A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman – YA F VEN

In India, a girl who excels at Bharatanatyam dance refuses to give up after losing a leg in an accident.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson – J B WOO

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne – LMxAC

Picked on at home, criticized for talking trash while beating boys at basketball, and always seen as less than her best friend, a girl struggles to like and accept herself.

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo – YA F ACE

Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh – YA F ILO

A mixed-heritage dancer’s coming of age within the African diaspora is shaped by abuse at the hands of a cousin, her mother’s descent into addiction, and her father’s efforts to create a Nigerian-inspired home in America.

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai – TWEEN F LAI

Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama.

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds – YA F REY

As Will, fifteen, sets out to avenge his brother Shawn’s fatal shooting, seven ghosts who knew Shawn board the elevator and reveal truths Will needs to know.

Loving Vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel Of The Landmark Civil Rights Case by Patricia Hruby Powell – LMxAC

Written in blank verse, the story of Mildred Loving, an African American girl, and Richard Loving, a Caucasian boy, who challenge the Virginia law forbidding interracial marriages in the 1950s.

Moonrise by Sarah Crossan – YA F CRO

With little money or support, Joe Moon, seventeen, travels to Texas to help the older brother he barely knows through his last few weeks before being executed for murder.

Muted by Tami Charles – YA F CHA

A tale inspired by true events traces the experiences of a talented singer who wants to escape her all-white community before catching the attention of an R&B star who gives her access to fame and luxury in exchange for unscrupulous sacrifices.

Poisoned Apples: Poems For You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann – YA 811.6 HEP

Christine Heppermann’s powerful collection of free verse poems explores how girls are taught to think about themselves, their bodies, their friends–as consumers, as objects, as competitors. Based on classic fairy tale characters and fairy tale tropes, the poems range from contemporary retellings to first-person accounts set within the original stories. From Snow White’s cottage and Rapunzel’s tower to health class and the prom, these poems are a moving depiction of young women, society, and our expectations. Poisoned Apples is a dark, clever, witty, beautiful, and important book for teenage girls, their sisters, their mothers, and their best friends.

Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam – YA F ZOB

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated.

Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson – YA B AND

When she was thirteen years old, Anderson was a shy, bookish girl who was raped by a boy she trusted. She has since become known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed in the years since, she has written a poetry memoir that shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she’s never written about before.

Solo by Kwame Alexander – YA F ALE

Blade never asked for a life of the rich and famous. In fact, he’d give anything not to be the son of Rutherford Morrison, a washed-up rock star and drug addict with delusions of a comeback. Or to no longer be part of a family known most for lost potential, failure, and tragedy, including the loss of his mother. The one true light is his girlfriend, Chapel, but her parents have forbidden their relationship, assuming Blade will become just like his father.

In reality, the only thing Blade and Rutherford have in common is the music that lives inside them. And songwriting is all Blade has left after Rutherford, while drunk, crashes his high school graduation speech and effectively rips Chapel away forever. But when a long-held family secret comes to light, the music disappears. In its place is a letter, one that could bring Blade the freedom and love he’s been searching for, or leave him feeling even more adrift.

The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta – YA F ATT

A fierce coming-of-age novel about identity and the liberating power of drag follows the experiences of a mixed-race teen in London who struggles to connect with his heritage before coming out and establishing his place in Drag Society.

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo – YA F ACE

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers–especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. Mami is determined to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, and Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. When she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling by Lucy Frank – YA F FRA

In this novel in verse, two very different girls bond while hospitalized for Crohn’s disease.

White Rose by Kip Wilson – YA F WIL

Tells the story of Sophie Scholl, a young German college student who challenges the Nazi regime during World War II as part of the White Rose, a non-violent resistance group.