Dear Manny

Nic Stone

Jared Peter Christensen is running for president (of the Junior Class Council at his university, but still). His platform is solid—built on increased equity and inclusion in all sectors of campus life—and he’s got a good chance of beating the deeply conservative business major he’s running against.

But then a transfer student enters the race and calls Jared out for his big-talk/little-action way of moving. But what’s the right way to bring about change? As the campaign heats up, feelings are caught, and juicy secrets come to light, and Jared writes letters to his deceased friend Manny, hoping to make sense of his confusion. What’s a white boy to do when love and politics collide?

PUBLISHED: March 2025

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY (fly in): Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: white privilege, race relations

Punching the Air

Ibi Zoboi 

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, because of a biased system he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated. Then, one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white. 

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it? 

PUBLISHED: Dec 2021

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: coming of age, wrongful conviction, Prison Industrial Complex, school to prison pipeline 

Nigeria Jones: A Novel

Ibi Zoboi 

Warrior Princess. That’s what Nigeria Jones’s father calls her. He has raised her as part of the Movement, a Black separatist group based in Philadelphia. Nigeria is homeschooled and vegan and participates in traditional rituals to connect her and other kids from the group to their ancestors. But when her mother—the perfect matriarch of their Movement—disappears, Nigeria’s world is upended. She finds herself taking care of her baby brother and stepping into a role she doesn’t want.

Nigeria’s mother had secrets. She wished for a different life for her children, which includes sending her daughter to a private Quaker school outside of their strict group. Despite her father’s disapproval, Nigeria attends the school with her cousin, Kamau, and Sage, who used to be a friend. ­There, she begins to flourish and expand her universe.

As Nigeria searches for her mother, she starts to uncover a shocking truth. One that will lead her to question everything she thought she knew about her life and her family.

PUBLISHED: May 2023

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: prejudice, racism, traditions, Liberation 

The Secret Summer Promise

Keah Brown

Andrea Williams has got this. The Best Summer Ever. Last summer, she spent all her time in bed, recovering from the latest surgery for her cerebral palsy. She’s waited too long for adventure and thrills to enter her life. Together with her crew of ride-or-die friends, and the best parents anyone could ask for (just don’t tell them that), she’s going to live it up.

There’s just one thing that could ruin it: Her best friend, Hailee, finding out Andrea’s true feelings. So Andrea WILL fall out of love with Hailee – even if it means dating the cute boy George who keeps showing up everywhere with a smile.

Do we want Andrea to succeed? No! Does she? We’re not telling!

PUBLISHED: June 2023

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: LGBTQ, queer love, friendship, identity

Golden Ax

Rio Cortez

In poems that range from wry, tongue-in-cheek observations about contemporary life to more nuanced meditations on her ancestors—some of the earliest Black pioneers to settle in the western United States after Reconstruction—Golden Ax invites readers to re-imagine the West, Black womanhood, and the legacies that shape and sustain the pursuit of freedom.

PUBLISHED: Aug 2022

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Spring, Summer

THEMES: Afrofuturism, Black womanhood, Black pioneers

Camila Núñez's Year of Disasters

Miriam Zoila Pérez 

Cuban American Camila Núñez has always been afraid of the future. She’s been working hard to keep her anxieties in check, but with so many new experiences―her first queer love, trouble with her dog walking job, her mother’s judgments about her body, learning to drive, her father being too busy with work―there’s just so much to worry about.

So when Camila’s best friend gives her a tarot card reading for her sixteenth birthday, she believes it when the cards predict terrible things to come. As the year unfolds, the cards seem to be spot-on―is her papi having an affair? Will her best friend’s love life ruin their friendship? Are all her relationships doomed to fail?

PUBLISHED: March 2025

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY (Fly in): Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: coming of age, mental health, queer identity

Vinyl Moon

Mahogany L. Browne  

When Darius told Angel he loved her, she believed him. But five weeks after the incident, Angel finds herself in Brooklyn, far from her family, from him, and from the California life she has known.

