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Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry

Nikky Finney

Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry

Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry is a twenty-first-century paean to the sterling love songs humming throughout four hundred years of black American life. National Book Award winner Nikky Finney's fifth collection contains lighthouse poems, narrative hotbeds, and treasured artifacts--copper coins struck from a new matrix for poetry, one that testifies from the witness stand and punctuates the occasional lyric within a new language of "docu-poetry."

The ancestors arise and fly, and the black female body is the "insurgent sensualist," hunted but fighting to live and love in the ways it wants and knows best: "I loved being / a black girl but had not yet learned / to play dead . . ."

The tenderness of a father's handwritten notes shadows the collection like a ghost, while the treasured, not-for-sale interiority of a black girl's fountainhead takes over every page. "One yellaw gal with an all-black tongue has gone missing." Finney has composed a new black spiritual, and one of the great voices of our time again stamps her singular sound into the new day.

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Light for the World to See

Kwame Alexander

A collection of three powerful poems that take on racism and Black resistance in America by New York Times best-selling author Kwame Alexander. Includes an introduction by the author.

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If Beale Street Could Talk

James Baldwin

A stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime--a moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless (The New York Times Book Review)

One of the best books Baldwin has ever written-perhaps the best of all. --The Philadelphia Inquirer

Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions--affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.

 

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The Underground Railroad

Colson Whitehead

#1 New York Times Bestseller - Winner of the Pulitzer Prize - Winner of the National Book Award - Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction - Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood--where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage--and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.

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How to Be an Antiracist

Ibram X. Kendi

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—The New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.

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Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTES BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly  

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

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If I Was Your Girl

Meredith Russo

Meredith Russo's award-winning, big-hearted novel If I Was Your Girl is about being seen for who you really are, with a love story you can't help but root for!

Amanda Hardy is the new girl in school. Like anyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is keeping a secret, and she’s determined not to get too close to anyone.

But when she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, Amanda can’t help but start to let him into her life. As they spend more time together, she realizes just how much she is losing by guarding her heart. She finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past. But Amanda’s terrified that once she tells him the truth, he won't be able to see past it.

Because the secret that Amanda’s been keeping? It's that at her old school, she used to be Andrew. Will the truth cost Amanda her new life, and her new love?

Stonewall Book Award Winner
Walter Dean Myers Honor Book for Outstanding Children's Literature
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist
A Zoella Book Club Selection
A Bustle Best YA Book of the Year
IndieNext Top 10
One of Flavorwire’s 50 Books Every Modern Teenager Should Read

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It's Not Like It's a Secret

Misa Sugiura

Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature * 2018 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults * 2018 Rainbow Book List * A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2017

"Well-paced, brimming with drama, and utterly vital."—Kirkus (starred review)

This charming and bittersweet coming-of-age story featuring two girls of color falling in love is part To All the Boys I've Loved Before and part Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.

Sixteen-year-old Sana Kiyohara has too many secrets. Some are small, like how it bothers her when her friends don’t invite her to parties. Some are big, like the fact that her father may be having an affair. And then there’s the one that she can barely even admit to herself—the one about how she might have a crush on her best friend.

When Sana and her family move to California, she begins to wonder if it’s finally time for some honesty, especially after she meets Jamie Ramirez. Jamie is beautiful and smart and unlike anyone Sana’s ever known.

There are just a few problems: Sana's new friends don't trust Jamie's crowd; Jamie's friends clearly don't want her around anyway; and a sweet guy named Caleb seems to have more-than-friendly feelings for her. Meanwhile, her dad’s affair is becoming too obvious to ignore.

Sana always figured that the hardest thing would be to tell people that she wants to date a girl, but as she quickly learns, telling the truth is easy…what comes after it, though, is a whole lot more complicated.

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When the Moon Was Ours

Anna-Marie McLemore

Winner of the 2016 Tiptree Award!
Longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Young People's Literature
Stonewall Book Award Honor

“McLemore’s second novel is such a lush surprising fable, you half expect birds to fly out of the pages... McLemore uses the supernatural to remind us that the body’s need to speak its truth is primal and profound, and that the connection between two people is no more anyone’s business than why the dish ran away with the spoon.”
--Jeff Giles, New York Times Book Review

Anna-Marie McLemore’s debut novel The Weight of Feathers was greeted with rave reviews, a YALSA Morris Award nomination, and spots on multiple “Best YA Novels” lists. Now, McLemore delivers a second stunning and utterly romantic novel, again tinged with magic.

To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.

Atmospheric, dynamic, and packed with gorgeous prose, When the Moon was Ours is another winner from this talented author.

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Spin Me Right Round

David Valdes

From lauded writer David Valdes, a sharp and funny YA novel that's Back to the Future with a twist, as a gay teen travels back to his parents' era to save a closeted classmate's life.

All Luis Gonzalez wants is to go to prom with his boyfriend, something his “progressive” school still doesn't allow. Not after what happened with Chaz Wilson. But that was ages ago, when Luis's parents were in high school; it would never happen today, right? He's determined to find a way to give his LGBTQ friends the respect they deserve (while also not risking his chance to be prom king, just saying...).

When a hit on the head knocks him back in time to 1985 and he meets the doomed young Chaz himself, Luis concocts a new plan-he's going to give this guy his first real kiss. Though it turns out a conservative school in the '80s isn't the safest place to be a gay kid. Especially with homophobes running the campus, including Gordo (aka Luis's estranged father). Luis is in over his head, trying not to make things worse-and hoping he makes it back to present day at all.

In a story that's fresh, intersectional, and wickedly funny, David Valdes introduces a big-mouthed, big-hearted queer character that readers won't soon forget.

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I'm a Wild Seed

Sharon Lee De la Cruz

"The queer community is lucky to have Sharon on our side, using her skills and passions to create a better world for all of us."--Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

A collection of lively autobiographical comics guiding the reader through an understanding of queerness and what it means to one woman of color.

In this delightfully compelling full-color graphic memoir, the author shares her process of undoing the effects of a patriarchal, colonial society on her self-image, her sexuality, and her concept of freedom. Reflecting on the ways in which oppression was the cause for her late bloom into queerness, we are invited to discover people and things in the author's life that helped shape and inform her LGBTQ identity. And we come to an understanding of her holistic definition of queerness.

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The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester

Maya MacGregor

In this queer contemporary YA mystery, a nonbinary teen with autism realizes they must not only solve a 30-year-old mystery but also face the demons lurking in their past in order to live a satisfying life.

Sam Sylvester's not overly optimistic about their recent move to the small town of Astoria, Oregon after a traumatic experience in their last home in the rural Midwest.

Yet Sam's life seems to be on the upswing after meeting several new friends and a potential love interest in Shep, the pretty neighbor. However, Sam can't seem to let go of what might have been, and is drawn to investigate the death of a teenage boy in 1980s Astoria. Sam's convinced he was murdered--especially since Sam's investigation seems to resurrect some ghosts in the town.

Threatening notes and figures hidden in shadows begin to disrupt Sam's life. Yet Sam continues to search for the truth. When Sam discovers that they may be closer to a killer than previously known, Sam has a difficult decision to make. Would they risk their new life for a half-lived one?

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Orpheus Girl

Brynne Rebele-Henry

In her debut novel, award-winning poet Brynne Rebele-Henry re-imagines the Orpheus myth as a love story between two teenage girls who are sent to conversion therapy after being caught together in an intimate moment.

Abandoned by a single mother she never knew, 16-year-old Raya--obsessed with ancient myths--lives with her grandmother in a small conservative Texas town. For years Raya has fought to hide her feelings for her best friend and true love, Sarah. When the two are outed, they are sent to Friendly Saviors: a re-education camp meant to "fix" them and make them heterosexual. Upon arrival, Raya vows to assume the role of Orpheus, to return to the world of the living with her love--and after she, Sarah, and the other teen residents are subjected to abusive and brutal "treatments" by the staff, Raya only becomes more determined to escape.

In a haunting voice reminiscent of Sylvia Plath and the contemporary lyricism of David Levithan, Brynne Rebele-Henry weaves a powerful inversion of the Orpheus myth informed by the disturbing real-world truths of conversion therapy. Orpheus Girl is a story of dysfunctional families, trauma, first love, heartbreak, and ultimately, the fierce adolescent resilience that has the power to triumph over darkness and ignorance.

CW: There are scenes in this book that depict self-harm, homophobia, transphobia, and violence against LGBTQ characters.

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Short Stuff

Julia Ember

It could start anywhere...

At a summer vacation at the lake, just before heading off to college. In a coffee shop, when the whole world is new. In a dragon's cave, surrounded by gold. At a swim club, with the future in sight.

Short Stuff features bestselling and award-winning authors dialing down the angst for an anthology of light LGBTQ-YA romance.

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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Benjamin Alire Sáenz

A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)

A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

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Too Bright to See

Kyle Lukoff

A Newbery Honor Book - Winner of the Stonewall Book Award - A National Book Award Finalist

A gentle, glowing wonder, full of love and understanding. -The New York Times Book Review

Cover may vary.

It's the summer before middle school and eleven-year-old Bug's best friend Moira has decided the two of them need to use the next few months to prepare. For Moira, this means figuring out the right clothes to wear, learning how to put on makeup, and deciding which boys are cuter in their yearbook photos than in real life. But none of this is all that appealing to Bug, who doesn't particularly want to spend more time trying to understand how to be a girl. Besides, there's something more important to worry about: A ghost is haunting Bug's eerie old house in rural Vermont...and maybe haunting Bug in particular. As Bug begins to untangle the mystery of who this ghost is and what they're trying to say, an altogether different truth comes to light--Bug is transgender.

