YA/Teen

Awakening Worlds, J.C. Thomas

Awakening Worlds is a coming of age novel with contemporary Gothic themes and elements of magical realism, a must-read for anyone who loves otherworldly fantasy.  When Roselyn, daughter of the universe, learns humanity’s growing disregard for Earth’s health is putting her mother’s life in danger, she volunteers to nurture a […]

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Where the River Runs Gold, Sita Brahmachari

Click here to return to the series This month we look at Sita Brahmachari’s novel Where the River Runs Gold (Waterstones, July 2019), which takes place in an everyland, according to the author. But she told me that Meteore mountain–meaning between earth and sky–was inspired by Meteora in Greece and […]

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A.S. King’s Me and Marvin Gardens, Review by Kimberly Christensen

Me and Marvin Gardens by A.S. King Middle Grade Fiction Published by Scholastic Trades Review by Kimberly Christensen Everything around twelve-year-old Obe Devlin is changing. New subdivisions keep springing up behind his house on the acres of land that once belonged to the Devlin family. Obe’s former best friend, Tommy, […]

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Neela Vaswani’s Same Sun Here, Review by Kimberly Christensen

Same Sun Here By Silas House and Neela Vaswani Middle Grade Fiction Review by Kimberly Christensen When middle schoolers River and Meena become penpals, the two students form a fast friendship. Meena recently immigrated to New York City from India, and lives in a small flat with her mother and […]

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Ali Benjamin’s The Thing About Jellyfish, Review by Kimberly Christensen

The Thing About Jellyfish By Ali Benjamin Published September 22, 2015 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Middle Grade Fiction Review by Kimberly Christensen The summer before seventh grade, Suzanne’s former best friend, Frannie, drowns while on vacation. Frannie and Suzy’s friendship had derailed in that most painful of […]

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Protectors of the Wood – Series, John Kixmiller

The Protectors of the Wood Adventure Novel Series is the fully illustrated story of a group of misfit teenagers who save the world from climate change. -Goodreads Part 1. Phoebe Comes Home Goodreads Review Back to GoodReads Part 2. Phoebe Breaks Through Goodreads Review Back to GoodReads Part 3. The […]

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War Girls, Tochi Onyebuchi

The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky.  In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to […]

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The Orchardist’s Daughter, Karen Viggers

The theme of conservation runs strong in all four of Karen Vigger’s works. She trained as a domestic and wildlife veterinarian and loves the great outdoors. This strong attachment to nature appeals to her readers across the world. –rFI Set in the old-growth eucalypt forests and vast rugged mountains of […]

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The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth, Veeraporn Nitiprapha

The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth, which won the South East Asian Writers Award for the original Thai edition, is also lush with characters — and foliage and fauna. In Veeraporn’s telling, the Thai capital doesn’t unfold, as in Pitchaya’s plaited tale, but explode. –The New York Times Goodreads Reviews […]

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The Migration, Helen Marshall

Marshall is painting on a large canvas here and her style is unabashedly baroque: the novel is characterized by a high level of drama, intensity, and movement, including a repeated motif of flooding, raging waters that claim (or threaten to claim) various characters over the course of the narrative. Climate change […]

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Jodi Lynn Anderson’s Midnight at the Electric, Review by Kimberly Christensen

Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson Hardcover, 259 pages Published June 13, 2017 by HarperCollins Reviewed by Kimberly Christensen Midnight at the Electric interweaves three different generations of protagonists to tell the heartbreaking and simultaneously hopeful stories of young women living through times of societal upheaval. The stories […]

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Spliced Series, Jon McGoran

In this gripping sci-fi thriller, genetically altered teens fight for survival in a near-future society that is redefining what it means to be human. Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads [Coming May 2019] In the second installment of the Spliced series, sixteen-year-old Jimi Corcoran risks her life to clear a friend’s […]

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Shrinking Sinking Land, Kell Cowley

One week before the Global Mandatory Hibernation and Flea Wheeler will do anything to avoid a long winter underground. A claustrophobic climate refugee who has been living rough on the flooded streets of Manchester, Flea dreads the day she’ll be forced into shelter so a geoengineering experiment can attempt to […]

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Alexandra Monir’s The Final Six, Review by Kimberly Christensen

The Final Six by Alexandra Monir Hardcover, 352 pages Published March 6, 2018 by HarperTeen Reviewed by Kimberly Christensen The Final Six is a young adult science fiction novel that leapfrogs the reader into a dystopian future in which space colonization is humanity’s best hope for survival. With megastorms, rising […]

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Wilder Girls, Rory Power

From Hypable: Wilder Girls by Rory Power follows Hetty as she looks for her friend, braving a world outside of quarantine and discovering the truth about their story. The Wilder Girls cover, created by Regina Flath and Aykut Aydogdu, is as twisted as it is beautiful, depicting a girl literally […]

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