The Check-in!

Ten Romantic Tropes, Transformed

Love is in the air in Serendipity, a collection of stories inspired by romantic tropes and edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer.

From stories of first love, unrequited love, love that surprises, love that’s been there all along, 10 of the brightest and award-winning authors writing YA have taken on some of your favorite romantic tropes, embracing them and turning them on their heads. Readers will fall for this collection of stories that celebrate love at its most humorous, inclusive, heart-expanding, and serendipitous.

Call number: FIC MEY

Genre: YA Short Stories, Romance

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 320 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Fiction

The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers

From the prize-winning author of The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt, a stunning graphic narrative of newly discovered stories from Jewish teens on the cusp of WWII.

When I Grow Up is New Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein’s new graphic nonfiction book, based on six of hundreds of newly discovered, never-before-published autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish teens on the brink of WWII―found in 2017 hidden in a Lithuanian church cellar.

These autobiographies, long thought destroyed by the Nazis, were written as entries for three competitions held in Eastern Europe in the 1930s, just before the horror of the Holocaust forever altered the lives of the young people who wrote them.

Call number: 920.009 KRI

Genre: Autobiography Collection

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 240 pages

Availability: MHHS

If you had the chance to change your future, would you take it?

Perfect for fans of Neal Shusterman and Jason Reynolds, this powerhouse, mind-bending YA debut follows two teens, a generation apart, whose fates collide across time—and outside of it.

Today

During arguably the worst week of Esso’s life, an accident knocks him into an incredible world—a place beyond space or time, where he can see glimpses of the past and future. But if what he sees there is true, he might not have much longer to live, unless he can use his new gift to change the course of history.

Tomorrow

Rhia’s past is filled with questions, none of which she expects a new physics tutor to answer. But Dr. Esso’s not here to help Rhia. He’s here because he needs her help—to unravel a tragedy that happened fifteen years ago. One that holds the key not only to Rhia’s past, but to a future worth fighting for.

Call number: FIC FAD

Genre: YA Science Fiction & Fantasy

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 528 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction

A chilling and blisteringly relevant literary novel of social horror centered around a brutal killing that takes place in a full-contact haunted escape room—a provocative exploration of capitalism, hate politics, racial fetishism, and our obsession with fear as entertainment.

On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize—a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house’s long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.

An astonishingly soulful exploration of complicity and masquerade, Reprieve combines the psychological tension of classic horror with searing social criticism to present an unsettling portrait of this tangled American life.

Call number: FIC MAT

Genre: Fiction, Literature

Reading level: 11-12

Length: 544 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Fiction

GRAPHIC NOVEL

An epic sci-fi graphic novel romance between two non-binary characters as they find one another through time, distance, and war. An amazing story that explores the complexity of human nature and what brings us together.

When they were kids, Fassen’s fighter spaceship crash-landed on a planet that Lu’s survey force was exploring. It was a forbidden meeting between a kid from a war-focused resistance movement and a kid whose community and planet are dedicated to peace and secrecy.

As the empire begins a new attack against Fassen’s people--and discovers Lu’s in the process--the two of them have the chance to reunite at last. They finally are able to be together...but at what cost?

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Call number: 741.5 DEL

Genre: YA Graphic Novel

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 352 pages

Availability: MHHS

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of One of Us Is Lying comes a brand-new pulse-pounding thriller. It's Ferris Bueller's Day Off with murder when three old friends relive an epic ditch day, and it goes horribly—and fatally—wrong.

Ivy, Mateo, and Cal used to be close. Now all they have in common is Carlton High and the beginning of a very bad day. Type A Ivy lost a student council election to the class clown, and now she has to face the school, humiliated. Heartthrob Mateo is burned out from working two jobs since his family’s business failed. And outsider Cal just got stood up . . . again.

So when the three unexpectedly run into each other, they decide to avoid their problems by ditching. Just the three of them, like old times. Except they’ve barely left the parking lot before they run out of things to say. . .

. . . until they spot another Carlton High student skipping school—and follow him to the scene of his own murder.

Call number: FIC McM

Genre: YA Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 336 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: Mystery, Fiction

The legendary Hall of Fame hockey player and six-time Stanley Cup champion tells his complete story for the first time.

Mark Messier is one of the most accomplished athletes in the history of professional sports. He was a fierce competitor with a well-earned reputation as a winner. But few people know his real story, not only of the astonishing journey he took to making NHL history, but of the deep understanding of leadership and respect for the power of teamwork he gained.

Call number: 796.962 MES

Genre: Memoir, Autobiography

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 368 pages

Availability: MHHS

In 1668, a young Jamaican girl, Kemosha, secures her freedom from enslavement and finds her true self while sailing to Panama with the legendary Captain Morgan.

In 1668, fifteen-year-old Kemosha is sold by a slave owner to a tavern keeper in Port Royal, Jamaica—the “wickedest city on earth.” She soon flees from a brutal assault and finds herself in the company of a mysterious free Black man, Ravenhide, who teaches her the fine art of swordplay, introduces her to her soul mate, Isabella, and helps her win her freedom.

Call number: FIC WHE

Genre: YA Fiction

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 256 pages

Availability: MHHS

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Loosely based on the artist’s childhood in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, this graphic novel centers on Carlos Gomez and his family―the only Mexican family in their Midwestern town. When invited to participate in a talent competition at an upcoming RV show, Carlos decides to join the BMX stunt team and show his special flair. What could possibly go wrong?

