Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 

In this classic work of historical fiction, Louisa May Alcott chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy) as they grow up in New England in the 1860s. These four unique sisters struggle and learn through ambition, art, loss, and love.  Students may choose to listen to the audiobook version.

Very Dangerous Things  by Lauren Muñoz 

Each year Dr. James Everett High School stages an annual murder mystery to put its criminology students’ knowledge of forensics and logic to the test. The big difference this year is that the student scheduled to pretend to be the murder victim is actually killed.  The high school students use all of their skills to try to figure out whodunit before the murderer kills again.

Warrior Girl Unearthed  by Angeline Boulley 

In the summer of 2014 in Sault Ste. Marie, 16-year-old Ojibwe member Perry Firekeeper-Birch is planning to spend the summer fishing and relaxing.  Getting into a fender-bender puts these plans on hold while Perry has to get a job to cover the cost of repairs to the Jeep.   While working with a mentor at the local museum, she learns about the history of grave robbing of Indigenous remains and artifacts.   She decides it is time to return some of these items to her tribe, but is she willing to break the law to do it? 

Dead Flip by Sara Farizan 

In 1987, Cori, Maz, and Sam were best friends who loved to hang out eating snacks and playing arcade games.  One of the twelve year-olds mysteriously disappears after playing a new, possibly haunted, pinball machine at the local newsstand.  Five years later, the 12-year-old reappears just as mysteriously, but he is still 12 while his friends are now 17.  Now the old friends have to figure out what happened, and how to stop it from happening again.

 Safe Harbor  by Padma Venkatraman (verse novel) 

Author Padma Venkatraman’s novel-in-verse follows the story of Geetha, a tween who has just moved from India to New England after her parents’ divorce.  Life in Rhode Island is full of challenges, and being bullied at school makes having left behind her friends, her family, and her dog so much harder.  Meeting a new friend, Miguel, and discovering a cause she can fight for, the protection of a seal pup and its habitat, give Geetha hope for her new life in the United States. 

I’m Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberely Jones and Gilly Segal

In alternating chapters, two high school girls, Lena and Campbell, recount what they witness and experience when they end up in the middle of a riot following a football game between rival high schools in Atlanta.  At the start of the night, these two girls are complete strangers, but they find they must work together despite their many differences if they hope to survive the night and both get home safely.  Will this night forever change them?

Both Can Be True by Jules Machias 

This middle-grade novel about friendship, identity, and acceptance, tells the story of two seventh graders, Daniel and Ash, as they try to exist in a world that wants their emotions and identities to fit in neat boxes.  The “overly” sentimental Daniel works at a dog shelter where he encounters an elderly dog named Chewbarka who is slated to be euthanized.  Daniel enlists the help of his new friend Ash to dognap Chewbarka from the shelter and save the outcast dog from a cruel fate. Meanwhile, Ash is dealing with the everyday cruelties of managing life in a middle school as someone who is nonbinary.  Through alternating chapters, readers see Ash through Daniel’s perspective and their own as Ash tries to find a gender identity that feels most true. 

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty 

At 8 years-old, Lucy Callahan was struck by lightning.  Somehow this brush with death made her a math genius.  Homeschooling for the last four years gave her the opportunity to use her math smarts and learn in forums where her young age didn’t matter.  However, Lucy has never had the chance to be a “normal” 12-year-old.  Before she will allow Lucy to apply to college, grandma is determined to change this. She insists Lucy attend one-year of middle school in-person where she must make one friend and join one activity.  How hard could middle school be for a genius?

Golden Arm by Carl Deuker 

As a kid with a speech impediment and a learning disability, Lazarus (Laz) Weathers thinks his “golden” pitching arm may be his ticket out of Jet City and into major league baseball. The problem is, due to financial issues, his high school has decided to shut down its baseball program. Laz gets recruited to pitch for a high school in a wealthy neighborhood, but this means leaving his mother and half-brother behind to live with the star of the Laurelhurst High team. As the baseball season heats up, his family needs him. How can he be true to his baseball dreams and be part of his family team, too?

Fast Pitch by Nic Stone 

In this middle-grade novel, Shenice Lockwood, twelve-year-old Captain of the Fulton Firebirds, comes to fast-pitch softball with a family legacy in baseball.  Her “Great Grampy” played in the Negro Leagues in the American South before a stint in the major leagues.  Through the course of the book, Shenice discovers a crime that led to the end of her great grandfather’s baseball career.  She becomes obsessed with finding the real story while trying to lead her team to the district finals.  Can she do both, or will her obsession lead her to risk too much? 

The Silence Between Us  by Alison Gervais 

When her mom’s job change requires Maya to move across the country right before her senior year, Maya is understandably sad to leave her friends and her school for the unknown.  In addition to the regular concerns of any teen in this situation, Maya is worried about attending a school full of hearing students for the first time in years.  Leaving behind her Deaf friends at a high school created to support Deaf students is challenging and frustrating.  Dealing with new classmates and teachers who don’t understand (or don’t care about) her is even more upsetting.  Maya decides to focus on graduation and her future career plans and just ignore people.  Then, class president Beau tries to learn ASL and reach out to Maya.  Can her heart learn to trust him?  Or, is she better off avoiding interactions that may lead to more disappointment?

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park 

Based in part on the real life of a Sudanese immigrant to the United States, A Long Walk to Water uses alternating chapters to tell the story of two children in Sudan separated by 23 years.  In 1985, 11-year-old Salva was a refugee walking across miles and miles of Africa looking for his family though Sudan, Kenya, and Ethiopia.  Nya, a girl in Sudan in 2008, endures different hardships.  By the end of the book, Nya and Salva’s stories have connected.