Angel feels out of sync with her new neighborhood. At school, she can’t shake the feeling everyone knows what happened—and that it was her fault. The only place that makes sense is Ms. G’s class. There, Angel’s classmates share their own stories of pain, joy, and fortitude. And as Angel becomes immersed in her revolutionary literature course, the words from Black writers like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Zora NEale Hurston speak to her and begin to heal the wounds of her past.

PUBLISHED: Jan 2022

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring

THEMES: Domestic Violence, Creativity

A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe

Mahogany L. Browne  

Grief, pain, hope, and love collide in this short story collection.

In New York City, teens, their families, and their communities feel the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst the fear and loss, these teens and the adults around them persevere with love and hope while living in difficult circumstances.

PUBLISHED: March 2025

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring

THEMES: covid-19, resilience, community, pandemic

The Girl You Know

Elle Gonzalez Rose 

The week before Luna's twin sister Solina was supposed to head back for her final semester at Kingswood Academy, an elite boarding school in the Washington mountains, she told Luna she was dropping out. When Luna refused to let her throw away her future, Solina disappeared.

Twelve hours later, she was dead.

Luna knows Solina's death wasn't an accident, even if the police say otherwise. There's a reason Solina didn't want to go back to Kingswood, and Luna knows she'll find the truth there. All she has to do is become Solina. Playing Solina comes easy, but finding answers is far from it. Between the cunning, cruel people Solina called her friends, Luna's budding feelings for her roommate Claudia, and the harsh realization that Solina had dark secrets, getting to the bottom of her sister's murder is more difficult than Luna could have ever anticipated. But when you have nothing left to lose, you're willing to do anything to get what you want. There's no limit to how far Luna will go to avenge her sister-even if she has to burn all of Kingswood to the ground.

PUBLISHED: Feb 2025

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY (local): Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: murder mystery, family, grief

Full Disclosure

Camryn Garrett 

Simone is HIV-positive - and positive HIV won't define her.

She also knows that celibacy is - techincally - the best way to stay safe. Enter Miles Austin: intelligent, funny and way too sexy for Simone to resist. But her classmates don't know that she's HIV-positive - and what is the truth worth in the hands of the wrong person?

PUBLISHED: Oct 2019

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY (local): Fall, Winter

THEMES: HIV; LGBTQ; POC; mental illness

Red Hot Salsa

Carlos Aguasaco

• A collection of both Spanish and English poems illuminating the experiences of Latinx Americans. 

• An inside look at food, culture, language, triumph, and hope.

PUBLISHED: April 2005

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY (local): Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: Spanish Edition, Cultural Affirmation, Poetry, Identity 

PROJECT OPTIONS

Create a poem about a neighborhood you love

Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Ibi Zoboi 

Edited by National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi, and featuring some of the most acclaimed bestselling Black authors writing for teens today—Black Enough is an essential collection of captivating stories about what it’s like to be young and Black in America. A

PUBLISHED: January 2019

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: mental health, family dynamics, LGBTQ, gender, Black youth

Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale

Tim Fielder

King Aja Ọba and Queen Lewa are revered across the African continent for their impressive political and military skills. Yet the future of their kingdom is in jeopardy, for the royal couple do not have an heir of their own. When the King kidnaps his son born to a concubine, Obinrin, she curses Ọba with the “gift” of immortality. After enjoying long, wonderful lives both, Queen Lewa and the crown prince die naturally, leaving the ageless bereaved King Ọba heartbroken and alone. Taking advantage of Ọba’s vulnerability, enemy nations rise to power and kill the king – or so they think.  King Aja Ọba survives the fatal attack, finally realizing the bitter fruit of Obinrin’s curse.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Fielder is an Illustrator, concept designer, cartoonist, and animator born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He has a lifelong love of Visual Afrofutuism, Pulp entertainment, and action films.

