The Check-in!

A novel-in-verse about a young girl coming of age and stepping out of the shadow of her former best friend. Perfect for readers of Elizabeth Acevedo and Nikki Grimes.

With gritty and heartbreaking honesty, Mahogany L. Browne delivers a novel-in-verse about broken promises, fast rumors, and when growing up means growing apart from your best friend.

Call number: FIC BRO

Genre: YA Fiction

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 192 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: Fiction

The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign-Stealing

The definitive insider story of the cheating scandal that rocked Major League Baseball in 2019, bringing down high-profile coaches and players, and exposing a long-rumored "sign-stealing" dark side of baseball.

Call number: 796.357 MAR

Genre: Sports History

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 288 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: Nonfiction

Black Mirror meets What If It’s Us in this gripping, romantic, and wildly surprising novel about two boys lost in space trying to find their way home—while falling in love—from the critically acclaimed author of We Are the Ants.

Trapped aboard Qriosity are also DJ and Jenny, neither of whom remember how they got onboard the ship. Together, the three face all the dangers of space, along with murder, aliens, a school dance, and one really, really bad day.

Call number: FIC HUT

Genre: YA Sci-Fi, Romance

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 464 pages

Lexile text measure: HL710L

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Part historical fiction, part magical realism, and 100 percent adventure. Thirteen-year-old Mei reimagines the myths of Paul Bunyan as starring a Chinese heroine while she works in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885.

Aware of the racial tumult in the years after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Mei tries to remain blissfully focused on her job, her close friendship with the camp foreman's daughter, and telling stories about Paul Bunyan--reinvented as Po Pan Yin (Auntie Po), an elderly Chinese matriarch.

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Call number: 741.5 KHO

Genre: Graphic Novel

Reading level: 5-9

Length: 304 pages

Availability: MHHS

The highly anticipated sequel to the international bestseller, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder! More dark secrets are exposed in this addictive, true-crime-fueled mystery.

Pip is not a detective anymore. With the help of Ravi Singh, she released a true-crime podcast about the murder case they solved together last year. The podcast has gone viral, yet Pip insists her investigating days are behind her. But she will have to break that promise when someone she knows goes missing.

Call number: FIC JAC

Genre: YA Murder Mystery

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 416 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Fiction

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Readers will root for these girls as they navigate the waters of self-confidence, love, and cheerleading

A sweet, queer teen romance perfect for fans of Heartstopper and Check, Please!

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Call number: 741.5 FRA

Genre: YA Graphic Novel

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 128 pages

Availability: MHHS

The Story of Vaudeville's Famous Conjoined Twins

From the author of The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets and The Borden Murders comes the absorbing and compulsively readable story of Violet and Daisy Hilton, conjoined twins who were the sensation of the US sideshow circuits in the 1920s and 1930s.

Violet and Daisy. They were as sweet and pretty as their names would suggest, the pair of them as alike as two flower buds on a single stem. They were also joined, back-to-back, at the base of their spine.

Call number: 792.702 MIL

Genre: YA Nonfiction, Biography

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 320 pages

Lexile text measure: 1150L

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: Fiction

From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

Call number: FIC ZAU

Genre: Biography, Memoir

Reading level: 10-12

Length: 256 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: Biography & Autobiography, Nonfiction

America, Russia, and the Hidden History of the Space Race

An exhilarating dive into the secret history of humankind’s race to the moon, from acclaimed author Amy Cherrix. This fascinating and immersive read is perfect for fans of Steve Sheinkin’s Bomb and M. T. Anderson’s Symphony for the City of the Dead.

You’ve heard of the space race, but do you know the whole story? The most ambitious race humankind has ever undertaken was masterminded in the shadows by two engineers on opposite sides of the Cold War—Wernher von Braun, a former Nazi officer living in the US, and Sergei Korolev, a Russian rocket designer once jailed for crimes against his country—and your textbooks probably never told you.

Call number: 629.4 CHE

Genre: YA History

Reading level: 7-12

Length: 336 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: Nonfiction, Biography/Autobiography, Science

A Reckoning with the History of Slavery in America

Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves.

Call number: 973 SMI

Genre: Nonfiction, U.S. History

Reading level: 10-12

Length: 352 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: History, Nonfiction

Did you know you can marry yourself? How strange/brilliant is that?

Fifteen-year-old Phoebe thinks falling in love is vile and degrading, and vows never to do it. Then, due to circumstances not entirely in her control, she finds herself volunteering at a local thrift shop. There she meets Emma . . . who might unwittingly upend her whole theory on life.

Call number: FIC BRU

Genre: YA Fiction, Romance

Reading level: 10-12

Length: 352 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: Fiction

Perfect for fans of Marie Lu and E. Lockhart, The Ones We're Meant to Find is a twisty YA sci-fi that follows the story of two sisters, separated by an ocean, desperately trying to find each other in a climate-ravaged future.

Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay, and it's up to Cee to cross the ocean and find her.

Call number: FIC HE

Genre: YA Science Fiction, Fantasy

Reading level: 10-12

Length: 384 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction

In this romantic page-turner from the author of Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star, Evie has the power to see other people’s romantic fates—what will happen when she finally sees her own?

Evie Thomas doesn't believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began . . . and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually.

Call number: FIC YOO

Genre: YA Fiction, Romance

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 304 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievement: Fiction

Sixteen-year-old Nate is a GEM—a Genetically Engineered Medical Surrogate—created by Gathos City scientists as a cure for the elite from the fatal lung rot ravaging the population.

As a child, Nate was smuggled out of the laboratory where he was held captive and taken into the Withers—a quarantined, lawless region. He manages to survive by becoming a Tinkerer, fixing broken tech in exchange for food or a safe place to sleep. When he meets Reed, a kind and fiercely protective boy who makes his heart race, and his misfit gang of scavengers, Nate finds the family he’s always longed for—even if he can’t risk telling them what he is.

Call number: FIC ING

Genre: YA Science Fiction, Fantasy

Reading level: 10-12

Length: 400 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL - audiobook only)

Sora achievement: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction

The most anticipated fantasy novel of 2021. In this world, girls are outcasts by blood and warriors by choice. Get ready for battle.

Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs. But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.

Call number: FIC FOR

Genre: YA Science Fiction, Fantasy

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 432 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Sora achievements: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction