Embedded Files
** Rating Key **
Audience: A = Adult Audience | YA = YA Audience
Content: D = Death/Grief | L = Strong Language | MH = Mental Health |
P = Political/Social Issues | S = Sexual Content/Relationships | SU = Substance Use | V = Violence
Nonfiction
Nonfiction
Audience: YA
Content: D, P
American Spirits : the famous Fox sisters and the mysterious fad that haunted a nation by Barb Rosenstock
From the Publisher
* Finalist, 2026 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults * A Kirkus Reviews Best Book * A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year *
Can the dead talk to the living? Discover the astonishingly true story of Maggie, Kate, and Leah Fox—the Civil War-era sisters and teen mediums who created the American séance. A real-life ghost story for young adult readers interested in the supernatural, American history, and women’s rights!
Rap. Rap. Rap. The eerie sound was first heard in March of 1848 at the home of the Fox family in Hydesville, New York. The family’s two daughters, Kate and Maggie, soon discovered that they could communicate with the spirit that was making these uncanny noises; he told them he had been a traveling peddler who had been murdered. This strange incident, and the ones that followed, generated a media frenzy beyond anything the Fox sisters could have imagined. Kate and Maggie, managed (or perhaps manipulated) by their elder sister Leah, became famous spirit mediums, giving public exhibitions, and advising other celebrities of their day.
But were the Fox sisters legitimate? In the years that followed their rise, the Civil War killed roughly 1 in 4 soldiers, increasing the demand for contacting the dead. However, media campaigns against the sisters gathered steam as well…
Audience: A
Content: D, P
Arthur : the dog who crossed the jungle to find a home by Mikael Lindnord
From the Publisher
The uplifting true story of an extreme athlete, a stray dog, and how they found each other. "Heroic and heartwarming" (Forbes), this unbelievable adventure will make readers laugh, gasp, cry, and see rescue dogs with a whole new perspective.
When you're racing 435 miles through the jungles and mountains of South America, the last thing you need is a stray dog tagging along. But that's exactly what happened to Mikael Lindnord, captain of a Swedish adventure racing team, when he threw a scruffy but dignified mongrel a meatball one afternoon.
When the team left the next day, the dog followed. Try as they might, they couldn't lose him--and soon Mikael realized that he didn't want to. Crossing rivers, battling illness and injury, and struggling through some of the toughest terrain on the planet, the team and the dog walked, kayaked, cycled, and climbed together toward the finish line, where Mikael decided he would save the dog, now named Arthur, and bring him back to his family in Sweden, whatever it took. Illustrated with candid photographs, Arthur provides a testament to the amazing bond between dogs and people.
-- GRAPHIC NOVEL--
Audience: YA
Content: P, V
Bad Boy : a graphic memoir by Walter Dean Myers; adapted by Guy A. Sims and illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile
From the Publisher
A gripping graphic memoir adaptation of iconic, multi-award-winning author Walter Dean Myers's autobiography, telling the story of his coming-of-age in Harlem, adapted by Guy A. Sims and illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile.
Legendary author Walter Dean Myers was once a troublemaker and a truant.
Just how bad was he? From instigating mischievous pranks at home to fighting in the classroom--especially when teased about his speech impediment--irrepressible Walter was more than a handful. Underneath it all, he had a tremendous love for books, and by high school he longed to become a writer. But financial troubles at home made him feel his options were so limited that he dropped out of school. Still, his desire to write was as irrepressible as Walter himself. If he could only be given the chance...
Walter recounts what growing up in Harlem was like in the 1940s and 1950s--when seeing Langston Hughes and Sugar Ray Robinson on the street was the norm and Jackie Robinson ruled the baseball field.
Gripping. Funny. Heartbreaking. Walter Dean Myers's memoir is unforgettable. This is the award-winning story of one of the strongest voices in children's and young adult literature.
Audience: YA
Content: MH, V
Beyond the Board : the untold story of the world's most daring big wave surfer by Maya Gabeira
From the Publisher
In this thrilling YA memoir, pro surfer Maya Gabeira tells the awe-inspiring true story of her journey from unstoppable teenager to the Guinness World Record–holding legend she is today.
Who am I, beyond the board? Surf legend Maya Gabeira is famous for her nerve. Her surfing journey began at the age of fourteen and reached a high when she set (and later broke) a Guinness World Record for highest wave conquered by any big wave surfer—man or woman—after bouncing back from a near-fatal accident.
Gabeira has been heralded as one of the top surfers of her generation. But who is the ferocious personality beyond the board? What are the stories behind the relationships and challenges that shaped her into the indomitable surfer, women’s rights advocate, and champion for mental health awareness she is today?
