Teen Books: Top Picks

Sixteen-year-old Allie, aged seven when she knew her family was different and feared, struggles to claim her Muslim and Middle Eastern heritage while finding her place as an American teenager.

When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints.

Writing letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seventeen-year-old college-bound Justyce McAllister struggles to face the reality of race relations today and how they are shaping him.

After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died

Told from two viewpoints, Atlanta high school seniors Lena and Campbell, one black, one white, must rely on each other to survive after a football rivalry escalates into a riot.

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

When seventeen-year-old Jay Reguero learns his Filipino cousin and former best friend, Jun, was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, he flies to the Philippines to learn more.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

A novel in verse about the wrongful incarceration of a young man.

An honors student at Jefferson Academy, seventeen-year-old Keira enjoys developing and playing Slay, a secret, multiplayer online role-playing game celebrating black culture, until the two worlds collide.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1965 march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Newbery Medalist Freedman presents a riveting account of this pivotal event in the history of civil rights.

From World War II through NASA's golden age, four African-American women confidently and courageously stepped into the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (now known as NASA). Their job? To provide the mathematical calculations that would help increase airplane production during wartime and eventually send the United States into space for the very first time. Hidden Figures follows the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who participated in some of the United States' greatest aeronautic successes.

Bryan Stevenson details from his personal experience his many challenges and efforts as a lawyer and social advocate, especially on behalf of America's most marginalized people.

Presents an account of the 1944 civil rights protest involving hundreds of African-American Navy servicemen who were unjustly charged with mutiny for refusing to work in unsafe conditions after the deadly Port Chicago explosion.

A history of racist and antiracist ideas in America, from their roots in Europe until today, adapted from the National Book Award winner Stamped from the Beginning.

Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture.

March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis' personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement.

George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In this National Book Award finalist and stunning graphic memoir, Gold medalist Dr. Smith teams up with award-winning creators Barnes and Anyabwile to vividly recount his life and the road that led up to the memorable Olympic 1968 protest.