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The Best at It

Maulik Pancholy

From award-winning actor Maulik Pancholy comes a hilarious and heartfelt middle grade debut about a gay Indian American boy coming into his own. One of Time Out's "LGBTQ+ books for kids to read during Pride Month," this is perfect for fans of Tim Federle's Nate series. A Stonewall Honor Book!

Rahul Kapoor is heading into seventh grade in a small town in Indiana. The start of middle school is making him feel increasingly anxious, so his favorite person in the whole world, his grandfather, Bhai, gives him some well-meaning advice: Find one thing you're really good at and become the BEST at it.

Those four little words sear themselves into Rahul's brain. While he's not quite sure what that special thing is, he is convinced that once he finds it, bullies like Brent Mason will stop torturing him at school. And he won't be worried about staring too long at his classmate Justin Emery. With his best friend, Chelsea, by his side, Rahul is ready to crush this challenge.... But what if he discovers he isn't the best at anything?

Funny, charming, and incredibly touching, this is a story about friendship, family, and the courage it takes to live your truth.

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A High Five for Glenn Burke

Phil Bildner

A 2021 NCTE Charlotte Huck Award Honor Book
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2020
A 2021 ALA Rainbow Book
A Bank Street Best Book of 2021

A heartfelt and relatable novel from Phil Bildner, weaving the real history of Los Angeles Dodger and Oakland Athletic Glenn Burke--the first professional baseball player to come out as gay--into the story of a middle-school kid learning to be himself.

When sixth grader Silas Wade does a school presentation on former Major Leaguer Glenn Burke, it’s more than just a report about the irrepressible inventor of the high five. Burke was a gay baseball player in the 1970s—and for Silas, the presentation is his own first baby step toward revealing a truth about himself he's tired of hiding. Soon he tells his best friend, Zoey, but the longer he keeps his secret from his baseball teammates, the more he suspects they know something’s up—especially when he stages one big cover-up with terrible consequences.

A High Five for Glenn Burke is Phil Bildner’s most personal novel yet—a powerful story about the challenge of being true to yourself, especially when not everyone feels you belong on the field.

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Hurricane Child

Kacen Callender

Prepare to be swept up by this exquisite novel that reminds us that grief and love can open the world in mystical ways.

 

Winner of the Stonewall Book Award!Winner of the Lambda Literary Award!Caroline Murphy is a Hurricane Child.Being born during a hurricane is unlucky, and twelve-year-old Caroline has had her share of bad luck lately. She's hated and bullied by everyone in her small school on St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, a spirit only she can see won't stop following her, and -- worst of all -- Caroline's mother left home one day and never came back.But when a new student named Kalinda arrives, Caroline's luck begins to turn around. Kalinda, a solemn girl from Barbados with a special smile for everyone, becomes Caroline's first and only friend -- and the person for whom Caroline has begun to develop a crush.Now, Caroline must find the strength to confront her feelings for Kalinda, brave the spirit stalking her through the islands, and face the reason her mother abandoned her. Together, Caroline and Kalinda must set out in a hurricane to find Caroline's missing mother -- before Caroline loses her forever.

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Spin with Me

Ami Polonsky

From the author of the critically acclaimed Gracefully Grayson comes a thoughtful and sensitive middle-grade novel about non-binary identity and first love, Ami Polonsky's Spin with Me.

In this elegant dual narrative, Essie is a thirteen-year-old girl feeling glum about starting a new school after her professor dad takes a temporary teaching position in a different town. She has 110 days here and can't wait for them to end. Then she meets Ollie, who is nonbinary. Ollie has beautiful blue eyes and a confident smile. Soon, Essie isn’t counting down the days until she can leave so much as she’s dreading when her time with Ollie will come to an end.

Meanwhile, Ollie is experiencing a crush of their own . . . on Essie. As Ollie struggles to balance their passion for queer advocacy with their other interests, they slowly find themselves falling for a girl whose stay is about to come to an end. Can the two unwind their merry-go-round of feelings before it's too late?

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Rick

Alex Gino

From the award-winning author of George, the story of a boy named Rick who needs to explore his own identity apart from his jerk of a best friend.

 

Rick's never questioned much. He's gone along with his best friend Jeff even when Jeff's acted like a bully and a jerk. He's let his father joke with him about which hot girls he might want to date even though that kind of talk always makes him uncomfortable. And he hasn't given his own identity much thought, because everyone else around him seemed to have figured it out.But now Rick's gotten to middle school, and new doors are opening. One of them leads to the school's Rainbow Spectrum club, where kids of many genders and identities congregate, including Melissa, the girl who sits in front of Rick in class and seems to have her life together. Rick wants his own life to be that . . . understood. Even if it means breaking some old friendships and making some new ones.As they did in their groundbreaking novel GEORGE, in RICK, award-winning author Alex Gino explores what it means to search for your own place in the world . . . and all the steps you and the people around you need to take in order to get where you need to be.

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They, She, He, Me

Maya Christina Gonzalez

How do you daily confirm and celebrate gender fluidity when the 'he' and 'she' binary is so prevalent in EVERYTHING, everywhere, all the time!?

Pronouns serve as a familiar starting point for kids and grown-ups to expand ideas about gender and celebrate personal expression with fun imagery that provides a place to meet and play.

Award winning children's book author and artist Maya Gonzalez is joined by her partner, Matthew, in their first children's book together.

With virtually no reflection for different gender presentations in children's books available, together they created a book to do just that. They She He Me, Free to Be shows many gender presentations under each pronoun and invites even more. A go-to place to help keep the conversations alive, break down assumptions of who is "she" or "he" and expand beyond the binary to include "they" and more.

The back offers a playful narrative about pronouns, inviting kids to know themselves inside and out, claim the pronouns that express the spirit of who they are and respect that in others. Also included is some discussion for grown-ups on how to hold a supportive space for kids (and for themselves).

This book stands on its own, but it also serves as a great reference to expand gender in other books and media. They She He Me also pairs perfect with, The Gender Wheel, a story about Bodies and Gender for every body. Together these books offer a firm foundation of radical gender inclusion for parents, educators and caregivers to share with their kids.

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Stonewall

Rob Sanders

Celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising with the very first picture book to tell of its historic and inspiring role in the gay civil rights movement.

From Rob Sanders, author of the acclaimed Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag, comes this powerful and timeless true story that will allow young readers to discover the rich and dynamic history of the Stonewall Inn and its role in the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement--a movement that continues to this very day. In the early-morning hours of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn was raided by police in New York City. Though the inn had been raided before, that night would be different. It would be the night when empowered members of the LGBTQ+ community--in and around the Stonewall Inn--began to protest and demand their equal rights as citizens of the United States. Movingly narrated by the Stonewall Inn itself, and featuring stirring and dynamic illustrations, Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution is an essential and empowering civil rights story that every child deserves to hear.

PRAISE FOR PRIDE THE STORY OF HARVEY MILK AND THE RAINBOW FLAG!

"Pride is a beacon of (technicolor) light."
- Entertainment Weekly

"An essential LGBTQ children's book"
- Out.com

"This children's book about gay Pride should be in every school."
- Gay Times Magazine

"I couldn't be more thrilled the world now has this book."
- Dustin Lance Black, Academy Award-winning screenwriter of MILK

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In the Key of Us

Mariama J. Lockington

From the author of the critically acclaimed novel For Black Girls Like Me, Mariama J. Lockington, comes a coming-of-age story surrounding the losses that threaten to break us and the friendships that make us whole again.

Thirteen-year-old Andi feels stranded after the loss of her mother, the artist who swept color onto Andi’s blank canvas. When she is accepted to a music camp, Andi finds herself struggling to play her trumpet like she used to before her whole world changed. Meanwhile, Zora, a returning camper, is exhausted trying to please her parents, who are determined to make her a flute prodigy, even though she secretly has a dancer’s heart.

At Harmony Music Camp, Zora and Andi are the only two Black girls in a sea of mostly white faces. In kayaks and creaky cabins, the two begin to connect, unraveling their loss, insecurities, and hopes for the future. And as they struggle to figure out who they really are, they may just come to realize who they really need: each other.

In the Key of Us is a lyrical ode to music camp, the rush of first love, and the power of one life-changing summer.

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Different Kinds of Fruit

Kyle Lukoff

In this funny and hugely heartfelt novel from the Newbery Honor-winning author of Too Bright to See, a sixth-grader's life is turned upside down when she learns her dad is trans

Annabelle Blake fully expects this school year to be the same as every other: same teachers, same classmates, same, same, same. So she's elated to discover there's a new kid in town. To Annabelle, Bailey is a breath of fresh air. She loves hearing about their life in Seattle, meeting their loquacious (and kinda corny) parents, and hanging out at their massive house. And it doesn't hurt that Bailey has a cute smile, nice hands (how can someone even have nice hands?) and smells really good.

Suddenly sixth grade is anything but the same. And when her irascible father shares that he and Bailey have something big--and surprising--in common, Annabelle begins to see herself, and her family, in a whole new light. At the same time she starts to realize that her community, which she always thought of as home, might not be as welcoming as she had thought. Together Annabelle, Bailey, and their families discover how these categories that seem to mean so much--boy, girl, gay, straight, fruit, vegetable--aren't so clear-cut after all.

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Be Amazing

Desmond Napoles

In Be Amazing, drag kid Desmond is Amazing walks you through the history of the LGBTQ community, all while encouraging you to embrace your own uniqueness and ignore the haters.

Desmond is amazing—and you are, too.

Throughout history, courageous people like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and RuPaul have paved the way for a safer, more inclusive society for LGBTQ individuals, and it’s thanks to them that people just like Desmond can be free to be who they really are.

Featuring illustrations by Dylan Glynn

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People of Pride

Chase Clemesha

What do Frank Ocean, Sally Ride, George Takei, and Sharice Davids all have in common? They're all proud LGBTQ Americans! Featuring people from a variety of occupations and backgrounds, this collection of 25 short biographies demonstrates the diversity, accomplishments, and pride within the American LGBTQ community.

