Omer Aziz

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Virginia

A Memoir

Brown Boy is an uncompromising interrogation of identity, family, religion, race, and class, told through Omer Aziz's incisive and luminous prose.

In a tough neighborhood on the outskirts of Toronto, miles away from wealthy white downtown, Omer Aziz struggles to find his place as a first-generation Pakistani Muslim boy. He fears the violence and despair of the world around him, and sees a dangerous path ahead, succumbing to aimlessness, apathy, and rage.

In his senior year of high school, Omer quickly begins to realize that education can open up the wider world. But as he falls in love with books, and makes his way to Queen's University in Ontario, Sciences Po in Paris, Cambridge University in England, and finally Yale Law School, he continually confronts his own feelings of doubt and insecurity at being an outsider, a brown-skinned boy in an elite white world. He is searching for community and identity, asking questions of himself and those he encounters, and soon finds himself in difficult situations--whether in the suburbs of Paris or at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Yet the more books Omer reads and the more he moves through elite worlds, his feelings of shame and powerlessness only grow stronger, and clear answers recede further away.

Weaving together his powerful personal narrative with the books and friendships that move him, Aziz wrestles with the contradiction of feeling like an Other and his desire to belong to a Western world that never quite accepts him. He poses the questions he couldn't have asked in his youth: Was assimilation ever really an option? Could one transcend the perils of race and class? And could we--the collective West--ever honestly confront the darker secrets that, as Aziz discovers, still linger from the past?

In Brown Boy, Omer Aziz has written a book that eloquently describes the complex process of creating an identity that fuses where he's from, what people see in him, and who he knows himself to be.

Brown Boy

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Floyd Cooper

New York

Little Mazie wants the freedom to stay up late, but her father explains what freedom really means in the story of Juneteenth and how her ancestors celebrated their true freedom.

Juneteenth for Mazie

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Ben Philippe

From the award-winning author of The Field Guide to the North American Teenager comes a whip-smart and layered romantic comedy. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Jenny Han. Henri "Halti" Haltiwanger can charm just about anyone. He is a star debater and popular student at the prestigious FATE academy, the dutiful first-generation Haitian son, and the trusted dog walker for his wealthy New York City neighbors. But his easy smiles mask a burning ambition to attend his dream college, Columbia University. There is only one person who seems immune to Henri's charms: his "intense" classmate and neighbor Corinne Troy. When she uncovers Henri's less-than-honest dog-walking scheme, she blackmails him into helping her change her image at school. Henri agrees, seeing a potential upside for himself. Soon what started as a mutual hustle turns into something more surprising than either of them ever bargained for. . . . This is a sharply funny and insightful novel about the countless hustles we have to keep from doing the hardest thing: being ourselves.

Charming As a Verb

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Julie C. Dao

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Arkansas

Following a changeable map and clues from folktales, Princess Jade embarks on a quest to summon the Dragon Lords, defeat her evil stepmother Empress Xifeng, and bring peace to the kingdoms of Feng Lu.

♻️ Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix

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Debbie Rigaud

Perfect for fans of Netflix's Never Have I Ever and You Should See Me in a Crown, this hilarious and heartfelt #ownvoices rom-com from rising star Debbie Rigaud is pure Black girl joy. It's senior year, and Simone Thibodeaux is ready to shake things up. Until now, her life has been sealed in a boy-proof container, thanks to her strict Haitian immigrant parents, who enforce no-dating rules and send Simone to an all-girls high school. As for prom? Simone is allowed to go on one condition: Her parents will select her date (a boy from a nice Haitian immigrant family, obviously). Simone is desperate to avoid the humiliation of the setup -- especially since she's crushing on a boy she knows her parents wouldn't approve of. It's time to take action. So Simone and her fellow late-bloomer friends make a Senior Year Bucket List of all the things they haven't had a chance to do. Like: sneaking out of the house, skipping class (gasp!), and oh yeah -- choosing their own prom dates. But as the list takes on a life of its own, things get much more complicated than Simone expected. She'll have to discover which rules are worth breaking, and which might save her from heartbreak.

