circumstances.
But some things are proving to be more challenging than she expected.
Like the series of mysterious clues left by a certain Professor X before he even shows up to teach his class, Secrets of the Written Word.
Or the very sweet, but very conservative, roommate whose coal-industry family champions mountaintop removal.
Not to mention the obnoxious Mason, who dresses like the Mad Hatter and immediately gets on Gloria’s nerves — but somehow won’t escape her thoughts.
Beautifully told by debut author Sarah Combs, this honest and touching story of growing up is imbued with the serene atmosphere of Kentucky’s natural landscape.
Trouble the Water
by Frances O'Roark DowellFrom the award-winning author of Dovey Coe comes a sweeping tale of the friendship between a black girl and a white boy and the prejudices they must overcome in segregated Celeste, Kentucky, as the pair try to solve the mysteries surrounding a lonely old dog.
Eleven-year-old Callie is fearless, stubborn, and a little nosy. So when she sees an old yellow dog wandering around town by itself, you can bet she's going to figure out who he belongs to. But when her sleuthing leads her to cross paths with a white boy named Wendell who wants to help, the segregated town doesn't take too kindly to their budding friendship.
Meanwhile, a nearly invisible boy named Jim is stuck in a cabin in the woods. He's lost his dog, but can't remember exactly when his pup's disappeared. When his companion, a little boy named Thomas, who's been invisible much longer than he, explains that they are ghosts, the two must figure out why they can't seem to cross the river to the other side just yet...
And as Callie and Wendell's search for the old dog brings them closer and closer to the cabin in the woods, the simmering prejudices of the townspeople boil over. Trouble the Water is a story that spans lifetimes, showing that history never truly disappears, and that the past will haunt us until we step up to change the present and stand together for what is right.
Arise
by Tara HudsonNew Orleans
Saint Louis
Number One Cemetery
A night there can change a life . . . or a death.
Increasingly worried that dark spirits will carry out their threats and hurt the people she cares for most, Amelia is ready to try anything to protect them. And for his own very different reasons, Joshua has come to this cemetery at midnight to join her in a powerful ritual.
Both know that once Amelia steps inside the Voodoo circle and the beautiful girl from the Conjure Cafe begins the ceremony, everything will change.
Tara Hudson's enthralling sequel to Hereafter escalates the danger and excitement, bringing a new dimension to her already mesmerizing story of a haunted love.
Alligator Bayou
by Donna Jo NapoliTalullah, Louisiana. 1899.
Calogero, his uncles, and cousins are six Sicilian men living in the small town of Tallulah, Louisiana. They work hard, growing vegetables and selling them at their stand and in their grocery store.
To 14-year-old Calogero, newly arrived from Sicily, Tallulah is a lush world full of contradictions, hidden rules, and tension between the Negro and white communities.
He’s startled and thrilled by the danger of a ’gator hunt in the midnight bayou, and by his powerful feelings for Patricia, a sharpwitted, sweet-natured Negro girl.
Some people welcome the Sicilians. Most do not.
Calogero’s family is caught in the middle: the whites don’t see them as equal, but befriending Negroes is dangerous.
Every day brings Calogero and his family closer to a a terrifying, violent confrontation.
Lovely, Dark and Deep
by Amy McnamaraA resonant debut novel about retreating from the world after losing everything--and the connections that force you to rejoin it.
Since the night of the crash, Wren Wells has been running away. Though she lived through the accident that killed her boyfriend Patrick, the girl she used to be didn't survive.
Instead of heading off to college as planned, Wren retreats to her father's studio in the far-north woods of Maine. Somewhere she can be alone.
Then she meets Cal Owen. Dealing with his own troubles, Cal's hiding out too. When the chemistry between them threatens to pull Wren from her hard-won isolation, Wren has to choose: risk opening her broken heart to the world again, or join the ghosts who haunt her.
Delirium
by Lauren OliverNinety-five days, and then I'll be safe.
I wonder whether the procedure will hurt.
I want to get it over with.
It's hard to be patient.
It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet.
Still, I worry.
They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness.
The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.
Lauren Oliver astonished readers with her stunning debut, Before I Fall. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it "raw, emotional, and, at times, beautiful. An end as brave as it is heartbreaking." Her much-awaited second novel fulfills her promise as an exceptionally talented and versatile writer.
Jacob Have I Loved
by Katherine Paterson"Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated . . ."