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Pride: an Inspirational History of the LGBTQ+ Movement

Stella Caldwell

Take pride in who you are! This inspiring history of the LGBTQ+ community enlightens young readers on the true timeline of LGBTQ+ history around the world, the lives of important figures like Harvey Milk, and iconic events like Stonewall.

The LGBTQ+ community is so much more than rainbow flags and the month of June. In this beautifully designed dynamic book, young readers will learn about groundbreaking events, including historic pushes for equality and the legalization of same-sex marriages across the world. They will dive into the phenomenal history of queer icons from ancient times to the present and read about Harvey Milk, Marsha P. Johnson, Audre Lorde, and more.

Including several personal current essays from inspiring young, LGBTQ+ people, this book encourages readers to take pride in their identity and the identities of those around them. Don't just learn about LGBTQ+ history - take pride in it!

The lively four-color interior, including photographs and bold illustrations, enhances the text and makes this a beautiful and dynamic addition to any collection.

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#Pride: Championing LGBTQ Rights

Rebecca Felix

In this title, readers learn about the #Pride movement, from its beginnings at the Stonewall Riots to the LGBTQ rights movement, the first Pride Parade, the creation of the Rainbow flag, and legislation such as the Matthew Shephard Act and the 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same sex marriage. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Abdo & Daughters is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

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The Circles All Around Us

Brad Montague

The debut picture book from the creator of the viral sensation Kid President is a moving take on how we can create bigger and bigger circles of community and connections as we grow--now a New York Times bestseller!

In the circles all around us, everywhere that we all go, there's a difference we can make and a love we can all show.

This is the story of a circle. When we're first born, our circle is very small, but as we grow and build relationships, our circle keeps getting bigger and bigger to include family, friends, neighbors, community, and beyond. Brad Montague originally created Circles as an Instagram video adorably narrated by his kids, and now this picture book adaptation is the perfect way to start a conversation about how to expand our worlds with kindness and inclusivity--even if it seems scary or uncomfortable. This book makes an ideal new-baby, first-day-of-school, or graduation gift, or any milestone that celebrates someone's world getting bigger.

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Kindness Makes Us Strong

Sophie Beer

This bright book by the creator of Love Makes a Family celebrates acts of kindness big and small.

Kindness is a friendly hello. A roaring cheer. A quick boost. Kindness is what makes us strong! This joyful board book shows various children as they extend kindness in all kinds of situations: on the playground, at lunchtime, on a bike path, and on a neighborhood street. This sweet preschool read-aloud shows the way kindness helps build friendship and community.

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You Are Light

Aaron Becker

With a wondrously simple die-cut book, the Caldecott Honor-winning creator of the Journey trilogy brings his talents further into the light.

This is the light that brings the day.

Open this beautiful book to find a graphic yellow sun surrounded by a halo of bright die-cut circles. Now hold the page up to the light and enjoy the transformation as the colors in those circles glow. In an elegant, sparely narrated ode to the phenomenon of light, Aaron Becker follows as light reflects off the earth to warm our faces, draws up the sea to make the rain, feeds all the things that grow, and helps to create all the brilliant wonders of the world, including ourselves.

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Pink Is for Boys

Robb Pearlman

An empowering and educational picture book that proves colors are for everyone, regardless of gender.


Pink is for boys . . . and girls . . . and everyone! This timely and beautiful picture book rethinks and reframes the stereotypical blue/pink gender binary and empowers kids-and their grown-ups-to express themselves in every color of the rainbow. Featuring a diverse group of relatable characters, Pink Is for Boys invites and encourages girls and boys to enjoy what they love to do, whether it's racing cars and playing baseball, or loving unicorns and dressing up. Vibrant illustrations help children learn and identify the myriad colors that surround them every day, from the orange of a popsicle, to the green of a grassy field, all the way up to the wonder of a multicolored rainbow.

Parents and kids will delight in Robb Pearlman's sweet, simple script, as well as its powerful message: life is not color-coded.
 

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When Aidan Became a Brother

Kyle Lukoff

Stonewall Book Award Winner, American Library Association (ALA)
Rainbow List, GLBTQ Round Table, American Library Association (ALA)
Lasting Connection Title, Book Links
Best Children's Books of the Year, Bank Street College of Education
White Raven Selection, International Youth Library
Best Books of the Year, School Library Journal
Notable Children's Book, American Library Association (ALA)
Editor's Choice, Booklist

This sweet #ownvoices picture book celebrates the changes in a transgender boy's life, from his initial coming-out to becoming a big brother.

Winner of the 2020 Stonewall Book Award!

When Aidan was born, everyone thought he was a girl. His parents gave him a pretty name, his room looked like a girl's room, and he wore clothes that other girls liked wearing. After he realized he was a trans boy, Aidan and his parents fixed the parts of life that didn't fit anymore, and he settled happily into his new life.

Then Mom and Dad announce that they're going to have another baby, and Aidan wants to do everything he can to make things right for his new sibling from the beginning--from choosing the perfect name to creating a beautiful room to picking out the cutest onesie. But what does making things right actually mean? And what happens if he messes up? With a little help, Aidan comes to understand that mistakes can be fixed with honesty and communication, and that he already knows the most important thing about being a big brother: how to love with his whole self.

When Aidan Became a Brother is a heartwarming book that will resonate with transgender children, reassure any child concerned about becoming an older sibling, and celebrate the many transitions a family can experience.

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Worm Loves Worm

J. J. Austrian

When a worm meets a special worm and they fall in love, you know what happens next: They get married! But their friends want to know—who will wear the dress? And who will wear the tux?

The answer is: It doesn't matter. Because worm loves worm.

Perfect for fans of And Tango Makes Three and The Sissy Duckling, this irresistible picture book is a celebration of love in all its splendid forms from debut author J. J. Austrian and the acclaimed author-illustrator of Little Elliot, Big City, Mike Curato.

You are cordially invited to celebrate the wedding of a worm...and a worm.

 

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My Rainbow

DeShanna Neal

A dedicated mom puts love into action as she creates the perfect rainbow-colored wig for her transgender daughter, based on the real-life experience of mother-daughter advocate duo Trinity and DeShanna Neal.

Warm morning sunlight and love fill the Neal home. And on one quiet day, playtime leads to an important realization:Trinity wants long hair like her dolls. She needs it to express who she truly is.

So her family decides to take a trip to the beauty supply store, but none of the wigs is the perfect fit. Determined, Mom leaves with bundles of hair in hand, ready to craft a wig as colorful and vibrant as her daughter is.

With powerful text by Trinity and DeShanna Neal and radiant art by Art Twink, My Rainbow is a celebration of showing up as our full selves with the people who have seen us fully all along.

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Julián is a Mermaid

Jessica Love

In an exuberant picture book, a glimpse of costumed mermaids leaves one boy flooded with wonder and ready to dazzle the world.

While riding the subway home from the pool with his abuela one day, Julián notices three women spectacularly dressed up. Their hair billows in brilliant hues, their dresses end in fishtails, and their joy fills the train car. When Julián gets home, daydreaming of the magic he's seen, all he can think about is dressing up just like the ladies in his own fabulous mermaid costume: a butter-yellow curtain for his tail, the fronds of a potted fern for his headdress. But what will Abuela think about the mess he makes -- and even more importantly, what will she think about how Julián sees himself? Mesmerizing and full of heart, Jessica Love's author-illustrator debut is a jubilant picture of self-love and a radiant celebration of individuality.

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Red

Michael Hall

A blue crayon mistakenly labeled as "red" suffers an identity crisis in this picture book by the New York Times–bestselling creator of My Heart Is Like a Zoo and It's an Orange Aardvark! Funny, insightful, and colorful, Red: A Crayon's Story, by Michael Hall, is about being true to your inner self and following your own path despite obstacles that may come your way. Red will appeal to fans of Lois Ehlert, Eric Carle, and The Day the Crayons Quit, and makes a great gift for readers of any age!

Red has a bright red label, but he is, in fact, blue. His teacher tries to help him be red (let's draw strawberries!), his mother tries to help him be red by sending him out on a playdate with a yellow classmate (go draw a nice orange!), and the scissors try to help him be red by snipping his label so that he has room to breathe. But Red is miserable. He just can't be red, no matter how hard he tries! Finally, a brand-new friend offers a brand-new perspective, and Red discovers what readers have known all along. He's blue! This funny, heartwarming, colorful picture book about finding the courage to be true to your inner self can be read on multiple levels, and it offers something for everyone.

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Love Makes a Family

Sophie Beer

This fun, inclusive board book celebrates the one thing that makes every family a family . . . and that's LOVE.

Love is baking a special cake. Love is lending a helping hand. Love is reading one more book. In this exuberant board book, many different families are shown in happy activity, from an early-morning wake-up to a kiss before bed. Whether a child has two moms, two dads, one parent, or one of each, this simple preschool read-aloud demonstrates that what's most important in each family's life is the love the family members share.

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Everyone Loves a Parade!*

Andrea Denish

Included on the SCBWI Recommended Reading List 2020

Everyone loves a parade, right? Well, almost everyone! In this colorful picture book, young readers can take a rollicking, rhyming journey through some of the most celebrated parades in the United States.


Music, costumes, food, and fun. The sights and sounds of a parade are exciting! From Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year to St. Patrick's Day and LGBTQ+Pride, each celebration is a joy for kids, and most adults. With rhyming text and bold illustrations, children will love this festive and humorous look at some of the country's most well-known parades that features a surprise ending.

