Alexis Castellanos

GUAVA AND GRUDGES

September 2024, Bloomsbury, 336 pp

Ana Maria Ybarra dreams of becoming a world-famous pastry chef, but dreams have a cost. Her family can barely keep the family business running, let alone pay for culinary school. Ana Maria helps out a...

H.D. Hunter

SOMETHING LIKE RIGHT

August 2024, Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Macmillan, 336 pp

Zay’s ma always said his mouth would get him in trouble. Sure enough, it got him into his first and only fight in his junior year of high school. Expelled from his district, Zay’s only hope for redemp...

Sarah Dvojack

WELCOME TO FEAR CITY

September 2024, Union Square Kids, 454 pp

New York City, 1977. Seventeen-year-old Sylvie Stroud can see the past of any building just by touching it. Her powers have always been reliable, until the day she witnesses the shooting of a teenage...

Yamile Saied Méndez

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

September 2024, Algonquin Young Readers/Hachette, 336 pp

A powerful story about family, fútbol, and playing like a girl from the award-winning author of Furia. At thirteen years old, Valeria "Magic" Salomón is already the best soccer player her town has ev...

Tracey Baptiste

BOY 2.0

October 2024, Algonquin Young Readers/Hachette, TBD pp

Win “Coal” Keegan has just landed in his latest foster home, with a big, noisy, slightly nosy family named the McKays. They seem eager to welcome Coal, but he’s wary of trusting them. So, he doesn’t t...

Shakirah Bourne

BEWARE THE HEARTMAN

September 2024, Scholastic, 336 pp

Ten months after her terrifying escape from a sea spirit, Josephine is happy to settle back into life in Fairy Vale, playing on her cricket team, and spending time with her Dad, Miss Alleyne......

Brittany J. Thurman

FOREVER AND ALWAYS

January 2024, Greenwillow/HarperCollins, 40 pp

In this lyrical picture book from two breakout picture book creators, a young Black child waits for—and worries about—her father while he’s away from home. A sensitive, poignant portrayal of a family’...

Ellen Oh

THE COLLIDING WORLDS OF MINA LEE

January 2024, Crown/Random House, 304 pp

When a Korean American teenage artist gets sucked into the world of her own web comic, she must find a way out with the help of a cute boy all while facing off against a villainous corporation. Inspir...

Tracey Baptiste

MOKO MAGIC 01: CARNIVAL CHAOS

August 2024, Freedom Fire/Disney, 400 pp

Cousins Misty, Aidan, and Brooke discover that they carry the ancestral power of real moko healers from west Africa, and are the descendants of the first moko jumbie who followed a slave ship across t...

Randy Ribay

EVERYTHING WE NEVER HAD

August 2024, Kokila/Penguin Random House, 352 pp

From the author of the National Book Award finalist Patron Saints of Nothing comes an emotionally charged, moving novel about four generations of Filipino American boys grappling with identity, mascul...

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

OPERATION SISTERHOOD: STEALING THE SHOW

Spring 2025, Crown/Random House, TBD pp

When Sunday's plans for a spectacular neighborhood theatre production go awry because of a new celebrity neighbor, her sisters need to help her find the way back to the community connections that spar...

Aida Salazar

ULTRAVIOLET

April 2024, Scholastic, 256 pp

Can love break your heart-literally? For Elio, eighth grade fizzes with change. In his body. With his pops, who makes them join a father-son group to talk about puberty and manly stuff and being Mexi...

Wendy Xu

THE INFINITY PARTICLE

August 2023, Quill Tree/HarperCollins, 272 pp

This thought-provoking limited palette graphic novel by the co-creator of Mooncakes explores big questions through the eyes of an aspiring inventor and the lifelike AI she finds herself falling for. ...

Bessie Flores Zaldívar

LIBERTAD

August 2024, Dial/Penguin Young Readers, 272 pp

A queer YA coming-of-age set during the rigged Honduran presidential election, about a young poet discovering the courage it takes to speak her truth about the people and country she loves. As the c...

Ellen Oh

YOU ARE HERE

March 2023, Allida/HarperCollins, 272 pp

An incident at a TSA security check point sows chaos and rumors, creating a chain of events that impacts twelve young Asian Americans in a crowded and restless airport. As their disrupted journeys cri...

Kacen Callender

INFINITY ALCHEMIST

February 2024, Tor Teen/Macmillan, 400 pp

Infinity Alchemist is a spellbinding novel about a quest that leads three young alchemists toward unexpected love and unimaginable power. With their signature "prowess" (FIYAH) and "unbridled creativ...

