At the end of what was supposed to be a two week vacation in Los Angeles, ten year old Feng Li learns that she and her two older siblings will have to stay in California while their parents go back to Taiwan. They have a family friend nearby, but the kids have to fend for themselves in a new country. 

Amina, a Pakistani-American Muslim middle schooler, is shy, but generally happy with her life. But things start to change – her best friend starts cozying up to an old enemy, her uncle discourages her from playing the piano, and her local Islamic Center is vandalized. As her community rebuilds, Amina finds her own voice.

Every Sunday, Marlene’s mom takes her to the salon to have her curly hair straightened, a process that Marlene hates. Inspired by her natural-hair-wearing tia, Marlene learns to accept her hair and herself. 

Twelve year old Moose’s father gets a job as a guard at Alcatraz in the 1930s, which mean the whole family moves to Alcatraz Island. Moose has to adapt to living on the island while attending school in San Francisco, all while keeping an eye on his autistic sister. 

This book is inspired by the real-life experiences of the author, Cece Bell, who grew up hard of hearing. She gets fitted for a hearing aid, which is an obvious physical difference between herself and her classmates, but it allows her to hear her teacher better than anyone – it’s like having a superpower. 

Yumi Chung is shy and feels isolated at school. She’s supposed to be spending the summer being tutored in order to meet the requirements for her private school scholarship, but she gets the opportunity (through a case of mistaken identity) to participate in a comedy camp with her favorite YouTube comedian.

Rex’s experience in 6th grade is hard enough when he finds out he needs glasses. He has to navigate his family's lack of money, bullies, a lack of friends, and ugly glasses. 

This book is a palindrome, which means the words are the same whether you read the book forwards or backwards. The protagonist goes on a journey to grieve the loss of his mother and comes back better able to support his widowed father. 

Jordan Banks starts seventh grade at Riverdale Academy Day School, a prestigious private school, where he is one of the only students of color. He has to navigate class and race differences while remaining true to himself. 

Ellen, an autistic and Jewish thirteen-year-old, is excited to spend two weeks in Barcelona with her best friend while on a school trip, but they end up being put in different groups. Ellen has to navigate new friends, a crush, and a queer identity in a new city. 

While on a long subway ride with his sister, Milo imagines the lives of the people on the train around him. When a boy who Milo imagines must be going home to a castle gets off at the same stop as him, Milo realizes that we can’t know a person’s life just by looking at them. 

Eleven year old Isabella is caught between divorced parents, a black father and a white mother. When they remarry other people, she makes friends with her new stepbrother. She learns to navigate her biracial identity amid themes of anti-black racism and police brutality. 

School makes Oliver feel like a fish in a tree. He doesn’t fit in; his brain is a volcano of ideas, answering questions he didn’t even ask. With the help of a friend, he learns that our differences are what make us beautiful.

In this novel in verse, 12 year old Jude has to leave her home in Syria and move to Ohio with her mother. 

Mary is a deaf girl living in Martha’s Vineyard, which has a community with a large deaf population, in the early 1800s. After meeting a scientist who wants to study her deaf community, Mary learns that the larger world is not so welcoming to deaf people.

After Lily moves in with her sick grandmother, a tiger from Korean mythology appears to her. Lily learns that, years ago, her grandmother stole stories from the tigers. Now, they want them back in exchange for her grandmother’s health.