Basketball defines Barclay Elliot. As captain of the Chitwood High School basketball team in Georgia, Barclay dreams of eventually putting his talent to the test at a big-city D1 school with his best friend Zack Ito. The protagonist in Time Out by Sean Hayes, Todd Milliner, and Carlyn Greenwald, Barclay believes that a team is a family who shares everything and supports one another; it is a place where talent, strength, and fortitude mix to hold one another up, no matter the burden. However, when his biggest fan and the father figure in his life, his grandpa Scratch dies before seeing the Wildcats win anotherRead More →

With her superlative parkour skills, Yas is a Black Pakistani Spider Woman. A sometimes verbal neurodivergent White youth, Hansel (AKA Han) has a passion for secret infrastructure navigation. Always observant and detail-oriented, he also knows the value of paying attention. The Korean team member, a transgender boy named Daeshim (AKA Spider) has hacking skills and has earned fame for his technology wizardry and his “mad connections.” The fourth member, a biracial teen, Jax is the official puzzler and team captain who hashes out cryptology clues with his ability to see several dimensions by unraveling, detangling, and sorting. Each youth comprises a cornerstone of the cryptologyRead More →

Readers of I Kick and I Fly by Ruchira Gupta will be inspired by the strong female characters as well as horrified by the novel’s sex trafficking theme. Set in northern India in a town called Forbesganj located in the state of Bihar, Gupta’s book reveals the story of fourteen-year-old Heera who intimately knows both hunger and homelessness. A member of the nomadic Nat tribe, Heera and her family are members of an oppressed caste. Her people used to be wrestlers and performers, but “overnight [they] were told [they] couldn’t do those things anymore, that [their] entire way of life was illegal” (283). Seeking toRead More →

A junior at Willoughby High School, Eliza Quan is an ethnic Chinese girl who is smart although a bit prickly. A thinker who is passionate about facts and journalism, she doesn’t believe in self-aggrandizing or otherwise drawing attention to herself. In fact, she isn’t here to be liked. Similar to the attitude of her best friend Winona Wilson, Eliza doesn’t want to get noticed for the wrong reasons. However, Eliza does have one dream: to make it on the Wall of Editors. At Willoughby, the editor in chief of the school newspaper, the Bugle, is chosen by popular vote, and given that she’s the mostRead More →

Everyone faces his/her own challenges. And while many of us have no idea what it is like to have our every move monitored by the media paparazzi, British author Holly Smale takes readers down that path.  With the second book in The Valentines series, Far From Perfect, readers no longer just imagine what living under public scrutiny is like, we follow sixteen-year-old Faith Valentine as she fights for her own identity. Born into an extraordinary life of opportunities and fortune, Faith loves running and ballet but hates acting and publicity. The headlines write a version of her that isn’t real, and the gap between realityRead More →

Set in Ohio, Any Sign of Life by Rae Carson is about a post-apocalyptic world when an airborne virus more deadly than the corona virus has wiped out most of humanity. Terrified and overwhelmed, the few survivors must decide whether they wish to fight or they will give in to despair. Carson invites her readers to wonder what keeps us going since so many of our hopes and dreams—our reasons for living—are determined by sociocultural constructs. Do we recreate what we’ve lost or do we rebuild with something new and better? By asking what happens when all our reasons for living are taken away, CarsonRead More →

Readers of Kim Johnson and Angie Thomas will likely enjoy Kneel by Candace Buford. Set in Monroe, Louisiana, Kneel follows the story of the Jackson Jaguars high school football team and their two star players: Marion LaSalle and Russell Boudreaux. Football is the two athletes’ ticket out of Monroe and out of poverty. Marion is possibly the best quarterback in Louisiana, and Russell is a regionally ranked tight end. For both, their bodies are their greatest assets. Although Russell is no slouch in the classroom, the field is the only place where Marion is on top. However, that is taken from him when he isRead More →

Haunted by the spot on the wall where her finisher patch should go, seventeen-year-old Sadie Scofield is determined to finish the Texas River Odyssey after giving up and then getting injured when she partnered with her dad. Because Scofields never quit, Sadie is living in a shadow of regret as she clings to the “can’t keep up” memory and allows it to erode the relationship with her father. Anyone belonging to the discourse community of river rats or competitive boaters/racers will likely be on the same wave length as those in Holly Green’s young adult novel, In the Same Boat. Talking of sweepers, log jams,Read More →

Seventeen-year-old Hannah Ashton is poised, disciplined, and focused.  Because her audition is approaching for the Corps De Ballet with the South Texas City Ballet Company, Hannah is relentless in her practice sessions. With its structure and predictable patterns, dancing keeps her panic under control.  To review her choreography when she can’t actually perform the steps, Hannah uses her hands as proxies for her feet. While engaged in this silent performance, Hannah’s best friend for twelve years, Astrid describes Hannah’s hands as looking like they are performing some kind of “badass sign language.” The only other pastime that consumes Hannah and can make her forget life’sRead More →