For the first time ever, Maya looks back on her formative years: the romances, career highs, vulnerabilities, and setbacks that defined her at an early age.
At seventeen, she left her home in Rio de Janeiro in order to chase waves around the world, toting a single backpack and waiting tables to get by. Maya carved her own path as a teen, defining her own remarkable narrative: that of a vulnerable, passionate, and driven young woman who learned never to flinch—even in the face of death.
Audience: A
Content: D, L, P, V
Born a Crime : stories from a South African childhood by Trevor Noah
From the Publisher
* Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor and an NAACP Image Award * Named one of the best books of the year by The New York Time, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Esquire, Newsday, and Booklist *
Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents' indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa's tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man's relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother--his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother's unconventional, unconditional love.
Audience: A
Content: --
The Cat Who Went to Paris by Peter Gethers
From the Publisher
When the world is your oyster, you need a cat to enjoy it with you.
At one time in his life, Peter Gethers, publisher, screenwriter, and author, was a confirmed loner and cat hater. All that changed when a Scottish Fold kitten named Norton entered his life.
Peter opened his heart to Norton and soon they were inseparable. Together they rode the ferry to Fire Island, traversed the subways of Manhattan, traveled on the Concorde to Paris, dated beautiful women, and even dined in the world's finest restaurants. Norton knows how to impress simply by being himself--an amusing and intelligent companion who understands silence, enjoys the thrill of the chase, and gladly accepts the devotion of man and womankind. He also teaches his fallible owner how to live, love, and be a compassionate human being.
The Cat Who Went to Paris proves that sometimes all it takes is paws and personality to change a life.
Audience: A
Content: D, P, S
Finding my Way : a memoir by Malala Yousafzai
From the Publisher
* An Instant New York Times Bestseller! * A USA Today Best Book of the Year *
"A remarkably intimate and insistently human chronicle of a moral authority's coming of age." --The New York Times
This is not the story you think you know. It's the one I've been waiting to tell.
Thrust onto the public stage at fifteen years old after the Taliban's brutal attack on her life, Malala Yousafzai quickly became an international icon known for bravery and resilience. But away from the cameras and crowds, she spent years struggling to find her place in an unfamiliar world. Now, for the first time ever, Malala takes us beyond the headlines in Finding My Way--a vulnerable, surprising memoir that buzzes with authenticity, sharp humor, and tenderness.
Finding My Way is a story of friendship and first love, of anxiety and self-discovery, of trying to stay true to yourself when everyone wants to tell you who you are. In it, Malala traces her path from high school loner to reckless college student to a young woman at peace with her past. Through candid, often messy moments like nearly failing exams, getting ghosted, and meeting the love of her life, Malala reminds us that real role models aren't perfect--they're human.
In this astonishing memoir, Malala reintroduces herself to the world, sharing how she navigated life as someone whose darkest moments threatened to define her narrative--while seeking the freedom to find out who she truly is. Finding My Way is an intimate look at the life of a young woman taking charge of her destiny--and a deeply personal testament to the strength it takes to be unapologetically yourself.
Audience: A
Content: P
Heartbreak is the National Anthem : how Taylor Swift reinvented pop music by Rob Sheffield
From the Publisher
* The Instant New York Times Bestseller! *
An intimate look at the life and music of modern pop's most legendary figure, Taylor Swift, from leading music journalist Rob Sheffield.
A cultural phenomenon. A worldwide obsession. An agent of emotional chaos. There's no parallel to Taylor Swift in history: a teenage girl who turns into the world's favorite pop star, songwriter, storyteller, guitar hero, live performer, changing how music is made and heard. An all-time great on the level of The Beatles, Prince, or David Bowie.
Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music is the first book that goes deep on the musical and cultural impact of Taylor Swift. Nobody can tell the story like Rob Sheffield, the bestselling and award-winning author of Dreaming the Beatles, On Bowie, and Love Is a Mix Tape. The legendary Rolling Stone journalist is the writer who has chronicled Taylor for every step of her long career, from her early days to the Eras Tour. Sheffield gets right to the heart of Swift and her music, her lyrics, her fan connection, her raw power.
At once one of the most beloved music figures of the past two decades and one of the most criticized, Taylor Swift is known as much for her life beyond her music as she is for her hits--the most public of stars, yet also the weirdest and most mysterious. In the tradition of Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles, Heartbreak Is the National Anthem will inform and delight a legion of fans who hang on every word from Taylor and every word Rob writes on her.
Audience: YA
Content: MH
I'm Just a Kid with an IEP : my story by Jordan Toma
From the Publisher
Jordan Toma is A Motivational Speaker, Financial Advisor and a real estate investor.