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This Day in June

Gayle E. Pitman

Named one of the Top 11 Most Challenged Books of 2018 by American Library Association (joined by Two Boys Kissing by David Leviathan, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Judy Sherman Alexie, Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner, This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey, A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss, and George by Alex Gino)

Winner of the 2015 Stonewall Book Award--Mike Morgan and Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award

A Top Ten Title, 2015 American Library Association Rainbow List

Winner, 2015 Notable Books for a Global Society Awards

Named one of the most important books of the last decade by The Advocate's "40 Under 40" list

This day in June.... Parade starts soon.... Rainbow arches.... Joyful marches!

In a wildly whimsical, validating, and exuberant reflection of the LGBT community, This Day In June welcomes readers to experience a pride celebration and share in a day when we are all united.

Also included is a Note to Parents and Other Caregivers with information on how to talk to children about sexual orientation and gender identity in age-appropriate ways as well as a Reading Guide chock-full of facts about LGBT history and culture. This Day in June is an excellent tool for teaching respect, acceptance, and understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

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A is for Activist

Innosanto Nagara

This bestselling ABC book is written and illustrated for the next generation of progressives: families who want their kids to grow up in a space that is unapologetic about activism, environmental justice, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and everything else that activists believe in and fight for. A continuous bestseller for Triangle Square, we heard from booksellers around the country who clamored for a large format edition that would appeal to children over the age of 5. This engaging book carries huge messages as it inspires hope for the future, and calls children and parents to action.

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Pride Puppy!

Robin Stevenson

★"[A] sheer delight and will be a welcome addition to shelves everywhere. Highly--and proudly--recommended." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

★ "This engaging introduction to Pride parades for the youngest readers successfully testifies to the warmth and power of queer community." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

A young child and their family are having a wonderful time together celebrating Pride Day--meeting up with Grandma, making new friends and eating ice cream. But then something terrible happens: their dog gets lost in the parade! Luckily, there are lots of people around to help reunite the pup with his family.

This rhyming alphabet book tells a lively story, with rich, colorful illustrations that will have readers poring over every detail as they spot items starting with each of the letters of the alphabet. An affirming and inclusive book that offers a joyful glimpse of a Pride parade and the vibrant community that celebrates this day each year.

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The Edge of the Abyss

Emily Skrutskie

Three weeks have passed since Cassandra Leung pledged her allegiance to ruthless pirate-queen Santa Elena and set free Bao, the sea monster Reckoner she'd been forced to train. The days as a pirate trainee are long and grueling, but it's not the physical pain that Cas dreads most. It's being forced to work with Swift, the pirate girl who broke her heart. But Cas has even bigger problems when she discovers Boa is not the only a monster swimming free. Other Reckoners illegally sold to pirates have escaped their captors and are taking the NeoPacific by storm, attacking ships at random and ruining the ocean ecosystem. As a Reckoner trainer, Cas might be the only one who can stop them. But how can she take up arms against the creatures she used to care for and protect? Will Cas embrace the murky morals that life as a pirate brings or perish in the dark waters of the NeoPacific? The exciting sequel to The Abyss Surrounds Us

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Given to the Sea

Mindy McGinnis

Kings and Queens rise and fall, loyalties collide, and romance blooms in a world where the sea is rising--and cannot be escaped.

Khosa is Given to the Sea, a girl born to be fed to the water, her flesh preventing a wave like the one that destroyed the Kingdom of Stille in days of old. But before she's allowed to dance an uncontrollable twitching of the limbs that will carry her to the shore in a frenzy--she must produce an heir. Yet the thought of human touch sends shudders down her spine that not even the sound of the tide can match.

Vincent is third in line to inherit his throne, royalty in a kingdom where the old linger and the young inherit only boredom. When Khosa arrives without an heir he knows his father will ensure she fulfills her duty, at whatever cost. Torn between protecting the throne he will someday fill, and the girl whose fate is tied to its very existence, Vincent's loyalty is at odds with his heart.

Dara and Donil are the last of the Indiri, a native race whose dwindling magic grows weaker as the island country fades. Animals cease to bear young, creatures of the sea take to the land, and the Pietra--fierce fighters who destroyed the Indiri a generation before--are now marching from their stony shores for the twin's adopted homeland, Stille.

Witt leads the Pietra, their army the only family he has ever known. The stone shores harbor a secret, a growing threat that will envelop the entire land--and he will conquer every speck of soil to ensure the survival of his people.

The tides are turning in Stille, where royals scheme, Pietrans march, and the rising sea calls for its Given.

Praise for Given to the Sea:
"Star-crossed love is at the heart of this darkly vivid tale, woven with hypnotic prose and captivatingly intense characters [. . .] Readers will be hypnotized by their relationships as well as the allure of the created world in this first book of the Given duet."--Romantic Times

"[T]his book isn't just about love triangles (or squares): themes of duty and fate are thickly woven into the fabric of this tale as each character grapples with balancing moral obligation against desire."--Kirkus Reviews

"Four neatly interlocking narratives build a riveting story about destiny [. . .] There's plenty of gore, romance, plot twists, and cliff-hangers, but readers will also find thoughtful challenges to racism, misogyny, and cruelty--plus a strong feminist element too."--Booklist

"Readers willing to look at the larger ensemble cast, the characters' connections, and the subsequent political machinations may appreciate the world building and the disturbing but satisfying ending."--Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

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Children of the Sea, Vol. 5

Daisuke Igarashi

When Ruka was younger, she saw a ghost in the water at the aquarium where her dad works. Now she feels drawn toward the aquarium and the two mysterious boys she meets there, Umi and Sora. They were raised by dugongs and hear the same strange calls from the sea as she does.

After following Umi deep into the ocean, Ruka finds herself in an undersea cave where she hears a voice calling to her. She soon realizes it is the meteorite in her stomach, telling her the next step in her journey. The FINAL VOLUME of this majestic tale.

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Ocean Speaks

Jess Keating

Meet Marie Tharp (1920-2006), the first person to map the Earth's underwater mountain ridge, in this inspiring picture book biography from the author of Shark Lady.

From a young age, Marie Tharp loved watching the world. She loved solving problems. And she loved pushing the limits of what girls and women were expected to do and be. In the mid-twentieth century, women were not welcome in the sciences, but Marie was tenacious. She got a job at a laboratory in New York. But then she faced another barrior: women were not allowed on the research ships (they were considered bad luck on boats). So instead, Marie stayed back and dove deep into the data her colleagues recorded. She mapped point after point and slowly revealed a deep rift valley in the ocean floor. At first the scientific community refused to believe her, but her evidence was irrefutable. She proved to the world that her research was correct. The mid-ocean ridge that Marie discovered is the single largest geographic feature on the planet, and she mapped it all from her small, cramped office.

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Lights! Camera! Hammerhead!

Davy Ocean

Harry has hopes of hammerhead stardom in this second book of a fin-tastic chapter book series.

When humans show up at Shark Point to film an underwater documentary, Harry Hammer is thrilled. He’s sure he’s meant for the spotlight, but will he end up with the starring role of his dreams, or stay in deep-sea oblivion?

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Mermaids

Theresa Jarosz Alberti

Did you know that mermaids live alongside other sea creatures? In most stories, they are shy and tend to hide from humans. Learn more about these mythical creatures in Mermaids, part of the Legends and Fairy Tales series. Legends and Fairy Tales is a series of AV2 media enhanced books. A unique book code printed on page 2 unlocks multimedia content. These books come alive with video, audio, weblinks, slideshows, activities, hands-on experiments, and much more.

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Happy Narwhalidays (a Narwhal and Jelly Book #5)

Ben Clanton

A New York Times Bestseller!

Narwhal and Jelly spread some holiday cheer (and warm waffle pudding) in the festive fifth book of this blockbuster graphic novel series!

Dive into three new stories about Narwhal's favorite time of the year! It's the festive season in the world wide waters, and Narwhal is looking forward to cozying up with a good book, singing and partying with pod pals and enjoying some warm waffle pudding. But most of all Narwhal is excited about the arrival of the Merry Mermicorn! According to Narwhal, she's part mermaid, part unicorn and completely mer-aculous! Jelly is of course skeptical about the existence of the Mira-Miny-What-A Corn . . . even when he receives a mysterious present. It must be from Narwhal. Now Jelly has to get the perfect gift, but finding a present for someone as unique as Narwhal is no easy feat, even when you have six tentacles. How will Jelly ever come up with a whaley great gift for a best pal who spreads cheer all through the year?

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The Ocean in Your Bathtub

Seth Fishman

"A fabulous find."--School Library Journal (starred review)

"A wealth of information."--Booklist

Perfect for curious kids!

From shore to suburb, the ocean connects all of us in unexpected ways--through the weather, our water, our food sources, and more! In their signature informative and child-friendly style, the award-winning creators of A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars explore how the ocean affects everyone, no matter where they live, and how everyone affects the ocean. Fans of Jess Keating's Shark Lady and Kate Messner's The Brilliant Deep will be hooked.

Did you know that oceans cover 71 percent of our planet and contain 97 percent of the earth's water? That seven out of every ten breaths you take contains oxygen that comes from oceanic plant life? No matter how far from the ocean you live, it is part of your life, every single day. And you are part of the ocean's life, too. Every time you flush the toilet or throw something away, you might be sending it to the ocean--and every time you do a good deed, such as pick up litter or recycle, you are helping the ocean!

Acclaimed creators Seth Fishman and Isabel Greenberg explore how the earth's five oceans affect daily life for everyone on the planet and present surprising information about the ocean ecosystem in a fun, accessible story.

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The New Ocean

Bryn Barnard

A fascinating look at the future of our oceans--and how human actions may change them.

The Earth--our home--is covered mostly with water: the wide, deep, salty, and very blue ocean. It regulates our climate in a way that makes life as we know it possible. This huge ocean is full of an amazing amount of life, most of which is too small to see.

But life in the ocean is in trouble. The ocean is becoming hotter, more polluted, and, in places, empty of life. The right amount of warming is good for us, but too much warming is causing shifts that are not good for life in the ocean. Global warming, pollution, and overfishing are creating a New Ocean, in which life is changing drastically.

