In the Shadow of the Fallen Towers
GRAPHIC NOVEL
The Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, and Years After the 9/11 Attacks
A graphic novel chronicling the immediate aftermath and rippling effects of one of the most impactful days in modern history: September 11, 2001. The consequences of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, both political and personal, were vast, and continue to reverberate today. Don Brown brings his journalistic eye and attention to moving individual stories to help teens contextualize what they already know about the day, as well as broaden their understanding of the chain of events that occurred in the attack’s wake.
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Call number: 741.5 BRO
Genre: Nonfiction, U.S. History
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 128 pages
Availability: MHHS
The Passing Playbook
Love, Simon meets Bend It Like Beckham in this feel-good contemporary romance about a trans teen who must decide between standing up for his rights and staying stealth.
Fifteen-year-old Spencer Harris is a proud nerd, an awesome big brother, and a David Beckham in training. He's also transgender. After transitioning at his old school leads to a year of isolation and bullying, Spencer gets a fresh start at Oakley, a private school in Ohio, and everything seems great until Spencer realizes he is passing.
Call number: FIC FIT
Genre: YA Fiction, LGBTQ+
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 300 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Off the Record
The behind-the-scenes access of Almost Famous meets the searing revelations of #metoo in this story of a teen journalist who uncovers the scandal of the decade.
Ever since seventeen-year-old Josie Wright can remember, writing has been her identity, the thing that grounds her when everything else is a garbage fire. So when she wins a contest to write a celebrity profile for Deep Focus magazine, she's equal parts excited and scared, but also ready. She's got this.
Call number: FIC GAR
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 320 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Kate in Waiting
From #1 New York Times bestselling author and rom-com queen Becky Albertalli comes a buoyant new novel about daring to step out of the shadows and into the spotlight in love, life, and, yes, theater.
Best friends Kate Garfield and Anderson Walker share a love of theater and crush on the same guys, but when one of their long-distance crushes shows up at their school, real feelings might end their friendship.
Call number: FIC ALB
Genre: YA Romance, LGBTQ+
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 400 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction
The Ghoul Next Door
GRAPHIC NOVEL
For fans of Ghosts and Hilo, New York Times bestselling author Cullen Bunn and acclaimed artist Cat Farris deliver a fun, spooky, full-color middle grade graphic novel about a supernatural adventure and friendships that go beyond the grave.
Eleven-year-old Grey lives in the legend-haunted New England town of Ander’s Landing, and he can’t help but feel like a pair of eyes is watching his every move.
He discovers odd, gruesome bits and pieces from the graveyard that are left for him as gifts like art carved from bones or jewelry made from (hopefully not human) remains. Soon Grey is caught up in something bigger than he could ever have imagined.
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Call number: 741.5 BUN
Genre: Graphic Novel, Mystery
Reading level: 3-7
Length: 200 pages
Availability: MHHS
An African American and Latinx History of the U.S.
An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights in the United States.
Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the “Global South” was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations like “manifest destiny” and “Jacksonian democracy,” and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms US history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism.
Call number: 305.8 ORT
Genre: Nonfiction, U.S. History
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 296 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: History, Nonfiction
Solutions and Other Problems
GRAPHIC NOVEL
For the first time in seven years, Allie Brosh—beloved author and artist of the extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller Hyperbole and a Half—returns with a new collection of comedic, autobiographical, and illustrated essays.
Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life.
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Call number: 741.5 BRO
Genre: Graphic Novel, Autobiography
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 528 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Biography & Autobiography, Nonfiction
The Mirror Season
An unforgettable story of trauma and healing, told in achingly beautiful prose with great tenderness and care.
When two teens discover that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family’s possibly magical pastelería, his secret forest of otherworldly trees, and the swallows returning to their hometown, in Anna-Marie McLemore's The Mirror Season...
Call number: FIC McL
Genre: YA Fiction, Fantasy
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 320 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction
Don't Ask Me Where I'm From
First-generation American Latinx Liliana Cruz does what it takes to fit in at her new nearly all-white school. But when family secrets spill out and racism at school ramps up, she must decide what she believes in and take a stand.
