From the back cover: Caden Bosch is on a ship that’s headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench. Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior. Caden Bosch is designated the ship’s artist in residence to document the journey with images. Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head. Caden

The Complete Persepolis Marjane Satrapi From the inner flap: Persepolis is the story of Satrapi’s unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming–both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-impo

From the back cover: Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing with, will be jeopardized. As his emai

From the back cover: A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can y

M or F? by Lisa Papademetriou and Chris Tebbetts From the back cover: When Frannie is desperate to get the attention of her crush, her fabulous (and gay) best friend Marcus suggests that Frannie chat with him online. Too bad Frannie’s terrified. She won’t type a word without Marcus’s help. In the chat room, Marcus and Jeffrey hit it off. But the more Marcus writes, the more he’s convinced that Jeffrey is falling for him, not Frannie. Whose romance is this anyway? If you’re al

His hometown becomes a “secondary migration” location for Somali refugees fleeing their war-ravaged homeland, refugees Tom hasn’t thought much about until four of his new Somali classmates join the soccer team. The best is Saeed, who comes out of nowhere on the field to make impossible shots. And, thanks mainly to Saeed, the team is winning. Dominating even. So when a jealous rival team questions Saeed’s past—and eligibility to play in high school—the winning streak that seem

Full disclosure: I attended a panel discussion with Padma Venkatraman at a writers’ conference, and later a workshop she offered on writing novels in verse. Padma is, in person, just as engaging and open as her writing. But I would have fallen in love with A Time to Dance even if I hadn’t already met Padma—because I understand some of Veda’s fear that she will be nothing if she isn’t a dancer. Not that I can dance. Ha! No, for me, it’s writing. And here’s a pseudo-secret: I w

I like to read while I’m on the treadmill and I started Everything, Everything while I was on the treadmill. But two pages in, I almost stopped walking so I could just sit on the belt and read. What hooked me? The “reward if found” lists Maddy comes up with for her books. Who wouldn’t want a picnic in “a pollen-filled field of poppies, lilies, and endless man-in-the-moon marigolds under a clear blue summer sky?” I’ll take an antihistamine and meet you there, Maddy, with straw