This book tells the stories of the probable fates of six sea dwellers: jellyfish, orcas, sea turtles, tuna, corals, and blue-green algae. What becomes of them may help you understand what becomes of us.

Praise for Bryn Barnard's Outbreak and Dangerous Planet:

"An absorbing narrative that includes touches of humor. . . . Teachers will find many uses for this, but the book is so engaging it will also attract browsers--and hold them." --Booklist, Starred

"An engrossing introduction for young adult readers to the chillingly topical subject of man vs. microbe." --The Wall Street Journal

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Sea Change

Frank Viva


Publishers Weekly BEST Books for Summer 2016

Sea Change is like a dip in cold Canadian waters: just step inside, and soon you're completely swept away, finding yourself overwhelmed and breathless, entranced by this whirlwind of a book. Bravo, Frank Viva. And glub, glub, glub. - Lemony Snicket, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events

Truly heartbreaking! Viva ingeniously weaves words and pictures to evoke that strange, wonderful moment - when the very worst experience of your life somehow becomes the very best. - Chip Kidd, author of Only What's Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts

 

One summer can change your whole life. As soon as school lets out, Eliot's parents send him to the very edge of the world: a fishing village in a remote part of Nova Scotia. And what does the small town of Point Aconi have to offer? Maggots, bullies and grumpy old men. But along the way, Eliot discovers much more--a hidden library, starry nights and a mysterious girl named Mary Beth. See Point Aconi through Eliot's eyes, as he finds that this place he never wanted to visit is becoming a home he doesn't want to leave.

 

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Sea Monster!

Jordan Quinn

Troubled waters ahead! Lucas and Clara search for a scary sea monster in this third chapter book in the fantastical Kingdom of Wrenly series.

Something has been making waves around Wrenly, and it’s not the tides. Prince Lucas is sure that it’s the mysterious sea monster that has only been heard of in tall tales. Now the legendary monster is frightening everyone—from fishermen, to the king’s men, to even the hardiest of sea captains. With the aid of his best friend, Clara, and a cast of unlikely helpers, it’s up to Prince Lucas to discover what is bothering the beast—and make the trouble stop!

With easy-to-read language and illustrations on almost every page, The Kingdom of Wrenly chapter books are perfect for beginning readers.

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Babymouse

Jennifer L. Holm

NEW YORK TIMES bestselling and Newbery Honor winning author Jennifer Holm teams up with Matthew Holm to bring you a fully illustrated graphic novel series packed with humor and kid appeal—BABYMOUSE!

With multiple Children's Choice awards and over 1.7 million books in print, kids, parents, and teachers agree that Babymouse is perfect for fans of Junie B. Jones, Ivy and Bean, Big Nate, Dork Diaries, and the Ramona chapter books!

Grab your sunglasses!
School's out and Babymouse is headed to the beach for a week of sun, sand, surfing, snorkeling, and sharks! That's right, folks . . . sharks! Looks like Babymouse's summer fun isn't shaping up quite the way she expected! Will Babymouse survive her summer vacation? Will she be the surfing star she dreams of being . . . or is she sharkbait?! Find out in Beach Babe—the 3rd hilarious, action-packed installment of the beloved Babymouse graphic novel series!

Here's what people are saying about Babymouse!

The Chicago Sun-Times:
"Move over, Superman, here comes Babymouse!"

Starred Review, The Horn Book:
"Nobody puts Babymouse in the corner!"

Booklist:
"Cute, smart, sassy Babymouse is fun and funny, and this book, like its predecessors, will draw reluctant readers as well as Babymouse fans."

The Bulletin:
"An almost absurdly likeable heroine."


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Ocean Meets Sky

Terry Fan

“Young readers will be captivated.” —The Washington Post

From the creators of the gorgeous bestseller The Night Gardener comes a stunning new picture book about a young boy who sets sail to find a place his grandfather told him about…the spot where the ocean meets the sky.

It’s a good day for sailing.

Finn lives by the sea and the sea lives by him. Every time he looks out his window it’s a constant reminder of the stories his grandfather told him about the place where the ocean meets the sky. Where whales and jellyfish soar and birds and castles float.

Finn’s grandfather is gone now but Finn knows the perfect way to honor him. He’ll build his own ship and sail out to find this magical place himself!

And when he arrives, maybe, just maybe, he’ll find something he didn’t know he was looking for.

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Hello, World! Ocean Life

Jill McDonald

All young children love to play in the waves at the beach. Now here's a Hello, World! board book that teaches them all about oceans and the creatures and plants that live there.

Hello, World! is a series designed to introduce first nonfiction concepts to babies and toddlers. Told in clear and easy terms ("An octopus has eight arms. Can you count them all?") and featuring bright, cheerful illustrations, Hello, World! is a perfect way to bring science, nature, and culture into the busy world of a toddler, where learning never stops.

Look for all the books in the Hello, World! series: Solar System, Weather, Backyard Bugs, Birds, Dinosaurs, My Body, and How Do Apples Grow?

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Ocean Lullaby

Laura McGee Kvasnosky

A soft and soothing good night journey through an ocean filled with sleepy sea creatures, perfect for bedtime in the summer or year-round.

The sun is setting. The waves are gently lapping at the shore. It's time for all the ocean creatures to rest. Whales, turtles, dolphins, and more drift and doze. And as the tide pools catch the light of the moon and the stars glowing above, a mother and her baby listen to the soft sounds of the ocean lullaby . . .

Shhh, hush. Shhh, hush. The ocean's soothing song. Shhh, hush. Shhh, hush. We can sing along.

Praise for Ocean Lullaby

A delightful winding-down story after a busy day at the beach--or anywhere. --Kirkus Reviews

This dreamy paean to the ocean's mesmerizing influence [is] guaranteed to soothe little ones at bedtime. --Booklist

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Crab Cake

Andrea Tsurumi

Under the sea, a crab follows its heart and its calling, bringing everyone together in the wake of a disaster. Feed your craving for a hilarious, heart-warming story with Crab Cake, perfect for budding environmentalists, kids learning to cope with mishaps, and every young reader in between.

Under the sea, fish do what fish do: Seahorse hides, Pufferfish puffs up, Parrotfish crunches coral, and Crab . . . bakes cakes?
Scallop swims, Dolphin blows bubbles, and . . . Crab bakes cakes.
And so life goes on, until one night when everything changes with a splash!
In the face of total disaster, can Crab's small, brave act help the community come together and carry on?

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At the Beach

Elizabeth Spurr

Simple, evocative language and charming illustrations describe one boy's day at the beach.
In this gently rhyming board book about a visit to the beach, a young boy digs in the sand and makes a sand birthday cake, then loses it to the waves. His mother distracts him with a picnic and he falls asleep at the end of a full and happy day.
Elizabeth Spurr and Manelle Oliphant together create a perfect sit-in-your-lap reading experience for toddlers.

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You Exist Too Much

Zaina Arafat

A “provocative and seductive debut” of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine).

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12–year–old Palestinian–American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter.

Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East—from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine—Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought–after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as “love addiction.” In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.

Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings—for love, and a place to call home.

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Red, White & Royal Blue

Casey McQuiston

* Instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestseller *
* GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER for BEST DEBUT and BEST ROMANCE of 2019 *
* BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR* for VOGUE, NPR, VANITY FAIR, and more! *

What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.

Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn't always diplomatic.

"I took this with me wherever I went and stole every second I had to read! Absorbing, hilarious, tender, sexy—this book had everything I crave. I’m jealous of all the readers out there who still get to experience Red, White & Royal Blue for the first time!" - Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners

"Red, White & Royal Blue is outrageously fun. It is romantic, sexy, witty, and thrilling. I loved every second." - Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six

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Outlawed

Anna North

The Crucible meets True Grit in this riveting adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West.

In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw.

The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada’s life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows.

She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she’s willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all.

Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of small-mindedness and fear.

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The Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller

The legend begins...

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. “The best of all the Greeks”—strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess—Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine—much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles’ mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.

When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece, bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

Built on the groundwork of the Iliad, Madeline Miller’s page-turning, profoundly moving, and blisteringly paced retelling of the epic Trojan War marks the launch of a dazzling career.

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Honey Girl

Morgan Rogers

Named Most Anticipated of 2021 by Oprah Magazine * Marie Claire * Ms. Magazine * E! * Parade Magazine * Buzzfeed * Cosmo * The Rumpus * GoodReads * Autostraddle * Brit & Co * Refinery29 * Betches * BookRiot and others!

A LibraryReads Pick

"HONEY GIRL is an emotional, heartfelt, charming debut, and I loved every moment of it."
-- Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author of The Proposal

When becoming an adult means learning to love yourself first.

With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls' trip to Vegas to celebrate. She's a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn't know...until she does exactly that.

This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father's plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn't feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her parent's expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.

In New York, she's able to ignore all the constant questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she's been running from all along--the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

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Untamed

Glennon Doyle

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY O: The Oprah Magazine The Washington Post Cosmopolitan Marie ClaireBloomberg Parade • “Untamed will liberate women—emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It is phenomenal.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls and Eat Pray Love

This is how you find yourself.

There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent—even from ourselves.

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living.

Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is.

Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists: The braver we are, the luckier we get.

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Start Without Me

Gary Janetti

The New York Times Bestseller!

From New York Times bestselling author, and Family Guy writer Gary Janetti comes Start Without Me, a collection of hilarious, laugh out loud, true life stories about the small moments that add up to a big life.


Gary Janetti is bothered. By a lot of things. And thank God he’s here to tell us.

In Start Without Me, Gary returns with his acid tongue firmly in cheek to the moments and times that defined him. He takes us by the hand as we follow him through the summers he spends in his twenties, pursuing both the perfect tan and the perfect man to no avail and much regret. At his Catholic high school, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a nun who shares Gary's love of soap operas, which becomes a salvation to them both. And don't get him started on how a bad hotel room can ruin even the best vacation. This laugh-out-loud collection of true-life stories from the man “behind his generation’s greatest comedy” (The New York Times) is for anyone who has felt the joy in holding a decade-long grudge.

Whether you are a new convert to Janetti or one of the million who follow him on social media for a daily laugh, Start Without Me will have you howling at Gary's frustrations and nodding along in agreement at the outrages of life's small slights. It's the literary equivalent of a night out with your funniest friend that you wish would never end.

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Happy-Go-Lucky

David Sedaris

David Sedaris returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso.

Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask--or not--was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes.

But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he's stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.

As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger's teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone's son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.

In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.

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My Autobiography of Carson McCullers

Jenn Shapland

While working as an intern in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center, Jenn Shapland encounters the love letters of Carson and a woman named Annemarie--letters are that are tender, intimate, and unabashed in their feelings. Shapland recognizes herself in the letters' language--but does not see Carson as history has portrayed her.

And so, Shapland is compelled to undertake a recovery of the full narrative and language of Carson's life: She wades through the therapy transcripts; she stays at Carson's childhood home, where she lounges in her bathtub and eats delivery pizza; she relives Carson's days at her beloved Yaddo. As Shapland reckons with the expanding and collapsing distance between her and Carson, she see the way Carson's story has become a way to articulate something about herself. The results articulate something entirely new not only about this one remarkable, walleyed life, but about the way we tell queer love stories.In genre-defying vignettes, Jenn Shapland interweaves her own story with Carson McCullers's to create a vital new portrait of one of America's most beloved writers, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are.

In genre-defying vignettes, Jenn Shapland interweaves her own story with Carson McCullers's to create a vital new portrait of one of America's most beloved writers, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are.

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Perpetual West

Mesha Maren

​“Stunning . . . A forceful addition to the literature of the U.S.-Mexican border and its ongoing history of tragedy and joy.”
—Jennifer Clement, The New York Times Book Review 

“Suspenseful, seductive . . . A thrill ride from cover to cover.”
Oprah Daily, “The 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2022” 


The riveting new novel by the acclaimed author of Sugar Run, Perpetual West is a brilliant and evocative story of borders—between countries, between lovers, and between facets of the self.

When Alex and Elana move from smalltown Virginia to El Paso, they are just a young married couple, intent on a new beginning. Mexican by birth but adopted by white American Pentecostal parents, Alex is hungry to learn about the place where he was born. He spends every free moment across the border in Juárez—perfecting his Spanish, hanging with a collective of young activists, and studying lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) for his graduate work in sociology. Meanwhile Elana, busy fighting her own demons, feels disillusioned by academia and has stopped going to class. And though they are best friends, Elana has no idea that Alex has fallen in love with Mateo, a lucha libre fighter.

When Alex goes missing and Elana can’t determine whether he left of his own accord or was kidnapped, it’s clear that neither of them has been honest about who they are. Spanning their journey from Virginia to Texas to Mexico, Mesha Maren’s thrilling follow-up to Sugar Run takes us from missionaries to wrestling matches to a luxurious cartel compound, and deep into the psychic choices that shape our identities. A sweeping novel that tells us as much about our perceptions of the United States and Mexico as it does about our own natures and desires, Perpetual West is a fiercely intelligent and engaging look at the false divide between high and low culture, and a suspenseful story of how harrowing events can bring our true selves to the surface.

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Detransition, Baby

Torrey Peters

PEN/Hemingway Award WinnerFinalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Gotham Book PrizeLonglisted for The Women’s PrizeRoxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club PickNew York Times Editors’ Choice

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.

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Girlhood

Melissa Febos

A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become. A wise and brilliant guide to transforming the self and our society.

In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.

When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she'd been told about herself and the habits and defenses she'd developed over years of trying to meet others' expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.

Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.
Written with Febos' characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.

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What's Your Pronoun?

Dennis E. Baron

Like trigger warnings and gender-neutral bathrooms, pronouns are sparking a national debate, prompting new policies in schools, workplaces, even prisons, about what pronouns to use. Colleges ask students to declare their pronouns along with their majors; corporate conferences print name tags with space to add pronouns; email signatures sport pronouns along with names and titles. Far more than a by-product of the culture wars, gender-neutral pronouns are, however, nothing new. Pioneering linguist Dennis Baron puts them in historical context, noting that Shakespeare used singular-they; women invoked the generic use of he to assert the right to vote (while those opposed to women's rights invoked the same word to assert that he did not include she); and people have been coining new gender pronouns, not just hir and zie, for centuries. Based on Baron's own empirical research, What's Your Pronoun? chronicles the story of the role pronouns have played--and continue to play--in establishing both our rights and our identities. It is an essential work in understanding how twenty-first-century culture has evolved.

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Love That Story

Jonathan Van Ness

The Instant New York Times Bestseller

This follow-up to the wildly successful Over the Top features thoughtful essays in Jonathan Van Ness's signature voice, with topics including body positivity, healing and grief, personal style, tales from the hair salon, overcoming imposter syndrome, and issues surrounding systemic racism, cannabis reform, LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS awareness.

In Jonathan Van Ness' New York Times bestselling memoir Over the Top, he showed readers how the incredibly difficult moments from his life (surviving sexual abuse and addiction, being diagnosed with HIV) have existed alongside great joy and positivity (landing a breakout role on Netflix's Queer Eye, becoming an amateur figure skater and professional standup comedian, doting on his cats). If Jonathan has learned anything from these experiences, it's that in order to thrive, he had to push past the shame and fear of being his true self. To embark on that journey, he had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

In this candid and curious essay collection, Jonathan takes a thoughtful, in-depth look at timely topics through the lens of his own personal experience--instances that have required him to learn, grow, and back handspring layout to a better understanding of the world around him. He dives deeply and widely--from a poignant reflection on grief and embracing body neutrality to an examination of the HIV safety net and white privilege--to share the ways in which he has learned to embrace change. These stories speak to doing the work to challenge internalized beliefs, finding compassion and confidence, and learning more about what makes us all so messy and gorgeous.

Balancing the dark and the light, the serious and the signature humor that is Jonathan Van Ness, these essays will encourage readers to examine their individual assumptions and expand their horizons. Ultimately, it is about giving ourselves the permission to be the flawed and fabulous humans we are, and loving our stories.

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The Fixed Stars

Molly Wizenberg

From a bestselling memoirist, a thoughtful and provocative story of changing identity, complex sexuality, and enduring family relationships

At age 36, while serving on a jury, author Molly Wizenberg found herself drawn to a female attorney she hardly knew. Married to a man for nearly a decade and mother to a toddler, Wizenberg tried to return to her life as she knew it, but something inside her had changed irredeemably. Instead, she would discover that the trajectory of our lives is rarely as smooth or as logical as we'd like to believe.

Like many of us, Wizenberg had long understood sexual orientation as a stable part of ourselves: we're "born this way." Suddenly she realized that her story was more complicated. Who was she, she wondered, if something at her very core could change so radically? The Fixed Stars is a taut, electrifying memoir exploring timely and timeless questions about desire, identity, and the limits and possibilities of family. In honest and searing prose, Wizenberg forges a new path: through the murk of separation and divorce, coming out to family and friends, learning to co-parent a young child, and realizing a new vision of love. The result is a frank and moving story about letting go of rigid definitions and ideals that no longer fit, and learning instead who we really are.

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Gideon the Ninth

Tamsyn Muir

WINNER of the 2020 Locus Award and Crawford Award
Finalist for the 2020 Hugo, Nebula, Dragon, and World Fantasy Awards

“Unlike anything I’ve ever read. ” —V.E. Schwab


“Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” —Charles Stross

“Deft, tense and atmospheric, compellingly immersive and wildly original.” —The New York Times


The Emperor needs necromancers.

The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense.

Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as arcane revenants. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will be become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.

THE LOCKED TOMB TRILOGY
BOOK 1: Gideon the Ninth
BOOK 2: Harrow the Ninth
BOOK 3: Alecto the Ninth

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Boyfriend Material

Alexis Hall

WANTED:
One (fake) boyfriend
Practically perfect in every way

Luc O'Donnell is tangentially--and reluctantly--famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making a comeback, Luc's back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything.

To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship...and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He's a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he's never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately, apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled. Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened.

But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that's when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don't ever want to let them go.

Discover the LGBT romance about exact opposites falling in perfectly imperfect love that New York Times and USA Today bestselling author CHRISTINA LAUREN calls "hilarious, witty, tender, and stunning."

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Written in the Stars

Alexandria Bellefleur

I was hooked from the very first page!" - Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of In a Holidaze

This book is a delight. - New York Times Book Review

A National Bestseller and winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Romance! Featured on Shondaland, Oprah Mag, Bustle, The New York Times Book Review, Buzzfeed, POPSUGAR, Entertainment Weekly, Washington Post, NPR, Culturess, Vulture, and more. Named one of the Best Romances of 2020 by Washington Post, Bustle, and Buzzfeed!

With nods to Bridget Jones and Pride & Prejudice, this debut is a delightful queer rom-com about a free-spirited social media astrologer who agrees to fake a relationship with a grumpy actuary until New Year's Eve--with results not even the stars could predict!

After a disastrous blind date, Darcy Lowell is desperate to stop her well-meaning brother from playing matchmaker ever again. Love--and the inevitable heartbreak--is the last thing she wants. So she fibs and says her latest set up was a success. Darcy doesn't expect her lie to bite her in the ass.

