Our teen librarians had a lot of suggestions for casual summer reading, so we made another list! Teen Summer Reads, Part Two.
In Becky Albertalli’s romance Imogen, Obviously, Imogen has always been the token straight girl, the best ally ever. When she visits her childhood best friend Lili at college, Lili reveals that she told all of her queer friends that Lili and Imogen used to date (though they didn’t). So as Imogen tries to fit in and she develops feelings for one of Lili’s friends, she has to ask herself if she really is straight, and if being an ally is better than being true to herself.
Angeline Boulley’s follow up to Firekeeper’s Daughter is Warrior Girl Unearthed, which tells how Black and Anishinaabe girl Perry takes a summer job at the tribal museum, where she learns that the local university is holding onto the remains of one of her people’s ancestors, using legal loopholes to do so. Can she and her friends pull off a plan to remove and repatriate the bones of their ancestor?
In Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow, Simon and his parents move to a rural town off the grid where he can learn to live his life without nightmares and anxiety after becoming the sole survivor of a school shooting. Fortunately, a puppy, a radio telescope, and two new friends help him restart the narrative of his life.
Jas Hamonds’ novel We Deserve Monuments follows mixed race Avery and her parents, who move to Georgia to take care of Avery’s dying grandmother, but family secrets and the town’s racist history make her grandmother’s last days much harder for everyone. Luckilly for Avery, she meets two girls whose friendship and connections to some of that history help reveal and heal some of those secrets.
Talia Hibbert’s novel Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute follows Celine and Bradley, who used to be romantically involved but broke up. Now both of them are joining a wilderness adventure to win scholarship money, and the pair must work together again. Can they get along long enough to win? Can old feelings be rekindled?
In Five Survive by Holly Jackson, Red and her five friends go camping on their spring break, but are diverted into a lonely rural cemetery where a sniper shoots out their tires and reveals he will kill them all if one of them doesn’t reveal a particular secret.
In Dan Sentat’s graphic novel memoir, A First Time for Everything, Dan’s boring, invisible life is changed forever when his parents send him on a summer class trip to Europe, where he experiences a bunch of firsts: first time away from his parents, first Fanta, first fondue, first time falling in love.
Nisi Shawl’s novel Speculation tells how Winna’s mother is hospitalized with a respiratory infection, her little sister breaks Winna’s glasses, and her uncle gives her a pair of strange glasses that allow her to see and hear the ghost of an ancestor – one who tells her how to break the family curse that will help her mother breathe easy once again.
In The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas, the Sunbearer Trials are held every decade to find a new champion who will relight the power stones that protect the people. The one who loses to the champion will be sacrificed to fuel the stones. Can Teo and Xio work together to ensure neither one loses?
Shannon Watters’ graphic novel Hollow tells of Izzy’s move to Sleepy Hollow, the home of the Headless Horseman. She’s surprised to learn how intensely the town believes in the legend, so when she meets Vicky, a descendant of the original family to lose their heads to the Headless Horseman, she’s also surprised to learn Vicky doesn’t believe in any of it, but when the ghost threatens them as Halloween grows closer, the two of them (plus Vicky’s friend Croc) must find a way to end the bloody legend before one of them loses their head.
In Maizy Chen’s Last Chance by Lisa Yee, Maizy and her mother move to Last Chance, Minnesota to help take care of her ailing grandfather, even though her mother hasn’t spoken with her parents for years. As Maizy and her grandfather spend time together, she learns how to play poker, how to insert custom messages into fortune cookies, how to see the true history of Last Chance, and who the “paper sons” were.
~ posted by Wally B.
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