ISBN: 978-0062964083

PUBLISHED: January 2021

PAGES: 288

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: Graphic Novel/Comic, Fantasy

Sí, Se Puede

Julio Anta

From community activism to the halls of government, pop-culture, arts, and beyond, Latinos have shaped every aspect of American life. Nevertheless, these significant figures and their contributions are often left out of our textbooks. Sí, Se Puede, named after the “Yes, We Can” motto of the United Farm Workers, brings Latino history in the U.S. to the forefront.

The book follows a group of Hispanic-Americans as they embark on an interactive museum tour to meet Latino heroes they may not have learned about in school. The high tech, immersive exhibit allows the tour group to virtually travel through time, visiting the Hispanic Union soldiers of the Civil War; marching with César Chávez and Dolores Huerta in the farmworkers struggle; going to space with Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina to leave Earth’s atmosphere; meeting the youngest woman to ever serve in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and more. This ensemble of unlikely friends discover the rich history of Latinos in the United States, and gain new insights into their own American experiences.

PUBLISHED: October 2023

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: Graphic Novel, Latinx, biography, change makers, social justice

Concrete Kids 

Amyra León

Concrete Kids is an exploration of love and loss, melody and bloodshed. Musician, playwright, and educator Amyra León takes us on a poetic journey through her childhood in Harlem, as she navigates the intricacies of foster care, mourning, self-love, and resilience. In her signature free-verse style, she invites us all to dream with abandon--and to recognize the privilege it is to dream at all.

PUBLISHED: October 2020

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: foster care system, resilience, self-love, self-care, poetry, SEL

The Long Ride

Marina Budhos

Jamila Clarke. Josie Rivera. Francesca George. Three mixed-race girls, close friends whose immigrant parents worked hard to settle their families in a neighborhood with the best schools. The three girls are outsiders there, but they have each other. Now, at the start seventh grade, they are told they will be part of an experiment, taking a long bus ride to a brand-new school built to "mix up the black and white kids." Francesca is sent to a private school, leaving Jamila and Josie to take the bus ride without her. While Francesca is testing her limits, Josie and Jamila find themselves outsiders again at the new school.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marina Budhos has received an EMMA (Exceptional Merit Media Award), a Rona Jaffe Award for Women Writers, and two fellowships from the New Jersey Council on the Arts. She has been a Fulbright Scholar to India and is a professor of English.

ISBN: 978-0553534221

PUBLISHED: September 2019

PAGES: 208

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring

THEMES: Coming of Age, Race Relations, Civil Rights, History, Desegregation, Identity

We Are All We Have

Marina Budhos

Seventeen-year-old Rania is shaken awake in her family's apartment in Brooklyn. ICE is at the door, taking her mother away. But Ammi has

This was supposed to be Rania’s greatest summer: hanging out with her best friend, Fatima, and getting ready for college in the fall.

But it’s 2019, and nothing is certain.

Now, along with her younger brother, Kamal, and a new friend, Carlos, Rania must figure out how to survive. A road trip leads to searching for answers to questions she didn’t even think to ask.

PUBLISHED: September 2019

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Winter, Spring

THEMES: ICE, Immigration, Social Justice, New York

The Faint of Heart

Kerilynn Wilson

Not that long ago, the Scientist discovered that all sadness, anxiety, and anger disappeared when you removed your heart. And that's all it took. Soon enough, the hospital had lines out the door—even though the procedure numbed the good feelings, too. 

Everyone did it. Everyone except high school student June. But now the pressure, loneliness, and heartache are mounting, and it’s becoming harder and harder to be the only one with a heart.

One day, June comes across an abandoned heart in a jar. The heart in the jar intrigues her, it baffles her, and it brings her hope. But the heart also brings her Max, a classmate with a secret of his own.

And it may rip June’s own heart in two.

PUBLISHED: June 2023

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: Graphic Novel, fantasy, grief, mystery

Huda F Cares?

Huda Fahmy 

Huda and her sisters can’t believe it when her parents announce that they’re actually taking a vacation this summer . . . to DISNEY WORLD! But it’s not quite as perfect as it seems. First Huda has to survive a 24-hour road trip from Michigan to Florida, with her sisters annoying her all the way. And then she can’t help but notice the people staring at her and her family when they pray in public. Back home in Dearborn she and her family blend right in because there are so many other Muslim families, but not so much in Florida and along the way.