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Call number: 741.5 GON

Genre: YA Graphic Novel, Autobiography

Reading level: 1-2

Length: 192 pages

Availability: MHHS

A History of Manhattan and the New York Idea

A veteran nonfiction storyteller dives deep into the four-hundred-year history of Manhattan to map the island’s unexpected intersections. Focusing on the evolution of four streets and a square (Wall Street, 42nd Street, West 4th Street, 125th Street, and Union Square) Marc Aronson explores how new ideas and forms of art evolved from social blending. Centuries of conflict—among original Americans and Europeans, slavers and the enslaved, rich and poor, immigrants and native-born—produced segregation, oppression, and violence, but also new ways of speaking, singing, and being American.

From the Harlem Renaissance to Hammerstein, from gay pride in the Village to political clashes at Tammany Hall, this clear-eyed pageant of the island’s joys and struggles—enhanced with photos and drawings, multimedia links to music and film, and an extensive bibliography and source notes—is, above all, a love song to Manhattan’s triumphs.

Call number: 974.7 ARO

Genre: YA Nonfiction

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 440 pages

Availability: MHHS

From the New York Times bestselling author of Five Total Strangers and "master of suspense" (BCCB), Natalie D. Richards, comes a pulse-pounding YA thriller about a girl who goes on a mysterious scavenger hunt, only to discover that someone knows her worst secret...and is out for blood.

On her eighteenth birthday, Cleo receives a mysterious invitation to a scavenger hunt. She's sure her best friend Hope or her brother Connor is behind it, but no one confesses. And as Cleo and Hope embark on the hunt, the seemingly random locations and clues begin to feel familiar.

In fact, all of the clues seem to be about Cleo's dead boyfriend, Declan, who drowned on a group rafting trip exactly a year ago. A bracelet she bought him. A song he loved. A photo of the rafting group, taken just before Declan drowned. And then the phone calls start, Declan's voice taunting Cleo with a cryptic question: You ready?

Call number: FIC RIC

Genre: YA Horror, Suspense, Thriller

Reading level: 8-12

Length: 336 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Fiction

Booksmart meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower in this novel of overachieving, existential crises, growing up, and coming out, from the author of Girl Crushed and Never Have I Ever.

Mary is having an existential crisis. She's a good student, she never gets in trouble, and she is searching for the meaning of life. She always thought she'd find it in a perfect score on the SATs. But by junior year, Mary isn't so sure anymore.

The first time, it's an accident. She forgets to do a history assignment. She even crosses "history essay" off in her pristine planner. And then: Nothing happens. She doesn't burst into flames, the world doesn't end, the teacher doesn't even pull her aside after class.

So she asks herself: Why am I trying so hard? What if I stop?

Call number: FIC HEA

Genre: YA Fiction

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 256 pages

Availability: MHHS

From the team that brought you the New York Times bestselling Dry comes a riveting new thriller that proves when gods play games, even love is a lie.

The freeway is coming.

It will cut the neighborhood in two. Construction has already started, pushing toward this corridor of condemned houses and cracked concrete with the momentum of the inevitable. Yet there you are, in the fifth house on the left, fighting for your life.

Call number: FIC SHU

Genre: YA Science Fiction

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 384 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin #2

The highly anticipated second—and final—book in the immersive fantasy duology inspired by West African folklore that began with the New York Times bestselling A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, from author Roseanne A. Brown. Perfect for fans of Tomi Adeyemi, Renée Ahdieh, and Sabaa Tahir.

Karina lost everything after a violent coup left her without her kingdom or her throne. Now the most wanted person in Sonande, her only hope of reclaiming what is rightfully hers lies in a divine power hidden in the long-lost city of her ancestors.

Meanwhile, the resurrection of Karina’s sister has spiraled the world into chaos, with disaster after disaster threatening the hard-won peace Malik has found as Farid’s apprentice. When they discover that Karina herself is the key to restoring balance, Malik must use his magic to lure her back to their side. But how do you regain the trust of someone you once tried to kill?

Call number: FIC BRO

Genre: YA Fantasy, Romance

Reading level: 8-9

Length: 560 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction

Montague Siblings #3

Return to the enchanting world of the Montague siblings in the finale to the New York Times bestselling and Stonewall Honor-winning series, featuring a teenage Adrian Montague as he desperately seeks the now adult Monty and Felicity—the older siblings he never knew he had.

Adrian Montague has a bright future. The sole heir to his father’s estate, he is an up and coming political writer and engaged to an activist who challenges and inspires him. But most young Lords aren’t battling the debilitating anxiety Adrian secretly lives with, or the growing fear that it might consume him and all he hopes to accomplish. In the wake of his mother’s unexpected death, Adrian is also concerned people will find out that he has the mental illness she struggled with for years.

Call number: FIC LEE

Genre: YA Historical Fiction, Romance

Reading level: 8-9

Length: 592 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Fiction

"A Good Girl's Guide to Murder" Book #3 - Finale

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING SERIES WITH OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD • The highly anticipated finale to the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series, the instant bestsellers that read like your favorite true crime podcast or show. By the end of this mystery series, you'll never think of good girls the same way again...

Pip is about to head to college, but she is still haunted by the way her last investigation ended. She’s used to online death threats in the wake of her viral true-crime podcast, but she can’t help noticing an anonymous person who keeps asking her: Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?

Soon the threats escalate and Pip realizes that someone is following her in real life. When she starts to find connections between her stalker and a local serial killer caught six years ago, she wonders if maybe the wrong man is behind bars.

Call number: FIC JAC

Genre: YA Suspense, Thriller

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 464 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Fiction