Class VII

Bestselling and award-winning authors explore the timeless themes of East and South Asian lore in sixteen original stories.

Young Francie Nolan, having inherited both her father's romantic and her mother's practical nature, struggles to survive and thrive growing up in the slums of Brooklyn in the early twentieth century.

After coming out as trans, fourteen-year-old A is forced to attend weekly Save Our Sons and Daughters meetings, where he uncovers the terrifying truth that the group is run by a demon feeding on their pain and is part of a larger, darker force preying on the world's vulnerable.

Focuses on three seemingly separate characters in tales that highlight facets of Chinese American life and, in the end, all share a deep, unforeseen connection. 

A lyrical and magical novel about two teens who fall in love despite their families being caught in a bitter rivalry. A modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet.

This collection of intersecting stories by both new and veteran Native writers bursts with hope, joy, resilience, the strength of community, and Native pride.

In this Printz Award-winning graphic novel set in the summer of 1995, almost-fifteen-year-old Almudena is sent to live with her estranged Spanish-speaking father, and together they renovate a brownstone and build a relationship while Almudena navigates the Latin American side of her heritage for the first time.

Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy.

Tuva is starting seventh grade, and nothing is how she hoped it would be. Seventh grade has split her friends into rival factions: the girls who fall in love and the girls who NEVER fall in love. Worst of all, her friends expect Tuva to choose a side!

When fifteen-year-old Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself.

Phoebe, a member of the wealthy Rothschilds family, befriends Mallory and the two become as close as sisters, but Phoebe does not know that Mallory is a faerie, sent to the human world to trap the ordinary human girl into fulfilling a promise made by her ancestor Mayer to the queen of the faeries.

When Ridge, a time-traveling teenager from the future, gets trapped in 1999, he befriends Michael, a lonely twelve-year-old boy, changing the course of their lives forever.

Troublemaking best friends Helen and Gracie take over the club's campaign for maxi pads in bathrooms and soon find themselves closer to change and deeper in trouble than ever before.

Tired of going to the salon to have her curls straightened every weekend, Marlene slowly learns to embrace her natural curly hair with the help of her best friend and favorite aunt.

As Bridge makes her way through seventh grade on Manhattan's Upper West Side with her best friends–curvaceous Em, crusader Tab, and a curious new friend (or more than friend) Sherm–she finds the answer she's been seeking since she barely survived an accident at age eight: "What is my purpose?”

Abandoned by their mother, four children begin a search for a home and an identity.

When his father is killed unexpectedly, Milo must take over the Ferryman's role and guide his father's spirit on the dangerous journey to the Island of the Broken Tower.

From failed football tryouts to helping the new Syrian refugee student, seventh-grader Kareem attempts to navigate the social complexities of seventh grade, which are further complicated when his mother is unable to return home from Syria due to an executive order.

A new year of school is starting, and Brit finds she has feelings for a seemingly rude boy from class who might have a soft side. Meanwhile, Christine can't deny that she likes her best friend Abby...as more than just a friend. Will their feelings for each other mess things up in their friend group?

In order to fix their shattered sibling relationship--and Addie's broken heart--Addie and Ian take a road trip across Ireland filled with unexpected detours and a stop at a major musical festival.

The second Mrs. de Winter narrates the haunting events surrounding her marriage to Maxim de Winter and her growing obsession with his first wife, the beautiful late Rebecca.

This timely and powerful novel tells the story of three different children seeking refuge. Although they are separated by continents and decades, shocking connections tie their stories together in the end.

When young American pilot Rose Justice is captured by Nazis and sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious women's concentration camp, she finds hope in the impossible through the loyalty, bravery, and friendship of her fellow prisoners.

Chinese American Ruby Chu, 13, struggles to process the death of her beloved paternal grandfather, Ye-Ye; her sister's impending departure for college; and the splintering of her friend group. After Ruby gets in trouble for ditching school, her parents decide that she will spend summer weekdays and weeknights with her Nai-Nai, who lives near San Francisco's Chinatown.

When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to school with a prosthetic limb, and her track team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle her dream of running again.

In a world where dragons and humans coexist in an uneasy truce and dragons can assume human form, Seraphina, whose mother died giving birth to her, grapples with her own identity amid magical secrets and royal scandals, while she struggles to accept and develop her extraordinary musical talents.

Orphaned by the Border Wars, Alina Starkov is taken from obscurity and her only friend, Mal, to become the protegé of the mysterious Darkling, who trains her to join the magical elite in the belief that she is the Sun Summoner, who can destroy the monsters of the Fold.