Justin A. Reynolds

HOUSE PARTY

June 2023, Joy Revolution/Random House, 384 pp

Welcome to HOUSE PARTY. The biggest event of the year is happening tonight, and you’re invited! Join us for Florence Hills High seniors’ last hurrah before graduation. Over a few wild, transformativ...

Amparo Ortiz

LAST SUNRISE IN ETERNA

March 2023, Page Street Publishing, 368 pp

Seventeen-year-old goth Sevim Burgos would love to spend all day watching music videos, but to help support the family she has to scavenge and sell elf corpses to a sketchy university professor. On o...

Shakirah Bourne

NIGHTMARE ISLAND

May 2023, Scholastic, 304 pp

Serenity Noah has never told anyone about her recurring nightmare, where a silver butterfly leads her to a shadowy, silent monster. Her parents already favor her little brother, Peace, and as the "dif...

Madeline McGrane

THE ACCURSED VAMPIRE: CURSE AT WITCH CAMP

February 2023, HarperCollins, 256 pp

Vampires at witch camp? What could go wrong? It’s summertime in Baneberry Falls and Drago and their vampire pals Eztli and Quintus are heading to witch camp where they’ll learn spells and magic along...

Randi Pink

WE ARE THE SCRIBES

October 2022, Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan, 320 pp

Ruth Fitz is surrounded by activism. Her mother is a senator fighting for legislative social change, her father, a professor of African American history, is a walking encyclopedia, and her sister is a...

E.L. Shen

THE QUEENS OF NEW YORK

June 2023, Quill Tree/HarperCollins, 336 pp

Three best friends have one life-changing summer in this contemporary, Asian American Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Jia Lee, Ariel Kim, and Everett Hoang have been best friends since their paren...

Shveta Thakrar

THE DREAM RUNNERS

June 2022, HarperTeen/HarperCollins, 431 pp

Seven years ago, Tanvi was spirited away to the subterranean realm of Nagalok, where she joined the ranks of the dream runners: human children freed of all memory and emotion, charged with harvesting ...

Kacen Callender

LARK AND KASIM START A REVOLUTION

September 2022, Abrams, 336 pp

From National Book Award–winner Kacen Callender, a contemporary YA that follows Lark's journey to speak the truth and discover how their own self-love can be a revolution Lark Winters wants to be a w...

Kacen Callender

MOONFLOWER

September 2022, Scholastic, 272 pp

The award-winning author of Hurricane Child and King and the Dragonflies brings another unflinching story of identity and hope to young readers. Every night, twelve-year-old Moon leaves for the spiri...

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

OPERATION SISTERHOOD

January 2022, Crown/Random House, 272 pp

ans of the Netflix reboot of The Babysitters Club will delight in this blended-family story about four sisters who band together in the heart of New York City. A jubilant novel about the difficulties ...

Alexis Castellanos

ISLA TO ISLAND

March 2022, Atheneum/S&S, 192 pp

A wordless middle grade graphic novel following a girl growing up in 1960s Cuba and New York City. Marisol loves her colorful island. Cuba is vibrant with flowers and food and people… but things are ...

Daria Peoples-Riley

AMERICA, MY LOVE, AMERICA, MY HEART

April 2021, Greenwillow/HarperCollins, 40pp

America, do you love me? My black. My brown. My pride. My crown. Acclaimed author-artist Daria Peoples-Riley invites readers to answer timely—and timeless—questions beating inside the hearts of child...

Amparo Ortiz

DRAGONBLOOD RING (Blazewrath #2)

October 2021, Page Street Kids, 320 pp

After the Sire’s capture, teen athletes Lana Torres and Victoria Peralta travel to Puerto Rico with their former Blazewrath team. While Lana discovers her roots, nothing fills the void Blazewrath’s ca...

Schuyler Bailar

OBIE IS MAN ENOUGH

September 2021, Crown/Random House, 352 pp

A coming-of-age story about transgender tween Obie who didn't think being himself would cause such a splash. For fans of Alex Gino's George and Lisa Bunker's Felix Yz. Obie knew his transition would ...

Mimi Yu

Empress of Flames

August 2021, Gollancz/Hachette UK, 496 pp

As the late-Emperor's first-born, Princess Lu knows the throne rightfully belongs to her. She also can't forget her promise to shapeshifter Nok, the boy she loves, to win justice for his now powerless...

Madeline McGrane

THE ACCURSED VAMPIRE

July 2021, HarperCollins, 176pp

A spooky and funny graphic novel debut that’s perfect for fans of Molly Knox Ostertag’s THE WITCH BOY and Kristen Gudsnuk’s MAKING FRIENDS. Dragoslava is a vampire kid. And that’s not even the worst ...