Simone Breaks All the Rules

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Angie Thomas

This is the highly anticipated second novel by Angie Thomas, the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning The Hate U Give. Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least get some streams on her mixtape. As the daughter of an underground rap legend who died right before he hit big, Bri’s got massive shoes to fill. But when her mom unexpectedly loses her job, food banks and shut-off notices become as much a part of her life as beats and rhymes. With bills piling up and homelessness staring her family down, Bri no longer just wants to make it—she has to make it. On the Come Up is Angie Thomas’s homage to hip hop, the art that sparked her passion for storytelling and continues to inspire her to this day. It is the story of fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you; of the struggle to become who you are, and not who everyone expects you to be; and of the desperate realities of poor and working class black families. Brilliant, insightful, full of heart, this novel is another modern classic from one of the most influential literary voices of a generation.

On the Come Up

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Michelle Quach

Louisiana

Not Here to Be Liked

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California

Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Will Allen

The story of former basketball star and current urban farmer and activist Will Allen, whose vision of gardening from abandoned urban sites led to a grassroots feeding craze.

Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table

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#hardcover #fiction #youngadult #bipoc #ya #botm #juvenilefiction #bookofthemonth 

Tennessee

Claribel A. Ortega

North Carolina

Coco meets Stranger Things with a hint of Ghostbusters in this action-packed supernatural fantasy. For Lucely Luna, ghosts are more than just the family business. Shortly before Halloween, Lucely and her best friend, Syd, cast a spell that accidentally awakens malicious spirits, wreaking havoc throughout St. Augustine. Together, they must join forces with Syd's witch grandmother, Babette, and her tubby tabby, Chunk, to fight the haunting head-on and reverse the curse to save the town and Lucely's firefly spirits before it's too late. With the family dynamics of Coco and action-packed adventure of Ghostbusters, Claribel A. Ortega delivers both a thrillingly spooky and delightfully sweet debut novel.

Ghost Squad

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Kiyash Monsef

New Hampshire

A New York Times bestseller!

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them meets Neil Gaiman in this thrilling novel about an Iranian American girl who discovers that her father was secretly a veterinarian to mythical creatures--and that she must take up his mantle, despite the many dangers.

Once was, once wasn't.

So began the stories Marjan's father told her as a little girl--fables like the story of the girl who sprung a unicorn from a hunter's snare, or the nomad boy who rescued a baby shirdal. Tales of extraordinary beasts that filled her with curiosity and wonder.

But Marjan's not a little girl anymore. In the wake of her father's sudden death, she is trying to hold it all together: her schoolwork, friendships, and keeping her dad's shoestring veterinary practice from going under. Then, one day, she receives a visitor who reveals something stunning: Marjan's father was no ordinary veterinarian. The creatures out of the stories he told her were real--and he traveled the world to care for them. And now that he's gone, she must take his place.

Marjan steps into a secret world hidden in plain sight, where mythical creatures are bought and sold, treasured and trapped. She finds friends she never knew she needed--a charming British boy who grew up with a griffon, a runaway witch seeking magic and home--while trying to hide her double life from her old friends and classmates.

The deeper Marjan gets into treating these animals, the closer she comes to finding who killed her father--and to a shocking truth that will reawaken her sense of wonder and put humans and beasts in the gravest of danger.

Once There Was

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David Yoon

Ohio

From the bestselling author of Frankly in Love comes a contemporary YA rom-com where a case of mistaken identity kicks off a string of (fake) events that just may lead to (real) love.

Super Fake Love Song

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#paperback #ya #abuse #fiction #bipoc #blackvoices #blm #ballet 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

In this raw, searingly honest debut young adult novel, a former aspiring ballerina must confront her past in order to move forward from a devastating fall that leaves her without the use of her legs.

Genie used to fouetté across the stage. Now the only thing she's turning are the wheels to her wheelchair. Genie was the star pupil at her exclusive New York dance school, with a bright future and endless possibilities before her. Now that the future she's spent years building toward has been snatched away, she can't stand to be reminded of it--even if it means isolating herself from her best friends and her mother. The only wish this Genie has is to be left alone.

