In 1954, high school senior Lily Hu is everything her parents expect her to be: studious, respectful, responsible, and she never ventures far from her close-knit Chinese American community in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
YA Fiction
Ever Cursed
Jane, 18, is the oldest of the five Spellbound princesses of Ever, each cursed to go without something particular from the moment she turns 13. Jane can’t eat, Nora can’t love, Alice can’t sleep, Grace can’t remember. Eden, about to turn 13, will go without hope.
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything
Sia (Artemesia) Martinez’s mother was deported to Mexico three years ago and disappeared while trying to make the desert crossing back to the United States; she’s now presumed dead.
Legendborn
African American Bree, 16, grief stricken since her mother’s death in a car accident, is in the Early College program at UNC-Chapel Hill, her mom’s alma mater.
We Are Not Free
The voices of 14 teenagers and young adults, all friends and acquaintances from San Francisco’s Japantown, narrate this story of Japanese and Japanese American imprisonment during World War II.
You Should See Me in a Crown
Running for prom queen is way outside high school senior Liz Lighty’s comfort zone, but she’s motivated by the $10,000 scholarship for the winner, since she didn’t get the music scholarship she was counting on for college.
Flamer
Aiden Navarro (Filipino/white) is nervous about transferring from Catholic to public school in fall when he starts high school. For now, he’s happy to be at Boy Scout camp.
Elatsoe
Following news that her older cousin Trevor has died, Ellie, a contemporary Lipan Apache teen in Texas, is visited by Trevor in a dream in which he tells her he was murdered.
Cemetery Boys
Cuban/Mexican American Yadriel’s family are brujx. Women are healers, and men make sure spirits move to the land of the dead before turning evil.
Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard
Echo and her younger brothers are growing up in a family with limited economic resources and parents who find respite from their struggles with drugs and alcohol.