Liliana Cruz is a hitting a wall—or rather, walls. There’s the wall her mom has put up ever since Liliana’s dad left—again.
There’s the wall that delineates Liliana’s diverse inner-city Boston neighborhood from Westburg, the wealthy—and white—suburban high school she’s just been accepted into.
And there’s the wall Liliana creates within herself, because to survive at Westburg, she can’t just lighten up, she has to whiten up.
Call number: FIC LEO
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 352 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
When We Were Infinite
From award-winning author Kelly Loy Gilbert comes a “beautifully, achingly cathartic” romantic drama about the secrets we keep, from each other and from ourselves, perfect for fans of Permanent Record and I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.
All Beth wants is for her tight-knit circle of friends—Grace Nakamura, Brandon Lin, Sunny Chen, and Jason Tsou—to stay together. With her family splintered and her future a question mark, these friends are all she has—even if she sometimes wonders if she truly fits in with them. Besides, she’s certain she’ll never be able to tell Jason how she really feels about him, so friendship will have to be enough.
Call number: FIC GIL
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 368 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction
Angel of Greenwood
A piercing, unforgettable love story set in Greenwood, Oklahoma, also known as the “Black Wall Street,” and against the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.
Isaiah Wilson is, on the surface, a town troublemaker, but is hiding that he is an avid reader and secret poet, never leaving home without his journal. Angel Hill is a loner, mostly disregarded by her peers as a goody-goody. Her father is dying, and her family’s financial situation is in turmoil.
Call number: FIC PIN
Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 304 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction
Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask
From the acclaimed Ojibwe author and professor Anton Treuer comes an essential book of questions and answers for Native and non-Native young readers alike.
Ranging from "Why is there such a fuss about nonnative people wearing Indian costumes for Halloween?" to "Why is it called a 'traditional Indian fry bread taco'?" to "What's it like for natives who don't look native?" to "Why are Indians so often imagined rather than understood?", and beyond, this book does exactly what its title says for young readers, in a style consistently thoughtful, personal, and engaging.
Call number: 909 TRE
Genre: Nonfiction, American Indian History
Reading level: 7-12
Length: 400 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Nonfiction, History
Follow Your Arrow
For fans of Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera, this is a riveting and irresistible take on love, life, and identity -- both online and off.
CeCe Ross is kind of a big deal. She and her girlfriend, Silvie, are social media influencers with zillions of fans and followers, known for their cute outfits and being #relationshipgoals.
So when Silvie breaks up with her, CeCe is devastated. She's lost her first love, and now she can't help but wonder if she'll lose her followers as well.
Call number: FIC VER
Genre: YA Fiction, LGBTQ+
Reading level: 7-12
Length: 320 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Not My Problem
Perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Nina LaCour, this queer coming-of-age story from the author of The Falling in Love Montage is wry, multilayered, and unflinchingly honest.
Aideen has plenty of problems she can’t solve. But when she stumbles upon overachiever Meabh Kowalska having a full-blown meltdown, she sees one that she can actually fix. Meabh is desperate to escape her crushing pile of extracurriculars. Aideen volunteers to help—by pushing her down the stairs.
Call number: FIC SMY
Genre: YA Fiction, LGBTQ+
Reading level: 8-9
Length: 368 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
The Girls I've Been
Soon to be a Netflix film starring Millie Bobbie Brown! In this feminist, suspenseful thriller the daughter of a con artist is taken hostage in a bank heist—and will need to tap into all her skills in order to survive.
Nora O'Malley's been a lot of girls. As the daughter of a con-artist who targets criminal men, she grew up as her mother's protégé. But when her mom fell for the mark instead of conning him, Nora pulled the ultimate con: escape. The bank robbers may be trouble, but Nora's something else entirely. They have no idea who they're really holding hostage . . .
Call number: FIC SHA
Genre: YA Thriller
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 368 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Contact the MHHS Library
Email: mhhs.library@smusd.org
Website: missionhillshigh.smusd.org/resources/library
Location: 1 Mission Hills Court, San Marcos, CA, USA
Phone: 760-290-2730