Elle Jones, one of the astrologers behind the popular Twitter account Oh My Stars, dreams of finding her soul mate. But she knows it is most assuredly not Darcy... a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud, who is way too analytical, punctual, and skeptical for someone as free-spirited as Elle. When Darcy's brother--and Elle's new business partner--expresses how happy he is that they hit it off, Elle is baffled. Was Darcy on the same date? Because... awkward.

Darcy begs Elle to play along and she agrees to pretend they're dating. But with a few conditions: Darcy must help Elle navigate her own overbearing family during the holidays and their arrangement expires on New Year's Eve. The last thing they expect is to develop real feelings during a faux relationship. But maybe opposites can attract when true love is written in the stars?

Everything I want from a rom-com: fun, whimsical, sexy. - Talia Hibbert, USA Today bestselling author of Get a Life, Chloe Brown

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The Queer Principles of Kit Webb

Cat Sebastian

The Queer Principles of Kit Webb kept me up all night! I simply couldn't put it down.-- Tessa Dare, New York Times bestselling author

"Sharp, smart, and oh-so-swoony, The Queer Principles of Kit Webb reminds me that Cat Sebastian is an author at the absolute top of her game."-- Rachel Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author

Critically acclaimed author Cat Sebastian pens a stunning historical romance about a reluctantly reformed highwayman and the aristocrat who threatens to steal his heart.

Kit Webb has left his stand-and-deliver days behind him. But dreary days at his coffee shop have begun to make him pine for the heady rush of thievery. When a handsome yet arrogant aristocrat storms into his shop, Kit quickly realizes he may be unable to deny whatever this highborn man desires.

In order to save himself and a beloved friend, Percy, Lord Holland must go against every gentlemanly behavior he holds dear to gain what he needs most: a book that once belonged to his mother, a book his father never lets out of his sight and could be Percy's savior. More comfortable in silk-filled ballrooms than coffee shops frequented by criminals, his attempts to hire the roughly hewn highwayman, formerly known as Gladhand Jack, proves equal parts frustrating and electrifying.

Kit refuses to participate in the robbery but agrees to teach Percy how to do the deed. Percy knows he has little choice but to submit and as the lessons in thievery begin, he discovers thievery isn't the only crime he's desperate to commit with Kit.

But when their careful plan goes dangerously wrong and shocking revelations threaten to tear them apart, can these stolen hearts overcome the impediments in their path?

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She Who Became the Sun

Shelley Parker-Chan

Lambda Literary Award Finalist! Two-time Hugo Award Finalist! Locus Award Finalist!

"Magnificent in every way."—Samantha Shannon, author of The Priory of the Orange Tree

"A dazzling new world of fate, war, love and betrayal."—Zen Cho, author of Black Water Sister

She Who Became the Sun reimagines the rise to power of the Ming Dynasty’s founding emperor.

To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything

“I refuse to be nothing...”

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness...

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.

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Light From Uncommon Stars

Ryka Aoki

Hugo Award Finalist
A National Bestseller
Indie Next Pick
New York Public Library Top 10 Book of 2021
A Kirkus Best Book of 2021
A Barnes & Noble Best Science Fiction Book of 2021
2022 Alex Award Winner

2022 Stonewall Book Award Winner

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.

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Something Fabulous

Alexis Hall

From the acclaimed author of Boyfriend Material comes a delightfully witty romance featuring a reserved duke who's betrothed to one twin and hopelessly enamoured of the other.

Valentine Layton, the Duke of Malvern, has twin problems: literally.

It was always his father's hope that Valentine would marry Miss Arabella Tarleton. But, unfortunately, too many novels at an impressionable age have caused her to grow up...romantic. So romantic that a marriage of convenience will not do and after Valentine's proposal she flees into the night determined never to set eyes on him again.

Arabella's twin brother, Mr. Bonaventure "Bonny" Tarleton, has also grown up...romantic. And fully expects Valentine to ride out after Arabella and prove to her that he's not the cold-hearted cad he seems to be.

Despite copious misgivings, Valentine finds himself on a pell-mell chase to Dover with Bonny by his side. Bonny is unreasonable, overdramatic, annoying, and...beautiful? And being with him makes Valentine question everything he thought he knew. About himself. About love. Even about which Tarleton he should be pursuing.

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Young Mungo

Douglas Stuart

"Douglas Stuart's first novel Shuggie Bain is one of the most successful literary debuts of the century so far. It was awarded the 2020 Booker Prize, and is now published or forthcoming in forty territories, having already sold more than a million copies worldwide. Now Stuart returns with Young Mungo, his extraordinary second novel. Five years in the writing, it is both a page-turner and literary tour de force, a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a deeply moving and highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James. Born under different stars-Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic-they should be sworn enemies if they're to be seen as men at all. Their environment is a hyper-masculine and sectarian one, for gangs of young men and the violence they might dole out dominate the Glaswegian estate where they live. And yet against all odds Mungo and James become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. As they fall in love, they dream of finding somewhere they belong, while Mungo works hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his big brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. And when several months later Mungo's mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland, together with two strange men whose drunken banter belies murky pasts, he will need to summon all his inner strength and courage to try to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future. Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism and giving full voice to people rarely acknowledged in the literary world, Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much"--

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Siren Queen

Nghi Vo

From award-winning author Nghi Vo comes a dazzling new novel where immortality is just a casting call away

A Best of May Pick by Amazon | Apple Books | Indie Next | B&N Booksellers | LibraryReads | TIME Magazine | The Philadelphia Inquirer!

It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic.

“No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers.” Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill—but she doesn't care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid.

But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes—even if that means becoming the monster herself.

Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.

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The House in the Cerulean Sea

TJ Klune

A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER!
A 2021 Alex Award winner!
The 2021 RUSA Reading List: Fantasy Winner!
An Indie Next Pick!

One of Publishers Weekly's "Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2020"
One of Book Riot’s “20 Must-Read Feel-Good Fantasies”

Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune’s bestselling, breakout contemporary fantasy that's "1984 meets The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of Douglas Adams thrown in." (Gail Carriger)

Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world.

Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.

"1984 meets The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of Douglas Adams thrown in." —Gail Carriger, New York Times bestselling author of Soulless

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All Kinds of Other

James Sie

In this tender, nuanced coming-of-age love story, two boys--one who is cis, and one who is trans--have been guarding their hearts, until their feelings for each other give them a reason to stand up to their fears.

Two boys are starting over at a new high school.

Jules is still figuring out what it means to be gay...and just how out he wants to be.

Jack is reeling from a fall-out with his best friend...and isn't ready to let anyone else in just yet.

When Jules and Jack meet, the sparks are undeniable. But when a video linking Jack to a pair of popular trans vloggers is leaked to the school, the revelations thrust both boys into the spotlight they'd tried to avoid.

Suddenly Jack and Jules must face a choice: to play it safe and stay under the radar, or claim their own space in the world--together.

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Ichiro

Ryan Inzana

Exploring themes of grief, masculinity, and belonging, Ryan Inzana's award-winning work is perfect for fans of Hey, Kiddo, American Born Chinese, and Tilly Walden.

Eisner Nominee - Asian/Pacific American Young Adult Literature Honor

Raised by his Japanese mother, Ichiro idolizes his dead American father, and struggles to fit in. When his mother decides to visit Japan, Ichiro is left with his grandfather, in a country he doesn't know.

Grandfather becomes Ichi's guide, sharing Japan with him. But one night, a monster drags Ichi away--into the domain of the gods! Now, he must face his fears and learn about the nature of man, of gods, and of war. He also learns there are no easy answers--for gods or men.

Called thought-provoking, wholly original, and captivating by reviewers, Ichiro "asks hard questions for readers but challenges them to arrive at their own conclusion" (Booklist) and offers "a powerful commentary on war and peace" (Bulletin). Now with a new "Making of Ichiro" section for a glimpse at creator Ryan Inzana's process.

 

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The Library of Fates

Aditi Khorana

A romantic coming-of-age fantasy tale steeped in Indian folklore, perfect for fans of The Star-Touched Queen and The Wrath and the Dawn

"Aditi Khorana has whipped up the perfect book recipe: a rogue princess, a freed oracle, and a library with the power to change your fate " --Justine Magazine

No one is entirely certain what brings the Emperor Sikander to Shalingar. Until now, the idyllic kingdom has been immune to his many violent conquests. To keep the visit friendly, Princess Amrita has offered herself as his bride, sacrificing everything--family, her childhood love, and her freedom--to save her people. But her offer isn't enough.

The palace is soon under siege, and Amrita finds herself a fugitive, utterly alone but for an oracle named Thala, who was kept by Sikander as a slave and managed to escape amid the chaos. With nothing and no one else to turn to, Amrita and Thala are forced to rely on one another. But while Amrita feels responsible for her kingdom and sets out to warn her people, the newly free Thala has no such ties. She encourages Amrita to go on a quest to find the fabled Library of All Things, where it is possible for each of them to reverse their fates. To go back to before Sikander took everything from them.

Stripped of all that she loves, caught between her rosy past and an unknown future, will Amrita be able to restore what was lost, or does another life--and another love--await?

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The Bone Witch

Rin Chupeco

A high-fantasy Memoirs of a Geisha, Chupeco's latest excels in originality --Kirkus Reviews

A story of scorned witches, sinister curses, and resurrection, The Bone Witch is the start of a dark fantasy trilogy, perfect for fans of Serpent & Dove and The Cruel Prince.

Tea can raise the dead, but resurrection comes at a price...

When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother, Fox, from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she's a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.

In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha--one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles...and make a powerful choice.

