Looking for something to read? Here are some great reads and most of them are available on the Cloud Library. If you need help accessing the Cloud Library look at the instructions https://maroonlibraryblog.wordpress.com/books/ and get your login information by emailing Ms. Pickell, your librarian pickelem@u4sd.org
Happy reading!
2021 Lincoln Award Nominees
Each year, 20 titles are selected by a committee of Illinois librarians, teachers AND students. High school students across Illinois who read at least four of these nominees will be able to vote for the book they think was the best. Get started now and sign up in the library when we come back together in the fall.
A heart in the body in the world (F Caletti) By Deb Caletti, ebook available on cloud library
Followed by Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her brother and friends, Annabelle, eighteen, runs from Seattle to Washington, D.C., becoming a reluctant activist as people connect her journey to her recent trauma.
A very large expanse of sea (F Mafi) By Tahereh Mafi, ebook available on cloud library
It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. She’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments—even the physical violence—she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. So she’s built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break-dancing with her brother. But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her—they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds—and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down.
All the crooked saints (F Stiefvater) By Maggie Stiefvater, ebook and audiobook available on cloud library
Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado, is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of watchful desert stars. At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz, the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo.
Black enough (F Zoboi) Edited by Ibi Zoboi, ebook and audiobook available on cloud library
A collection of short stories explore what it is like to be young and black, centering on the experiences of black teenagers and emphasizing that one person’s experiences, reality, and personal identity are different than someone else.
Darius the great is not okay (F Khorram) By Adib Khorram, ebook and audiobook available on cloud library
Darius Kellner, a high school sophomore, 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.
Devils within (F Henson) By S. F. Henson, ebook available on cloud library
Raised in a white supremacist compound where he was honored for his acts of violence before killing his own father, 14-year-old Nate is placed in the custody of his uncle and starts over with a new identity before forging an unexpected bond with a kind boy he was taught to hate.
Dress codes for small towns (on order) By Courtney Stevens, ebook available on cloud library
Always considered “one of the guys,” Billie doesn’t want anyone slapping a label on her sexuality before she can understand it herself. So she keeps her conflicting feelings to herself, for fear of ruining the group dynamic. Except it’s not just about keeping the peace, it’s about understanding love on her terms—this thing that has always been defined as a boy and a girl falling in love and living happily ever after. For Billie—a box-defying dynamo—it’s not that simple.
Dry (F Shusterman) By Neal & Jarrod Shusterman, ebook and audiobook available on cloud library
When the Tap-Out, a lengthy California drought, escalates to catastrophic proportions, Alyssa’s quiet suburban street turns into a war zone, and she is forced to make impossible choices if she and her brother are to survive.
Every falling star: the true story of how I escaped North Korea (951.9 Lee) By Sungju Lee, ebook available on cloud library
The memoir of a boy named Sungju who grew up in North Korea and, at the age of twelve, was forced to live on the streets and fend for himself after his parents disappeared. Finally, after years of being homeless and living with a gang, Sungju is reunited with his maternal grandparents and, eventually, his father.
Heroine (F McGinnis) By Mindy McGinnis, ebook available on cloud library
When a car crash sidelines Mickey just before softball season, she has to find a way to hold on to her spot as the catcher for a team expected to make a historic tournament run. Behind the plate is the only place she’s ever felt comfortable, and the painkillers she’s been prescribed can help her get there. The pills do more than take away pain; they make her feel good. With a new circle of friends–fellow injured athletes, others with just time to kill–Mickey finds peaceful acceptance, and people with whom words come easily, even if it is just the pills loosening her tongue. But as the pressure to be Mickey Catalan heightens, her need increases, and it becomes less about pain and more about want, something that could send her spiraling out of control.
Hey, kiddo (on order) Graphic Novel by Jarrett Krosoczka, ebook available on cloud library
Traces the author’s unconventional coming of age with a drug-addict mother, an absent father and two lovingly opinionated grandparents.
Internment (F Ahmed) By Samira Ahmed, ebook available on cloud library
Rebellions are built on hope. In a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens. With the help of new friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the camp’s Director and his guards.
Obsessed: a memoir of my life (on order) By Allison Britz, ebook available on cloud library
A brave teen recounts her debilitating struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder–and brings readers through every painful step as she finds her way to the other side.
Patron saints of nothing (F Ribay) By Randy Ribay, ebook available on cloud library
When seventeen-year-old Jay Reguero learns his Filipino cousin and former best friend, Jun, was murdered as part of President Duterte’s war on drugs, he flies to the Philippines to learn more.
Price of duty (F Strasser) By Todd Strasser, ebook available on cloud library
Hailed as a hero, twenty-year-old Jake returns to his pro-military hometown and family injured physically and emotionally, unsure if he can return to active duty but uncomfortable with the alternative.
Slay (F Morris) By Brittney Morris, ebook available on cloud library
An honors student at Jefferson Academy, seventeen-year-old Keira enjoys developing and playing Slay, a secret, multiplayer online role-playing game celebrating black culture, until the two worlds collide.
The nickel boys (F Whitehead) By Colson Whitehead, ebook and audiobook available on cloud library.
2020 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction!
As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart. Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear “out back.” Elwood’s friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
They called us enemy (on order) Graphic Novel by George Takei
Takei’s firsthand account of years spent in a Japanese concentration camp, 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.
Truly devious (on order) By Maureen Johnson, ebook and audiobook available on cloud library
Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early 20th century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. A place, he said, where learning is a game. Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious”. It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history. True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.
We’ll fly away (on order) By Bryan Bliss, ebook available on cloud library
Best friends Toby and Luke just want to get out of their dead-end town. It is finally senior year and Toby and Luke are so close to freedom — until they each make a series of choices that sets them down an irrevocable path.
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