"But it hasn't always been this easy. My life has been a roller-coaster with this 'Learning Disability' and I let it control my confidence and outlook on life for the first 18 years. I let it define me - it became a permanent label stuck to my shirt every day. I will give you an idea of what I mean. You know when you are attending a conference and they give you a name tag to pin to your shirt? As far as I was concerned I had a permanent name tag. But mine said "You're not as smart as everyone else. You can't do this". This happened to me because of my experience in school and it grew roots into everything I did. I would feel helpless in class. I struggled to understand why I couldn't just pick up information like everyone else. I remember sitting in class telling myself I am going to try really hard to understand everything in class today just like everyone else and be a normal student, but I just couldn't grasp it! I was made fun of because sometimes I had to have special lessons. Other students, even so called "friends" called me dumb.
I let this problem control me until I graduated in 2008. I was accepted into a life changing program called The Step Ahead. I remember moving in filled with fear and anxiety. I went into the bathroom looked at myself in the mirror and promised myself I was going to change. I knew I couldn't let this label last forever. After that I started building a foundation of confidence and belief in myself brick by brick. It has brought me to where I am today.
This journey has just started for me but now I believe it's time to help young students that can relate to my story. My objective is to create the foundations of the belief, the confidence, the work ethic and everything that you need to become the best you can be now and not let anything ever get in your way. Now it's time to make up for lost time."
Audience: A
Content: D, M, P
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
From the Publisher
* National Bestseller *
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. This is the unforgettable story of how Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die.
"It may be nonfiction, but Into the Wild is a mystery of the highest order." --Entertainment Weekly
McCandess had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Not long after, he was dead. Into the Wild is the mesmerizing, heartbreaking tale of an enigmatic young man who goes missing in the wild and whose story captured the world's attention.
Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.
Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless.
When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naivete, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.
Audience: YA
Content: D, P, V
Night Fighter : an insider's story of special ops from Korea to Seal Team 6 by William H. Hamilton
From the Publisher
For readers of American Sniper, the stirring account of a life of service by the "father of the US Navy SEALs"
One month after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, when President John F. Kennedy pressed Congress about America's "urgent national needs," he named expanding US special operations forces along with putting a man on the moon. Captain William Hamilton was the officer tasked with creating the finest unconventional warriors ever seen. Merging his own experience commanding Navy Underwater Demolition Teams with expertise from Army Special Forces and the CIA, and working with his subordinate, Roy Boehm, he cast the mold for sea-, air-, and land-dispatched night fighters capable of successfully completing any mission anywhere in the world. Initially, they were used as a counter to the potential devastation of nuclear war, and later for counterterrorism and hostage rescue. His vision led to the formation of the celebrated SEAL Team 6. In this stirring, action-filled book, Hamilton tells his story for the first time.
Night Fighter is a trove of true adventure from the history of the late twentieth century, which Hamilton lived, from fighter pilot in the Korean War to operative for the CIA in Vietnam, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, and from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Reagan White House's Star Wars. Like American Sniper, here is the record of a life devoted to patriotic service.
Audience: A
Content: D, V
Thirty Below : the harrowing and heroic story of the first all-wome's ascent of Denali by Cassidy Randall
From the Publisher
The gripping story of a group of female adventurers and their treacherous pioneering ascent of Denali.
Excerpted in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and Men's Journal, and named one of the most noteworthy books of the month by the Washington Post.
Cassidy Randall draws on extensive archival research and original interviews to tell an engrossing, edge-of-the-seat adventure story about a forgotten group of climbers who had the audacity to believe that women could walk alone in extraordinary and treacherous heights.
Grace Hoeman dreamed of standing on top of Denali. The tallest peak in North America, the fierce polar mountain loomed large in many climbers' imaginations, and Grace, a doctor in Alaska, had come close to the top, only to be turned back by altitude sickness and a storm that took the lives of seven fellow climbers in one remorseless blow.
Other expeditions denied her a place because of her gender, and when a letter arrived from a climber in California named Arlene Blum, who'd also been barred from expeditions--unless she stayed in base camp and cooked for the men, Grace got a defiant idea: she would organize and lead the first-ever all-female ascent of the frozen Alaskan peak.
Everyone told the "Denali Damsels," as the team called themselves, that it couldn't be done: Women were incapable of climbing mountains on their own. Men had walked on the moon; women still had not stood on the highest points on Earth. But these six women were unwilling to be limited by sexists and misogynists. They pushed past barriers in society at large, the climbing world, and their own bodies.
And then, when disaster struck at the worst time on their expedition, they could either keep their wits and prove their mettle, or die and confirm the worst opinions of men.
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