Kathryn Ormsbee

CANDIDLY CLINE

November 2021, HarperCollins, 320pp

Born in Paris, Kentucky and raised on her Gram’s favorite country music, Cline dreams of making it big with her own songs—even if her mother has always told her that music won’t pay the bills. So whe...

Wendy Xu

TIDESONG

November 2021, HarperCollins, 240pp

An ambitious 12-year-old moves to a seaside town for an apprenticeship in magic with her aunts and realizes that it may be more than she bargained for....

Kat Cho

VICIOUS SPIRITS

August 2020, Putnam/Penguin, 416 pp

Miyoung and Jihoon are picking up the pieces of their broken lives following the deaths of Miyoung’s mother, Yena, and Jihoon’s grandmother. The events at the end of Wicked Fox have upended the forces...

Kat Cho

WICKED FOX

June 2019, Putnam/Penguin, 448 pp

An addictive fantasy-romance set in modern-day Seoul. Eighteen-year-old Gu Miyoung has a secret--she's a gumiho, a nine-tailed fox who must devour the energy of men in order to survive. Because so fe...

Ellen Oh

THE DRAGON KING CHRONICLES

KING

Book 3 – December 2014, HarperCollins/HarperTeen, 288 pp

This thrilling and romantic conclusion to the Prophecy series brings Kira her final quest. Kira, once an outcast in her home village of Hansong, is now the only one with the power to save her kingdom....

Ellen Oh

THE DRAGON EGG PRINCESS

March 2020, HarperCollins, 256 pp

A must-have middle grade novel perfect for fans of the Wing & Claw series by Linda Sue Park. In a kingdom filled with magic, Jiho Park and his family are an anomaly—magic doesn’t affect them. Jiho co...

Ellen Oh

FINDING JUNIE KIM

May 2021, HarperCollins, 368pp

From We Need Diverse Books cofounder Ellen Oh comes an extraordinary story about a girl who must understand her family’s past to embrace her present, finding herself along the way. Junie Kim just wan...

Kathryn Ormsbee

TASH HEARTS TOLSTOY

June 2017, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 384 pp

A refreshing LGBTQ+ coming-of-age novel about Internet fame, peer pressure, and YouTube. After a shout-out from one of the Internet’s superstar vloggers, Natasha “Tash” Zelenka suddenly finds herself...

Kathryn Ormsbee

THE GREAT UNKNOWABLE END

February 2019, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 400 pp

A humorous, lightly speculative novel for fans of “Welcome to Nightvale” with points of view from two teens with opposing beliefs who come together at what might be the end of the world in a small Ame...

Yamile Saied Méndez

ON THESE MAGIC SHORES

April 2020, Tu Books/Lee & Low, 288 pp

Twelve-year-old Minerva Soledad Madrid does not believe in fairies (or peques, as mamá calls them), despite the fact that her family insists peques followed them from Argentina to the US watch over th...

Yamile Saied Méndez

FURIA

September 2020, Algonquin/Workman Publishing, 368 pp

Camila “Furia” Hassan has a dream—to play professional fútbol. She lives in the cradle of fútbol legends, Rosario, Argentina, but Rosario only exports fútbol players of the male kind. No one believes ...

Dana Alison Levy

THE MISADVENTURES OF THE FAMILY FLETCHER

July 2014, Delacorte/Penguin Random House, 260 pp

Modern Family meets modern classics like Beverly Cleary’s Quimbys and Judy Blume’s Hatchers in this heartwarming and hilarious middle grade novel. Four adopted brothers, two dads, and an ever-changing...

Dana Alison Levy

THE FAMILY FLETCHER TAKES ROCK ISLAND

May 2016, Delacorte/Penguin Random House, 272 pp

Fans of The Penderwicks and other summer tales will enjoy this stand-alone companion novel to the acclaimed Misadventures of the Family Fletcher. Set on a fictional New England island, the boys, ages ...

Dana Alison Levy

THIS WOULD MAKE A GOOD STORY SOMEDAY

Spring 2017, Penguin Random House, 260 pp

Fans of Dan Santat’s Are We There Yet and Geoff Rodkey’s The Tapper Twins will enjoy this cross-country train trip of a middle grade novel. Twelve-year-old Sara loves her family, but she’s less than t...

Dana Alison Levy

IT WASN’T ME

November 2018, Delacorte/Penguin Random House, 336 pp

The Breakfast Club meets middle school in this story of six 12-year-old students — five potential perpetrators and Theo, one seriously annoyed victim — forced to spend vacation week together in school...