It's a vacation of forced (but unexpectly successful?) sisterly bonding, a complicated new friendship, a bit more independence, and some mixed feelings about her family's public prayers. Huda is proud of her religion and who she is, but she still sure wishes she didn’t care so much what other people thought.

PUBLISHED: October 2023

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Winter, Spring

THEMES: Graphic Novel, SEL, self-acceptance, Muslim, Identity, family, xenophobia

Huda F Wants to Know?

Huda Fahmy 

Huda Fahmy is ready for junior year. She’s got a plan to join all the clubs, volunteer everywhere, ace the ACTs, write the most awe-inspiring essay for her scholarship applications. Easy.

But then Mama and Baba announce the most unthinkable news: they’re getting a divorce.

Huda is devastated. She worries about what this will mean for her family, their place in the Muslim community, and her future. Her grades start tanking, she has a big fight with her best friend, and everything feels out of control. Will her life ever feel normal again? Huda F wants to know.

PUBLISHED: April 2025

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Winter, Spring

THEMES: Graphic Novel, SEL, self-acceptance, Muslim, Identity, family

Huda F Are You?

Huda Fahmy 

Huda and her family just moved to Dearborn, Michigan, a small town with a big Muslim population. In her old town, Huda knew exactly who she was: She was the hijabi girl. But in Dearborn, everyone is the hijabi girl.

Huda is lost in a sea of hijabis, and she can't rely on her hijab to define her anymore. She has to define herself. So she tries on a bunch of cliques, but she isn't a hijabi fashionista or a hijabi athlete or a hijabi gamer. She's not the one who knows everything about her religion or the one all the guys like. She's miscellaneous, which makes her feel like no one at all. Until she realizes that it'll take finding out who she isn't to figure out who she is.

PUBLISHED: November 2021

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Winter, Spring

THEMES: Graphic Novel, fitting in, self-acceptance, Muslim, Identity, Islamophobia

In Limbo

 Deb JJ Lee 

Ever since Deborah (Jung-Jin) Lee emigrated from South Korea to the United States, she's felt her otherness.

For a while, her English wasn’t perfect. Her teachers can’t pronounce her Korean name. Her face and her eyes―especially her eyes―feel wrong.

In high school, everything gets harder. Friendships change and end, she falls behind in classes, and fights with her mom escalate. Caught in limbo, with nowhere safe to go, Deb finds her mental health plummeting, resulting in a suicide attempt.

But Deb is resilient and slowly heals with the help of art and self-care, guiding her to a deeper understanding of her heritage and herself.

PUBLISHED: March 2023

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: Graphic Novel/Comic, Multicultural, Identity, Belonging, Suicide, Korean-American

Vern, Custodian of the Universe

Tyrell Waiters 

On the edge of burnout, Vern decides to return to his family in the Sunshine State to start over. Starting a new dead-end job as a custodian at Quasar—a local science facility with a shady motive—he shrugs on his uniform, grabs a mop and bucket, and trudges off to clean up… Black holes? Space-time anomalies? Galactic ooze?

Things aren’t entirely what they seem at Quasar, and when Vern accidentally plugs in a mysterious machine and finds himself standing on the brink of the destruction of every planet in the Multiverse, he's presented with the greatest question of all: what is the point?

PUBLISHED: June 2023

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY:  Winter, Spring 

THEMES: Graphic Novel, humor, multiverse, fantasy

Unbelonging

Gayatri Sethi

In her luminous debut Unbelonging, Gayatri Sethi deftly interweaves verse, memoir, and a bold call to action as she recounts her experience searching for home in the diaspora. Drawing upon her life story as a Tanzanian-born-Punjabi turned American educator and mother of multiracial children, Sethi tells an intimate tale of stepping into her power while confronting misogyny, racism, and empire. Spanning decades and continents– from Partition to the Black Lives Matter movement, Southern Africa to Muscogee Lands– Unbelonging tells urgent truths, inspires critical self-reflection, and emboldens its readers to pursue radical forms of justice, compassion, and solidarity.