With her grandmother's taunt, Louise knew that she, like the biblical Esau, was the despised elder twin. Caroline, her selfish younger sister, was the one everyone loved.
Growing up on a tiny Chesapeake Bay island in the early 1940s, angry Louise reveals how Caroline robbed her of everything: her hopes for schooling, her friends, her mother, even her name.
While everyone pampered Caroline, Wheeze (her sister's name for her) began to learn the ways of the watermen and the secrets of the island, especially of old Captain Wallace, who had mysteriously returned after fifty years.
The war unexpectedly gave this independent girl a chance to fulfill her childish dream to work as a watermen alongside her father. But the dream did not satisfy the woman she was becoming. Alone and unsure, Louise began to fight her way to a place where Caroline could not reach.
Renowned author Katherine Paterson here chooses a little-known area off the Maryland shore as her setting for a fresh telling of the ancient story of an elder twin's lost birthright.
Newbery Medal Winner
Blindsided
by Priscilla CummingsIn many ways, Natalie O'Reilly is a typical fourteen year- old girl. But a routine visit to the eye doctor produces devastating news: Natalie will lose her sight within a few short months. Suddenly her world is turned upside down.
Natalie is sent to a school for the blind to learn skills such as Braille and how to use a cane. Outwardly, she does as she's told; inwardly, she hopes for a miracle that will free her from a dreaded life of blindness.
But the miracle does not come, and Natalie ultimately must confront every blind person's dilemma. Will she go home to live scared? Or will she embrace the skills she needs to make it in a world without sight? .
My Most Excellent Year
by Steve KlugerBest friends and unofficial brothers since they were six, ninth-graders T.C. and Augie have got the world figured out. But that all changes when both friends fall in love for the first time.
Enter Al . She's pretty, sassy, and on her way to Harvard.
T.C. falls hard, but Al is playing hard to get.
Meanwhile, Augie realizes that he's got a crush on a boy. It's not so clear to him, but to his family and friends, it's totally obvious!
Told in alternating perspectives, this is the hilarious and touching story of their most excellent year, where these three friends discover love, themselves, and how a little magic and Mary Poppins can go a long way.
Conversion
by Katherine HoweFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane comes a chilling mystery—Prep meets The Crucible.
It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together.
Until they can’t.
First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumors that blossoms into full-blown panic.
Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking?
Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago . . .
Inspired by true events—from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school—Conversion casts a spell.
With her signature wit and passion, New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe delivers an exciting and suspenseful novel, a chilling mystery that raises the question, what’s really happening to the girls at St. Joan’s?
Caged Warrior
by Alan Lawrence SitomerMcCutcheon Daniels' life is full of bone-cracking violence.
As a star fighter in the gritty underground Mixed Martial Arts circuit in the poorest section of Detroit, McCutcheon fights under the tutelage of his volatile and violent father, not so much for himself but to survive as protector of his beloved five-year old sister, Gemma.
We get to know McCutcheon as he battles opponents who are literally trying to kill him.
Mr. Freedman, his science teacher, spots his intellectual potential, befriends him, and encourages him to enter the lottery for a scholarship to an elite charter school so he can obtain a first-class education. He is at first dead-set against the idea, and of course his tyrannical father forbids it. But the school's headmaster, Kaitlyn, a student assigned to be his guide, and Mr. Freedman continue to encourage him to consider it.
His father and the Priests, the local Mafia-like crew that run Detroit's organized crime, have other plans for McCutcheon. For them, he is simply a tool to make them money. And when that cash flow is threatened, his father hits McCutcheon where it hurts most-he hides Gemma and threatens his own son that he'll never see his beloved sister again if he doesn't play by the Priests' rules.
For the first time in his life, McCutcheon reaches out for help. Mr. Freedman turns out to have a very mysterious past and not only helps McCutcheon find his sister but also his mother who had simply disappeared on McCutcheon's 13th birthday. All seems well, but happy endings aren't really something McCutcheon feels he can rely on. And he may be right.
A ferocious novel, Caged Warrior is like a great fight movie, a tour-de-force of relentless conflict, but one that is leavened with rich characters and meaningful and loving relationships.
Wake
by Lisa McmannNot all dreams are sweet. For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody- notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime. She can't tell anybody about what she does -- they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control. Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant....