Aida Salazar

THE MOON WITHIN

Spring 2019, Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, 250 pp

This free verse middle grade novel tells the story of 11-year-old Cely, whose life swirls with questions about her changing body, her first attraction to a boy, her best friend’s exploration of what i...

Aida Salazar

LAND OF THE CRANES

September 2020, Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, 256 pp

This free verse middle grade novel, inspired in part by the author’s own childhood as an undocumented immigrant, tells the story of 9-year-old Betita, who believes that she and other migrants follow a...

Randi Pink

INTO WHITE

September 2016, Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan, 288 pp

Sixteen-year-old Latoya Williams, who is black, attends a mostly white high school in the Alabama. In a moment of desperation, she prays for the power to change her race and wakes up white. Randi Pink...

Randi Pink

GIRLS LIKE US

October 2019, Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan, 320 pp

This historical fiction novel set in the summer of 1972, months before the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade, is an introspective look into abortion rights. The novel weaves togethe...

Randi Pink

ANGEL OF GREENWOOD

January 2021, Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan, 304pp

ANGEL OF GREENWOOD is a historical fiction novel set in the Tulsa, Oklahoma neighborhood of Greenwood, affectionately known as Black Wall Street, in which sixteen-year-old Angel and seventeen-year-old...

Ashley Woodfolk

THE BEAUTY THAT REMAINS

March 2018, Delacorte/Penguin Random House, 336 pp

Autumn always knew exactly who she was: a talented artist and a loyal friend. Shay was defined by two things: her bond with her twin sister and her love of music. And Logan has always turned to writin...

Ashley Woodfolk

FLYY GIRLS

TOBYN: THE IT GIRL

Book 4 - August 2021, Penguin Workshop/Penguin, 144 pp

Meet the Flyy Girls. The group of girls who seem like they can get away with anything. Veteran author Ashley Woodfolk pens a gorgeous and dynamic series about four Harlem highschoolers, each facing a ...

Suzanne Walker / Wendy Xu

MOONCAKES

Fall 2019, Lion Forge, 256 pp

A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft. Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books a...

Randy Ribay

PATRON SAINTS OF NOTHING

June 2019, Kokila/Penguin Random House, 304 pp

A powerful coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin’s murder. Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his...

Mimi Yu

THE GIRL KING

January 2019, Bloomsbury Children’s, 432 pp

With three revolving points-of-view, this diverse, epic, richly-imagined Asian fantasy is set against a world of ancient magic and political intrigue. Assertive Lu has always expected to be named her...

Shveta Thakrar

STAR DAUGHTER

August 2020, Harperteen/HarperCollins, 448 pp

The daughter of a star and a mortal, Sheetal is used to keeping secrets. Her mother returned to the constellation Pushya when Sheetal was just a child, and since then, Sheetal has hidden her true iden...

Justin A. Reynolds

EARLY DEPARTURES

September 2020, Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins, 320 pp

Jamal’s best friend Q does not know he’s about to die . . . again. He also doesn’t know that Jamal tried to save his life, rescuing him from drowning only to watch Q die in the hospital. Even more co...

Kelly Quindlen

LATE TO THE PARTY

April 2020, Roaring Brook/Macmillan, 304 pp

A story of friendship and first love, featuring a diverse cast of LGBTQ+ characters. Codi wants to score her first kiss—with a girl—but she may have to expand her social world first. Can she fall in ...

Josanne La Valley

THE VINE BASKET

April 2013, Clarion/HMH, 256 pp

Things aren’t looking good for fourteen-year-old Mehrigul. She yearns to be in school, but she’s needed on the family farm. The longer she’s out of school, the more likely it is that she’ll be sent of...

Josanne La Valley

FACTORY GIRL

January 2017, Clarion/HMH, 256 pp

In order to save her family’s farm, Roshen, sixteen, must leave her rural home to work in a factory in the south of China. There she finds arduous and degrading conditions and contempt for her minorit...

Cynthia Leonor Garza

LUCÍA THE LUCHADORA

April 2017, POW!, 32 pp

Girls can be superheroes, too. When the boys on the playground tell Lucía that girls can’t be superheroes – despite her high-flying leaps – she comes up with a plan to disguise herself as a masked luc...

Cynthia Leonor Garza

LUCÍA THE LUCHADORA AND THE MILLION MASKS

October 2018, POW!, 32 pp

A splendiferous sisterhood adventure in the follow-up to Lucía the Luchadora. Lucía’s little sister Gemma wants to be a luchadora too, but she seems to find trouble wherever she goes. When Gemma makes...

Daria Peoples-Riley

THIS IS IT

February 2018, Greenwillow/Harper, 40 pp

A young ballerina, uncertain of her talent, follows the poetically compelling voice of her shadow to discover the courage she needs to audition....