So Far From the Bamboo Grove  by Yoko Kawashima Watkins 

This middle grade novel is based on the author’s personal experiences as a Japanese child leaving northern Korea in the aftermath of WWII.  Eleven-year-old Yoko’s father worked with the Japanese and Korean governments as a diplomat in the 1930s and 40s while raising Yoko and her two siblings in Korea.  With Japan’s defeat in WWII, families of Japanese diplomats had to leave the Korean peninsula that the Japanese had occupied for years.  This book recounts the story of Yoko’s journey as a refugee leaving the only home she had ever known.  

The Teacher of Nomad Land: A WWII Story  by Daniel Nayeri 

This historical novel is set in 1941 while war was raging in Europe, and Iran was technically a neutral country.  However, some areas of Iran were occupied by British forces and others by Soviet troops. Nazi spies were also travelling through the country.  Within this backdrop, two Iranian orphans are trying to find ways to support themselves.  Babak and his sister are searching for nomadic tribes their father used to teach in the hopes that they can join them for the sake of survival.  On a difficult trek across mountains, the pair meet a Jewish boy hiding from a Nazi spy.  Can these three children who have different faiths and speak different languages work together for the safety of them all? 

Survivors Club: the True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz by Michael Bornstein and Debbie Bornstein Holinstat 

By his seventies, Holocaust survivor Michael Bornstein had not shared much of his experiences during WWII with anyone. One day, he decided to search online for a famous photo of himself he knew existed.  In the photo, Michael was four-years-old in Auschwitz when it was liberated.  Within minutes, he found a copy of the image on a website written by someone denying the level of atrocities during the Holocaust.  Bornstein was so disgusted that he decided it was time to share his memories with the world.  This book, which he co-authored with his daughter, is the account they published to tell the world about the experiences of one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz. 

All the Light We Cannot See  by Anthony Doerr (Alex Award Winner 2015, WWII, historical fiction)

In alternating chapters, this book tells the story of two young people on opposite sides during WWII.  While growing up in an orphanage in Germany, Werner finds a radio in a trash heap.  Through tinkering with the radio, he learns he has a talent for fixing things.  Meanwhile, Marie-Laure, a French girl who is blind lives with her father in Paris and spends her days exploring the Museum of Natural History.  WWII shifts everything for them.  Werner’s talent is discovered by Nazis and he is forced to track down people using radios to spread resistance to the war.  In France, Marie-Laure and her father flee to her uncle’s house in another city when Nazis occupy Paris.  The two teens end up on a collision course when Werner hears Marie-Laure broadcasting over radio waves.

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee 

This high fantasy novella, follows the story of Ester as she learns to hunt monsters with her partner- a giant falcon-like bird called a roc. When Ester was younger, she witnessed a manticore kill her mother and baby brother near their homestead.  This trauma left her with a singular focus: she would learn to hunt and kill the manticores that terrorized her community and took her family from her.  In the King’s Royal Mews, she is paired with a baby roc named Zahra.  She must learn the craft of being a ruhker (roc trainer) as she follows her path towards revenge and self-discovery.

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb 

Michael L. Printz Honor Book, Stonewall Book Award (LGBTQIA+), Sydney Taylor Book Award (from Association of Jewish Libraries)

Part historical novel, part fantastical tale, this book is an immigration story set in the late 19th-early 20th century.  With connections to  Jewish folklore, this novel begins in a shtetl in Poland with an angel and a demon who've been friends arguing about the Talmud for centuries.  People from their village have been leaving for America, only to never be heard from again.  The pair decide to make the journey through Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean to Ellis Island to find out what is happening.  Along the way, they encounter demons of the supernatural (and also human) variety who are preying upon the lives and souls of immigrants undergoing this treacherous crossing.  This book includes a glossary of Hebrew and Yiddish words and phrases. 

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 

In this dystopian novel, teenager Wade Watts spends his days like most teens in the year 2044- linked into a virtual world called the OASIS where he attends virtual school, hangs out with the avatars of his friends, and plays video games.  Most people spend as little time as possible in the “real world” of Earth which has become an environmental wasteland.  When the founder of the OASIS dies, the terms of his will set up a massive, pop-culture-fueled Easter egg hunt through the OASIS to find the gamer who will inherit the founder’s massive fortune and control the virtual world of the OASIS forever.

Best of All Worlds by Kenneth Oppel 

Thirteen year-old Xavier Oaks has to spend a weekend in the woods with his dad and stepmom.  He is NOT looking forward to a few days away from the internet, his friends, and his crush.  Unfortunately for Xavier, he wakes up the first morning to a terrible discovery.  Their cabin has mysteriously been moved from the hillside with the lake and trees to somewhere he has never visited.  As they try to explore and figure out what is going on, the Oaks’ figure out that they are alone and trapped inside a dome.  Questions about who would do this to them and why become more complicated three years later when their solitude is interrupted by a new family’s cabin appearing inside their dome. 

The Disappearing Spoon  by Sam Kean (the adult or Young Readers Edition) 

This nonfiction book tells stories of adventure, betrayal, and obsession that accompanied the unveiling of many of the elements on the periodic table and the creation of the table itself.  These stories recount times when scientific research depended on (sometimes mad) scientists racing each other toward the next big discovery.  You will learn about disappearing metal spoons and glow-in-the dark organs and the solar system and more.  It is available in a young readers’ edition and an adult version, you may read either. 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  by Rebecca Skloot (the adult version or the YA adaptation) 

Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who died of cancer in 1951.  However, cells from her body continue to live on in science labs around the world where they have been used in developing vaccines and treatments for dozens of medical issues, helping countless people regain health, and making millions of dollars for companies using these cells.  Henrietta’s family didn’t learn about any of this until 20 years after her death.  This book raises questions about the human side of medical research.  It is available in a young readers’ edition and an adult version, you may read either.