Shiver, Linger, Forever
by Maggie StiefvaterLose yourself in Maggie Stiefvater's NEW YORK TIMES bestselling Shiver series: SHIVER, LINGER, and FOREVER.
shiver
Sam's not just a normal boy -- he has a secret. During the summer he walks and talks as a human, but when the cold comes, he runs with his pack as a wolf. Grace has spent years watching the wolves in the woods behind her house -- but never dreamed that she would fall in love with one of them. Now that they've found each other, the clock ticks down on what could be Grace and Sam's only summer together.
linger
Can Grace and Sam last? Each will have to fight to stay together -- whether it means a reckoning with his werewolf past for Sam, or for Grace, facing a future that is less and less certain. Enter Cole, a new wolf who is wrestling with his own demons, embracing the life of a wolf while denying the ties of being human. For Grace, Sam, and Cole, life is harrowing and euphoric, enticing and alarming. As their world falls apart, love is what lingers. But can it be enough?
forever
For Grace, Sam, and Cole, the story continues -- only now, the stakes are even higher than before. Wolves are being hunted. Lives are being threatened. It's becoming harder and harder to hold on to one another. The past, the present, and the future are about to collide in one pure moment -- a moment of death or life, farewell or forever.
Full Service
by Will WeaverThe times they are a-changin' . .
The summer that Paul turns sixteen his mother pushes him to take a job in town instead of just working on the family farm. "You need to meet the public," she says, which is saying a lot for a woman deeply committed to the tightly knit religious community to which they belong.
And meet the public Paul does: He meets Kirk, the angry gas station manager; Harry, a reclusive and kindly gangster; and a family of hippies passing in a yellow peace van to San Francisco. He also meets beautiful Peggy, a high school sensation, and dark-haired Dale, her on the- side boyfriend who is headed to Vietnam. All of them come to the station - as well as girls on summer vacation, tanned and smelling of coconut oil, and ministers from Paul's fundamentalist church, who are worried about his soul.
As the summer progresses, Paul learns the secrets of his small Minnesota town and discovers that he's ready to have a few secrets of his own.
With richly developed characters and a flair for arresting imagery, Will Weaver tells the story of the end of one boy's innocence, unfolding at a time when the country as a whole is undergoing a difficult, deeply disturbing coming-of-age.
Mudbound
by Hillary JordanJamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not-charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat.
Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero.
But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South.
It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.
The men and women of each family relate their versions of events and we are drawn into their lives as they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale.
Sources of Light
by Margaret McmullanIt's 1962, a year after the death of Sam's father--he was a war hero--and Sam and her mother must move, along with their very liberal views, to Jackson, Mississippi, her father's conservative hometown. Needless to say, they don't quite fit in.
People like the McLemores fear that Sam, her mother, and her mother's artist friend, Perry, are in the South to "agitate" and to shake up the dividing lines between black and white and blur it all to grey.
As racial injustices ensue--sit-ins and run-ins with secret white supremacists--Sam learns to focus with her camera lens to bring forth the social injustice out of the darkness and into the light.
Blood Magic
by Tessa GrattonThis page-turning debut novel will entice fans who like their paranormal romances dark and disturbing. It's a natural next-read for fans of Stephanie Meyer, Carrie Jones, and Becca Fitzpatrick.
But instead of mythical creatures, blood magic has everything to do with primal human desires like power, wealth, and immortality.
Everywhere Silla Kennicott turns she sees blood. She can't stop thinking about her parents alleged murder-suicide.
She is consumed by a book filled with spells that arrives mysteriously in the mail. The spells share one common ingredient: blood, and Silla is more than willing to cast a few.
What's a little spilled blood if she can uncover the truth? And then there's Nick--the new guy at school who makes her pulse race.
He has a few secrets of his own and is all too familiar with the lure of blood magic.
Drawn together by a combination of fate and chemistry, Silla and Nick must find out who else in their small Missouri town knows their secret and will do anything to take the book and magic from Silla.
From the Hardcover edition.
Torn Away
by Jennifer BrownBorn and raised in the Midwest, Jersey Cameron knows all about tornadoes. Or so she thinks.
When her town is devastated by a twister, Jersey survives -- but loses her mother, her young sister, and her home.
As she struggles to overcome her grief, she's sent to live with her only surviving relatives: first her biological father, then her estranged grandparents.
In an unfamiliar place, Jersey faces a reality she's never considered before -- one in which her mother wasn't perfect, and neither were her grandparents, but they all loved her just the same.
Together, they create a new definition of family. And that's something no tornado can touch.