Daria Peoples-Riley

I GOT NEXT

July 2019, Greenwillow/Harper, 40 pp

A perfect read-aloud for all young athletes on game day, featuring text that mimics spoken-word poetry. When a young basketball player wants to play in the next game at the local playground, his shad...

David Kreizman

THE YEAR THEY FELL

September 2019, Imprint/Macmillan, 384 pp

In the wake of their parents’ tragic plane crash, five very different teenagers must find a way to navigate their senior year of high school and forge a new family. Josie, Jack, Archie, Harrison, and...

David Kreizman

THE UNEXPLAINABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF MARS PATEL

October 2020, Candlewick, 304 pp

When his friends begin disappearing, eleven-year-old Mars Patel uncovers a mystery that will take him to the stars…and beyond.The first novel in a series written by Sheela Chari based on the award-win...

Kat Fajardo

MISS QUINCES

May 2022, Graphix/Scholastic, 272 pp

A coming-of-age middle grade graphic novel about a girl forced to celebrate her quinceañera despite hating all things pretty and pink. Suyapa “Sue” Gutierrez was planning a fun summer at camp with he...

Mike Dutton

FOOD TRUCK FEST!

March 2018, Macmillan/FSG, 40 pp

The rhyming story follows a fleet of food trucks as they get ready for the biggest and best day of the year – the food truck fest....

Tameka Fryer Brown

BROWN BABY LULLABY

Winter 2020, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux/Macmillan, TBD pp

A beautifully illustrated portrayal of parental love in a family of color. When the sun sets, it’s time for Momma, Papi, and their tired toddler to begin the evening’s routine, which includes clangin...

Nina Crews

SEEING INTO TOMORROW: HAIKU BY RICHARD WRIGHT

February 2018, Millbrook/Lerner, 32 pp

Richard Wright’s haiku put everyday moments – walking a dog, watching a sunset, finding a beetle – into focus. Now, more than fifty years after they were written, these poems continue to reflect kids’...

Pat Cummings

TRACE

December 2018, HarperCollins, 320 pp

Coretta Scott King Award winner Pat Cummings’s debut TRACE, about a boy who stumbles into a ghost story born in the turmoil of New York City’s 1863 Draft Riots. Weighed down by guilt for an accident ...

Alina Chau

MARSHMALLOW AND JORDAN

October 2021, First Second/Macmillan, 384 pp

Beautiful watercolor illustrations bring to life this middle grade graphic novel about former youth basketball star Jordan, who was paralyzed from the waist down in an accident. She misses playing her...

Ann Dávila Cardinal

FIVE MIDNIGHTS

June 2019, Tor/Macmillan, 288 pp

In this thrilling, supernatural murder mystery, monsters only come when they’re called. A self-described Gringa-Rican from Vermont, Lupe Dávila has her summer thrown off-course when she’s shipped off...

Ann Dávila Cardinal

CATEGORY FIVE

June 2020, Tor/Macmillan, 240 pp

After the hurricane, some see destruction and some smell blood. Category Five is a new supernatural thriller from Ann Dávila Cardinal, set against the backdrop of a post-hurricane Puerto Rico. The t...

Kacen Callender

HURRICANE CHILD

March 2018, Scholastic, 224 pp

A lyrical, debut middle grade novel with a touch of magical realism and LGBTQ+ themes, about first friendship, first love, and finding self-acceptance. 12-year-old Caroline Murphy is a Hurricane Chil...

Kacen Callender

THIS IS KIND OF AN EPIC LOVE STORY

October 2018, Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 304 pp

A fluffy romantic comedy that plays with the friends-to-lovers and second-chance tropes featuring diverse LBGTQ+ teens. Nathan Bird is a film buff, but he’s a firm disbeliever in real-life happy endi...

Kacen Callender

KING AND THE DRAGONFLIES

February 2020, Scholastic, 272 pp

From the Stonewall and Lambda Book Award-winning author of Hurricane Child comes a novel about loss, grief, and finding the courage to discover one’s identity. Twelve-year-old Kingston James is sure ...

Kacen Callender

FELIX EVER AFTER

May 2020, Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 368 pp

From Stonewall and Lambda Literary Award-winning author Kacen Callender comes a poignant story of identity and self-discovery, layered with romance. Felix Love has never been in love, and he’s painfu...

Shakirah Bourne

JOSEPHINE AGAINST THE SEA

July 2021, Scholastic, 304 pp

The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste meets R.L.Stine’s The Girl Who Cried Monster. 11 year-old Jo discovers that her Dad’s new girlfriend is a powerful sea creature and has to convince everyone of the woma...