The exiled Princess Shiori must unravel the curse that turned her six brothers into cranes, and she is assisted by her spurned betrothed, a capricious dragon, and a magic paper bird.

If you enjoyed folktales, try…

Snow in August 

by Pete Hamill

Eleven-year-old Irish Catholic Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch form a wonderful, if unlikely, friendship in Brooklyn in 1947, but the actions of an anti-Semitic gang soon have them trapped in a spiral of hate and hoping for a miracle.

When Clara vanishes from her twelfth birthday party, suspicion of kidnapping chases puppeteer Grisini and two orphaned assistants away from London, and soon the two orphans are caught in a trap set by Grisini's ancient rival, a witch with a deadly inheritance to shed before it is too late.

If you enjoyed The Odyssey, try…

Tales from Ovid

by Ted Hughes

An English translation of twenty-four stories from Ovid's classic "Metamorphoses," written by the Roman poet around the time of the birth of Christ.

In a world where Beauty is a commodity only a few control, one Belle will learn the dark secrets behind her powers and rise up to change the world.

Hannah resents the traditions of her Jewish heritage until time travel places her in the middle of a small Jewish village in Nazi-occupied Poland.

1890, Atlanta. By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid, but by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column.

A fearful sixteen-year-old princess discovers her heroic destiny after being married off to the king of a neighboring country in turmoil and pursued by enemies seething with dark magic.

If you enjoyed The Odyssey, try…

The Lincoln Highway

by Amor Towles

A Propulsive novel set in 1950s America, this is the story of Emmett’s fateful journey across the country to the City of New York, spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view.

Petra's world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children - among them Petra and her family - have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race. Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet–and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth.

Aware of the racial tumult in the years after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Mei tries to remain blissfully focused on her job, her close friendship with the camp foreman's daughter, and telling stories about Paul Bunyan--reinvented as Po Pan Yin (Auntie Po), an elderly Chinese matriarch.

On an island off the south coast of Victorian England, fourteen-year-old Faith investigates the mysterious death of her father, who was involved in a scandal, and discovers a tree that feeds upon lies and gives those who eat its fruit visions of truth.

If you enjoyed folktales, try…

The Once and Future King 

by T.H. White

Masterful retelling of the saga of King Arthur.

If you enjoyed The Odyssey, try 

The Penelopiad 

by Margaret Atwood

Penelope, immortalised in legend and myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, waits for her husband's return. Now Penelope wanders the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: her own side of the story.

When eleven-year-old Hank's mother does not come home after a week, he and his toddler sister, Boo, seek out the stranger listed as their emergency contact, even though it means having to answer questions about his mom that he has been trying to keep secret.

Toby and his friend Lucas made a list of things to do the summer before they entered middle school, but now Lucas is gone, and Toby sets out to fulfill the promise he made to his friend: to finish the list by hiking the Appalachian Trail.

When twelve-year-old Fern and her mother abruptly leave their isolated, off-the-grid community, Fern wants nothing more than to return, but things get murky as she slowly discovers unsettling truths about her old one.

The classic tale of buccaneers and buried gold first published in 1883.

Twelve-year-old Natsu and her family live a quiet farm life in Manchuria, near the border of the Soviet Union. But the life they've known begins to unravel when her father is recruited to the Japanese army, and Natsu and her little sister, Cricket, are left orphaned and destitute.

A collection of sixteen stories introduces a host of strange, wondrous beings that have never existed anywhere but in the imagination, with stories from Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones, and E. Nesbit.

An English veterinarian reminisces about his life, career, and animal patients in a small village.

Discusses the international competition to create the first atomic bomb.

A modern, photographic directory of over 150 crochet stitches, covering techniques including granny squares, amigurumi, and Tunisian crochet.

Explains different types of thinkers: verbal thinkers who are good with language, and visual thinkers who think in pictures and patterns. You will discover all kinds of minds and how we need to work together to create solutions to help solve real-world problems.

Translated from Japanese, readers with an interest in illustration, architecture, or worldbuilding will find much to pore over in this visually engaging art book that includes 30 homes from worlds real and imagined, revealed in watercolor-style illustrations.

Consider the personal and global health implications of your food choices.

Almost every treat can be made in under one hour, in one bowl, and with no fancy ingredients or equipment--leaving you with less time in the kitchen and more time for snacking!

With recipes ranging from Biang Biang Mian (Hand-Pulled Noodles) to Steak Tacos with Charred Corn Salsa, Arepas to Congee, French Fries and Cheeseburger Sliders to Apple-Cider Donuts, this book features helpful sidebars to ensure that teens can learn more about why a recipe works, and how to take their recipes to the next level.