PUBLISHED: August 2022

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY:  Winter, Spring (virtual), Summer

THEMES: Race Relations, Social Justice, Multicultural, Poetry, Identity, Racism, BLM

Diaspora-ish: Notes on Identities, Unbelonging, & Solidarities

Gayatri Sethi 

What does it mean to be in diaspora? How do our identities and aspirations for belonging unfold during times of collective upheaval?

In her lifelong search for solidarity, educator Gayatri Sethi draws upon her own complex diasporic journey to explore widely accepted ideas about identity and belonging. Spanning three continents and multiple phases of the author’s life, Diaspora-ish offers inquiries into many facets of identity—names, relationships, ethnicities, citizenships—and poignantly demonstrates how these are weaponized to exclude and other. Addressing prevalent misconceptions about immigration, Sethi pushes for a deeper understanding of migration and diaspora that centers decoloniality and anti-imperialism. Diaspora-ish is an urgent call to unlearn oppressions in order to work bravely toward collective liberation.

PUBLISHED: Feb 2026

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Winter, Spring (virtual), Summer

THEMES: Diasporic identity,  belonging, global solidarity, learning resource

I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir

Malaka Gharib

The daughter of parents with unfulfilled dreams themselves, Malaka navigated her childhood chasing her parents' ideals, learning to code-switch between her family's Filipino and Egyptian customs, adapting to white culture to fit in, crushing on skater boys, and trying to understand the tension between holding onto cultural values and trying to be an all-American kid. Malaka Gharib's triumphant graphic memoir brings to life her teenage antics and illuminates earnest questions about identity and culture, while providing thoughtful insight into the lives of modern immigrants and the generation of millennial children they raised. 

PUBLISHED: April 2019

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY (VIRTUAL ONLY): Summer

THEMES: Graphic Novel/Comic, Immigration, Multicultural, Identity, Relationships (family and friends)

Love Radio 

Ebony LaDelle 

Prince Jones is the guy with all the answers—or so it seems. After all, at seventeen, he has his own segment on Detroit’s popular hip-hop show, Love Radio, where he dishes out advice to the brokenhearted.

Prince has always dreamed of becoming a DJ and falling in love. But being the main caretaker for his mother, who has multiple sclerosis, and his little brother means his dreams will stay just that and the only romances in his life are the ones he hears about from his listeners. Until he meets Dani Ford.

Dani isn’t checking for anybody. She’s focused on her plan: ace senior year, score a scholarship, and move to New York City to become a famous author. But her college essay keeps tripping her up and acknowledging what’s blocking her means dealing with what happened at that party a few months ago. And that’s one thing Dani can’t do.

When the romantic DJ meets the ambitious writer, sparks fly. Prince is smitten, but Dani’s not looking to get derailed. She gives Prince just three dates to convince her that he’s worth falling for. Three dates for the love expert to take his own advice, and just maybe change two lives forever.

PUBLISHED: May 2022

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY (Local): Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: Mental health, Sexual assault

Voces Sin Fronteras: Our Stories, Our Truth

Latin American Youth Center Writers 

During a time of heated immigration debate and unrest, this book is an opportunity to hear directly from youth who are often in the headlines but whose stories don't get told in full. Sixteen young people from the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) in Washington, D.C. came together to tell their own stories of immigration and transformation in comics form. The result is this side-by-side bilingual collection of graphic memoirs that not only builds connections across language, but also breaks down barriers and expands hope.

The authors of this collection are members of the Latino Youth Leadership Council of the Latin American Youth Center in Washington, DC. This group of teen immigrants from Central America and the Caribbean are dedicated to promoting cross-cultural understanding and social justice in their community.

PUBLISHED: May 2018

AUTHOR AVAILABILITY: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

THEMES: Graphic Novel, bilingual, border, cross-cultural understanding, immigrant youth stories