January 5, 2024
Ignacio “Iggy” Garcia is an Ohio-born Colombian-American teen whose world is spun around when he bumps into Marisol at school. As he stresses over how to get Marisol to like him, his grandfather comes to the rescue. The thing is, not only is his abuelito dead, but he also gives terrible love advice. This is the story of Iggy searching for his place in his family, school, community and country. The novel challenges assumptions about Latino-American identity while reaffirming belief in the hope that all young people represent. Quirkiness aside, this graphic novel has a lot to offer aside […]
October 6, 2023
Thirteen-year-old Jonah is determined to prove that anxiety won’t stop him from succeeding as his hockey team’s goalie in this dynamic novel in verse. This contemporary ice hockey-story for pre-teens is rather unusual for being written in lyrics. That makes it not only a fast-moving, engaging story (especially to hockey fans), but a book likely to turn readers on to verse. Seriously! It’s all in Jonah’s point of view, and he’s 13 (though he often feels younger). Like so many his age, he aspires to be a professional hockey player, his best friends have the same ambitions and he’s passionate […]
July 7, 2023
Thien’s first memory isn’t a sight or a sound. It’s the sweetness of watermelon and the saltiness of fish. It’s the taste of the foods he ate while adrift at sea as his family fled Vietnam. After the Pham family arrives at a refugee camp in Thailand, they struggle to survive. Things don’t get much easier once they resettle in California. And through each chapter of their lives, food takes on a new meaning. Strawberries come to signify struggle as Thien’s mom and dad look for work. Potato chips are an indulgence that brings Thien so much joy that they […]
July 7, 2023
What does the perfect song sound like? Normally, Malcolm Kid wouldn’t give this type of question the time of day. As a straight-B student with a heart of copper, he is far more concerned with overcoming mediocrity than he is with achieving perfection. But that all changes when he stumbles across the LK-2000—a strange keyboard cursed with the soul of an old jazz musician. Malcolm soon learns that the only way to free this musician’s soul is by performing the perfect song. With much hesitation, and the help of a lifelong friend, Malcolm embarks on a musical journey across the […]
June 2, 2023
From the author of Restart, the story of two boys who are losing their memories… to each other. Reef and Theo don’t know what’s happening to them. They’ll be going about their days and then suddenly they’ll have these strange flashes of memory — but the memories don’t belong to them. And at the same time, their own memories are starting to… vanish. For Reef, this is a big problem, because memories are all he has left of his mom. For Theo, it’s strange because the new memories give him a freedom he doesn’t have with his domineering dad. Twelve-year-olds […]
May 5, 2023
Secret ballrooms, hidden artwork and unlikely friends—welcome to the Regency. The city plans to demolish it. Jake feels powerless. And then he’s summoned to apartment 713, an apartment he has been told is off-limits. When he opens the door… he travels to the past. Alongside Beth, his new friend and guide, Jake begins searching for any clue that might help him save the Regency. As their friendship blooms, the mystery around the building’s makers deepens. The Regency’s own storied past will give Jake the key to saving his own future—if only he knows where to look. Jake Simmons hates his […]
May 5, 2023
Miles Morales is still just your average teenager. He has unexpectedly become totally obsessed with poetry and can never seem to do much more than babble around his crush. Nothing too weird. Oh! Except, just yesterday, he used his spidey superpowers to save the world (no biggie) from an evil mastermind called The Warden. And the grand prize Miles gets for that is… suspension. But what begins as a long boring day of in-school suspension is interrupted by a little bzzz in his mind. His spidey-sense is telling him there’s something not quite right here, and soon he finds himself in a […]
April 7, 2023
Thirteen-year-old Billy Knight leaves home to “ride the rails” across Canada during the 1930s. His encounters with a wide cast of characters — including fellow drifters and grifters, kid gangs, crooks, idealists, ragtag philosophers and railroad bulls as well as everyday folk simply trying to get by — provide much more than he bargained for. And for the first time, he realizes that riding the rails is not just an adventure. It also speaks to the bravery of those drifting like tumbleweeds across the country and seeking a better life. An adventure both life-changing and unforgettable. It’s the dust-bowl Depression […]
April 7, 2023
This honest, engrossing graphic memoir tells the story of professional athlete and activist Akim Aliu’s incredible life as a hockey prodigy in Canada. Akim Aliu — also known as “Dreamer” — is a Ukrainian-Nigerian-Canadian professional hockey player whose career took him all around the world and who experienced systemic racism at every turn. Dreamer tells Akim’s incredible story, from being the only black child in his Ukrainian community, to his family struggling to make ends meet while living in Toronto, to confronting the racist violence he often experienced both on and off the ice. This is a gut-wrenching and riveting […]
April 7, 2023
Rebecca Strand was just sixteen when she and her father fell to their deaths from the top of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse in 1839. Just how they fell—or were they pushed?—remains a mystery. And their ghosts haunt the lighthouse to this day. One teen’s summer job scaring tourists with ghost stories takes a terrifying turn when he accidentally summons the spirit of a dead girl—and she has demands. The award-winning author of Airborn delivers a roller-coaster ride of a story about the wakeful and wicked dead. “Rebecca Strand was sixteen the first time she saw her father kill a ghost.” […]