Eight Great YA Reads for National Reading Month

March is National Reading Month. To commemorate this annual call to read, Facing History staff members have shared some of their new and newish favorite Young Adult (YA) titles. The themes explored in these selections are focused around coming of age, identity, belonging and group membership, decision-making, and civic agency. These celebrated YA books, recommended for readers in grades 7-12, offer unique and challenging perspectives on life as experienced by tweens and teens coming of age in today’s complex world and include both fiction and nonfiction titles.

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.

Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah's health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle's liquor store while hiding the fact that she's applying to college so she can escape him. When Sal's attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

The Assignment by Liza Wiemer

Inspired by a real-life incident, this riveting novel explores the dangerous impact discrimination and antisemitism have on one community when a school assignment goes terribly wrong.

Would you defend the indefensible? That's what seniors Logan March and Cade Crawford are asked to do when a favorite teacher instructs a group of students to argue for the Final Solution—the Nazi plan for the genocide of the Jewish people. Logan and Cade decide they must take a stand, and soon their actions draw the attention of the student body, the administration, and the community at large. But not everyone feels as Logan and Cade do—after all, isn't a school debate just a school debate? It's not long before the situation explodes, and acrimony and anger result.
- Ember

Borderless by Jennifer de Leon

For seventeen-year-old Maya, trashion is her passion, and her talent for making clothing out of unusual objects landed her a scholarship to Guatemala City's most prestigious design school and a finalist spot in the school's fashion show. Mamá is her biggest supporter, taking on extra jobs to pay for what the scholarship doesn't cover, and she might be even more excited than Maya about what the fashion show could do for her future career. So when Mamá doesn't come to the show, Maya doesn't know what to think. But the truth is worse than she could have imagined. The gang threats in their neighborhood have walked in their front door—with a boy Maya considered a friend, or maybe even more, among them. After barely making their escape, Maya and her mom have no choice but to continue their desperate flight all the way through Guatemala and Mexico in hopes of crossing the US border.

The Hard Parts: A Memoir of Courage and Triumph by Oksana Masters

Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine—in the shadow of Chernobyl—seemingly with the odds stacked against her. She came into the world with one kidney, a partial stomach, six toes on each foot, webbed fingers, no right bicep, and no thumbs. Her left leg was six inches shorter than her right, and she was missing both tibias. Relinquished to the orphanage system by birth parents daunted by the staggering cost of what would be their child's medical care, Oksana encountered numerous abuses, some horrifying. Salvation came at age seven when Gay Masters, an unmarried American professor who saw a photo of the little girl and became haunted by her eyes, waged a two-year war against stubborn adoption authorities to rescue Oksana from her circumstances. In America, Oksana endured years of operations that included a double leg amputation. Still, how could she hope to fit in when there were so many things making her different? As it turned out, she would do much more than fit in. Determined to prove herself and fueled by a drive to succeed that still smoldered from childhood, Oksana triumphed in not just one sport but four. Now considered one of the world's top athletes, she is the recipient of seventeen Paralympic medals, the most of any US athlete of the Winter Games, Paralympic, or Olympic.
- Scribner Book Company

Just Another Epic Love Poem by Parisa Akhbari

Over the past five years, Mitra Esfahani has known two constants: her best friend Bea Ortega and The Book: a dogeared moleskin she and Bea have been filling with the stanzas of an epic, never-ending poem since they were 13.

For introverted Mitra, The Book is one of the few places she can open herself completely and where she gets to see all sides of brilliant and ebullient Bea. There, they can share everything—Mitra's complicated feelings about her absent mother, Bea's heartache over her most recent breakup—nothing too messy or complicated for The Book. Nothing except the one thing with the power to change their entire friendship: the fact that Mitra is helplessly in love with Bea.

One Person, No Vote (Young Readers’ Edition) by Tonya Bolden and Carol Anderson

After the election of Barack Obama, a rollback of voting rights occurred, punctuated by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that undid the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision allowed districts with a history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. This book follows the stunning aftermath of that ruling and explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. It also explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans.

Complete with a discussion guide, photographs, and information about getting involved.
- Bloomsbury YA

Some Kind of Hate by Sarah Darer Littman

Declan Taylor is furious at the world. After winning state as a freshman starting pitcher, he accidentally injures his throwing arm. Despite painful surgery and brutal physical therapy, he might never pitch again. On top of that, it seems like his best friend, Jake Lehrer, is flirting with Declan's crush and always ditching him to hang out with the team or his friends from synagogue.

So Declan ends up playing a lot of Imperialist Empires online and making new friends. It's there he realizes he's been playing with Finn, a kid from his class. Finn is the first person who might be just as angry as Declan. As the two spend more time together, Finn also introduces Declan to others who understand what it's like when the world is working against you, no matter how much you try. When his new friends decide it's time to fight back, Declan is right there with them. Even if it means going after Jake and his family. But when things turn deadly, Declan is going to have to decide just how far he'll go and what he's willing to sacrifice. In a stunning story set against the rise of white nationalism comes an unflinching exploration of the destruction of hate, the power of fear, and the hope of redemption.

Whiteout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon 

As the city grinds to a halt, twelve teens band together to help a friend pull off the most epic apology of her life. But will they be able to make it happen, in spite of the storm? No one is prepared for this whiteout. But then, we can't always prepare for the magical moments that change everything.

From the bestselling, award-winning, all-star authors who brought us Blackout comes another novel of Black teen love, each relationship within as unique and sparkling as Southern snowflakes.
- Quill Tree Books