But then she meets Kyle, who also has a "used to be." Kyle used to tumble and flip on a gymnastics mat, but a traumatic brain injury has sent him to the same physical therapist that Genie sees. With Kyle's support, along with her best friend's insistence that Genie's time at the barre isn't over yet, Genie starts to see a new path--one where she doesn't have to be alone and she finally has the strength to heal from the past.

But healing also means confronting. Confronting the booze her mother, a recovering alcoholic, has been hiding under the kitchen sink; the ex-boyfriend who was there the night of the fall and won't leave her alone; and Genie's biggest, most terrifying secret: the fact that the accident may not have been so accidental after all.

Turning

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Sarah Howden

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

I Can Read Level 1

Misty Copeland: Ballet Star

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Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Colorado

A Novel

A dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina

A Phenomenal Book Club Pick * "Sometimes you just step into a book and let it wash over you, like you're swimming under a big, sparkling night sky."--Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022--The Millions, Electric Lit, Lit Hub, Book Riot

There is one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories.

Luz "Little Light" Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors' origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.

Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine's singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love--filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.

Woman of Light

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Meredith Costain

A daughter tries to guess what her mother's secret is.

Mom's Secret

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Traci Chee

"A beautiful, painful, and necessary work of historical fiction." --Veera Hiranandani, Newbery Honor winning author of The Night Diary

We Are Not Free

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The Story of Wilma Rudolph

Tahereh Mafi

Brand new but I wrote my initials on inside cover (as pictured) 

Florida

From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Shatter Me series comes a powerful, heartrending contemporary novel about fear, first love, and the devastating impact of prejudice. It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. She’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments—even the physical violence—she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. So she’s built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break-dancing with her brother. But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her—they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds—and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down.

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

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Pennsylvania

Samira Ahmed

Rebellions are built on hope. Set in a horrifying near-future-United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin is forced into an internment camp for Muslim-American citizens with her parents. With the help of newly-made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the internment camp's Director and his guards. Heart-racing and emotional, Internment challenges readers to fight complicit silence that exists in our society today.

Internment

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Patricia C. McKissack

Through moving prose and beautiful watercolors, a Coretta Scott King Award and Caldecott Medal–winning author-illustrator duo collaborate to tell the poignant tale of a spirited young girl who comes face to face with segregation in her southern town. There’s a place in this 1950s southern town where all are welcome, no matter what their skin color…and ’Tricia Ann knows exactly how to get there. To her, it’s someplace special and she’s bursting to go by herself. But when she catches the bus heading downtown, unlike the white passengers, she must sit in the back behind the Jim Crow sign and wonder why life’s so unfair. Still, for each hurtful sign seen and painful comment heard, there’s a friend around the corner reminding ’Tricia Ann that she’s not alone. And her grandmother’s words—“You are somebody, a human being—no better, no worse than anybody else in this world”—echo in her head, lifting her spirits and pushing her forward.

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Omer Aziz

Brown Boy

Floyd Cooper

Juneteenth for Mazie

Ben Philippe

Charming As a Verb

Julie C. Dao

♻️ Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix

Debbie Rigaud

Simone Breaks All the Rules

Angie Thomas

On the Come Up

Michelle Quach

Not Here to Be Liked

Michelle Quach

Not Here to Be Liked

Jacqueline Briggs Martin; Will Allen

Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table

Angie Thomas

On the Come Up

Claribel A. Ortega

Ghost Squad

Kiyash Monsef

Once There Was

David Yoon

Super Fake Love Song

Joy L. Smith

Turning

Sarah Howden

Misty Copeland: Ballet Star

Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Woman of Light

Meredith Costain

Mom's Secret

Traci Chee

We Are Not Free

Stephanie E. Macceca

The Story of Wilma Rudolph

Tahereh Mafi

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

Tahereh Mafi

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

Samira Ahmed

Internment

Patricia C. McKissack

Goin' Someplace Special

David Yoon

Super Fake Love Song