Riveting and atmospheric, The Bone Witch is perfect for readers looking for

  • witch novels for adults and teens
  • stories with diverse representation and multicultural influences
  • dark fantasy YA books and series
  • original worldbuilding and captivating writing

Praise for The Bone Witch

A fantasy lover's fantasy --Foreword Reviews

Mesmerizing. Chupeco (The Suffering) does a magnificent job of balancing an intimate narrative perspective with sweeping worldbuilding, crafting her tale within a multicultural melting pot of influences as she presses toward a powerful cliffhanger.--Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review

Chupeco delights us with a fascinating world and a rich atmosphere for a story that is exceptionally written from beginning to end.--Buzzfeed

Readers who enjoy immersing themselves in detail will revel in Chupeco's finely wrought tale. Game of Thrones fans may see shades of Daenerys Targaryen in Tea, as she gathers a daeva army to unleash upon the world. Whether she is in the right remains a question unanswered, but the ending makes it clear her story is only beginning. --Booklist

The Bone Witch Trilogy:

The Bone Witch (Book 1)

The Heart Forger (Book 2)

The Shadowglass (Book 3)

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Darius the Great Is Not Okay

Adib Khorram

Darius doesn't think he'll ever be enough, in America or in Iran. Hilarious and heartbreaking, this unforgettable debut introduces a brilliant new voice in contemporary YA.

Winner of the William C. Morris Debut Award

"Heartfelt, tender, and so utterly real. I'd live in this book forever if I could."
--Becky Albertalli, award-winning author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's a Fractional Persian--half, his mom's side--and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life.

Darius has never really fit in at home, and he's sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn't exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they're spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city's skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush--the original Persian version of his name--and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he's Darioush to Sohrab.

Adib Khorram's brilliant debut is for anyone who's ever felt not good enough--then met a friend who makes them feel so much better than okay.

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Boxers

Gene Luen Yang

Gene Luen Yang is the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and is a MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of what's popularly known as the MacArthur "Genius" Grant.

A New York Times bestseller

China,1898. Bands of foreign missionaries and soldiers roam the countryside, bullying and robbing Chinese peasants.

Little Bao has had enough. Harnessing the powers of ancient Chinese gods, he recruits an army of Boxers - commoners trained in kung fu who fight to free China from "foreign devils."

Against all odds, this grass-roots rebellion is violently successful. But nothing is simple. Little Bao is fighting for the glory of China, but at what cost? So many are dying, including thousands of "secondary devils" - Chinese citizens who have converted to Christianity.

Boxers & Saints is an innovative new graphic novel in two volumes - the parallel stories of two young people caught up on opposite sides of a violent rift. American Born Chinese author Gene Luen Yang brings his clear-eyed storytelling and trademark magical realism to the complexities of the Boxer Rebellion and lays bare the foundations of extremism, rebellion, and faith.

Discover the other side of the Boxer Rebellion in Saints - the companion volume to Boxers.

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Batman

Marie Lu

This dark and twisty BATMAN in the blockbuster DC Icons series is an action-packed thrill ride from #1 New York Times bestselling author MARIE LU.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Before he was Batman, he was Bruce Wayne. A reckless boy willing to break the rules for a girl who may be his worst enemy.

The Nightwalkers are terrorizing Gotham City, and Bruce Wayne is next on their list. Bruce is turning eighteen and inheriting his family's fortune, not to mention the keys to Wayne Industries and all the tech gadgetry that he could ever desire. But on the way home from his birthday party, he makes an impulsive choice that leads to community service at Arkham Asylum, the infamous prison. There, he meets Madeleine Wallace, a brilliant killer with ties to the Nightwalkers. A girl who will only speak to Bruce. She is the mystery he must unravel, but is he convincing her to divulge her secrets, or is he feeding her the information she needs to bring Gotham City to its knees?

Bruce Wayne is proof that you don't need superpowers to be a super hero, but can he survive Madeleine's game of tense intrigue and deception?

Act fast! The first printing includes a poster of Bruce! Each first printing in the DC Icons series will have a limited-edition poster--collect them all to create the full image!

"Masterful. . . . A great story for any Dark Knight fan."
--Den of Geek

Don't miss the rest of the DC Icons series! Read them in any order you choose:
* Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
* Catwoman: Soulstealer by Sarah J. Maas
* Superman: Dawnbreaker by Matt de la Peña

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The Astonishing Color of After

Emily X.R. Pan

"Emily X.R. Pan's brilliantly crafted, harrowing first novel portrays the vast spectrum of love and grief with heart-wrenching beauty and candor. This is a very special book."--John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down
A stunning, heartbreaking debut novel about grief, love, and family, perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson and Celeste Ng.
An APALA Honor BookA Walter Award Honor Book

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.
Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.
Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, hope and despair, The Astonishing Color of After is a stunning and heartbreaking novel about finding oneself through family history, art, grief, and love.

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Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Jenny Han

“Sweetly funny.” —Entertainment Weekly

New York Times bestselling author

Lara Jean’s letter-writing days aren’t over in this surprise follow-up to the bestselling To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still Love You.

Lara Jean is having the best senior year a girl could ever hope for. She is head over heels in love with her boyfriend, Peter; her dad’s finally getting remarried to their next door neighbor, Ms. Rothschild; and Margot’s coming home for the summer just in time for the wedding.

But change is looming on the horizon. And while Lara Jean is having fun and keeping busy helping plan her father’s wedding, she can’t ignore the big life decisions she has to make. Most pressingly, where she wants to go to college and what that means for her relationship with Peter. She watched her sister Margot go through these growing pains. Now Lara Jean’s the one who’ll be graduating high school and leaving for college and leaving her family—and possibly the boy she loves—behind.

When your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?

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They Called Us Enemy

George Takei

New York Times Bestseller!

A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.

George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.

They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.

What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.

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Almost American Girl

Robin Ha

Harvey Award Nominee, Best Children or Young Adult Book

A powerful and moving teen graphic novel memoir about immigration, belonging, and how arts can save a life--perfect for fans of American Born Chinese and Hey, Kiddo.

For as long as she can remember, it's been Robin and her mom against the world. Growing up as the only child of a single mother in Seoul, Korea, wasn't always easy, but it has bonded them fiercely together.

So when a vacation to visit friends in Huntsville, Alabama, unexpectedly becomes a permanent relocation--following her mother's announcement that she's getting married--Robin is devastated.

Overnight, her life changes. She is dropped into a new school where she doesn't understand the language and struggles to keep up. She is completely cut off from her friends in Seoul and has no access to her beloved comics. At home, she doesn't fit in with her new stepfamily, and worst of all, she is furious with the one person she is closest to--her mother.

Then one day Robin's mother enrolls her in a local comic drawing class, which opens the window to a future Robin could never have imagined.

This nonfiction graphic novel with four starred reviews is an excellent choice for teens and also accelerated tween readers, both for independent reading and units on immigration, memoirs, and the search for identity.

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Winnie Zeng Unleashes a Legend

Katie Zhao

An epic new fantasy series inspired by Chinese mythology that #1 New York Times bestselling author Kwame Mbalia calls "a hilarious tussle between homework, family, and heroism." When a girl awakens the stuff of legends from an old family recipe, she must embrace her extraordinary heritage to save the world.

Winnie Zeng has two goals: survive her first year of middle school and outdo her stuck-up archnemesis, David Zuo. It won't be easy, since, according to her older sister, middle school is the pits. Luckily, Winnie studied middle school survival tactics in comic books and anime, and nothing will stop her from being the very best student.

But none of Winnie's research has prepared her to face the mother of all hurdles: evil spirits. When she makes mooncakes for a class bake sale, she awakens the stuff of legends from her grandmother's old cookbook, spilling otherworldly chaos into her sleepy town.

Suddenly Winnie finds herself in a race against time, vanquishing demons instead of group projects. Armed with a magic cookbook and a talking white rabbit, she must embrace her new powers and legacy of her ancestors. Because if she doesn't, her town--and rest of the world--may fall to chaos forever.

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A Single Shard

Linda Sue Park

In this Newbery Medal-winning book, Tree-ear, an orphan, lives under a bridge in Ch'ulp'o, a potters' village famed for delicate celadon ware. He has become fascinated with the potter's craft; he wants nothing more than to watch master potter Min at work, and he dreams of making a pot of his own someday. When Min takes Tree-ear on as his helper, Tree-ear is elated — until he finds obstacles in his path: the backbreaking labor of digging and hauling clay, Min's irascible temper, and his own ignorance. But Tree-ear is determined to prove himself — even if it means taking a long, solitary journey on foot to present Min's work in the hope of a royal commission . . . even if it means arriving at the royal court with nothing to show but a single celadon shard.

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More to the Story

Hena Khan

From the critically acclaimed author of Amina’s Voice comes a new story inspired by Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic, Little Women, featuring four sisters from a modern American Muslim family living in Georgia.

When Jameela Mirza is picked to be feature editor of her middle school newspaper, she’s one step closer to being an award-winning journalist like her late grandfather. The problem is her editor-in-chief keeps shooting down her article ideas. Jameela’s assigned to write about the new boy in school, who has a cool British accent but doesn’t share much, and wonders how she’ll make his story gripping enough to enter into a national media contest.

Jameela, along with her three sisters, is devastated when their father needs to take a job overseas, away from their cozy Georgia home for six months. Missing him makes Jameela determined to write an epic article—one to make her dad extra proud. But when her younger sister gets seriously ill, Jameela’s world turns upside down. And as her hunger for fame looks like it might cost her a blossoming friendship, Jameela questions what matters most, and whether she’s cut out to be a journalist at all...

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When My Name was Keoko

Linda Sue Park

Sun-hee and her older brother, Tae-yul, live in Korea with their parents. Because Korea is under Japanese occupation, the children study Japanese and speak it at school. Their own language, their flag, the folktales Uncle tells them--even their names--are all part of the Korean culture that is now forbidden. When World War II comes to Korea, Sun-hee is surprised that the Japanese expect their Korean subjects to fight on their side. But the greatest shock of all comes when Tae-yul enlists in the Japanese army in an attempt to protect Uncle, who is suspected of aiding the Korean resistance. Sun-hee stays behind, entrusted with the life-and-death secrets of a family at war.

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