American Library

Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can't decide what's worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student - the handsome Allister - and for the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake. Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse.

All Momo wants for her twelfth birthday is an ordinary life—like everyone else's. At home, she has to take care of her absentminded widowed mother. At school, kids ridicule her for mixing up reality with the magical stories her mother used to tell her. But then Momo’s mother falls gravely ill, and a death hag straight out of those childhood stories attacks Momo at the mall, where she’s rescued by a talking fox . . . and “ordinary” goes out the window. It turns out that Momo's mother is a banished Shinto goddess who used to protect a passageway to the land of the dead.

Samuel, 13, spends his days in the forest, hunting for food for his family. He has grown up on the frontier of a British colony, America. Far from any town, or news of the war against the King that American patriots have begun near Boston.

Ever since running away at the age of fourteen, Paul-Edward, the son of a white landowner and a black slave, has had one dream: to own land every bit as good as his daddy's. While growing up, Paul-Edward loved, and feared, his father, but he loved the land unconditionally. Then, after a rash act of youthful rebellion, he leaves his family behind and vows to succeed on his own. However, for anyone black coming of age in 1880's Mississippi, this is no simple goal.

Capture the beauty, power, and wisdom of the Native American oral tradition with this superlative collection of readings taken from the writings and speeches of people from many different tribes. The collection offers insights into Native American ways of living, learning, and dying, and helps us to feel a reconnection with the land and ourselves. The words of Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Ohiyesa, Black Elk, and others create a powerful listening experience.

The Oracle of Maracoor, the second in the trilogy called Another Day, continues the story of Elphaba’s green-skinned granddaughter, Rain. That strange land, Maracoor—across the ocean from Oz—is beset by an invading army. In the mayhem, Rain and Cossy, a child felon, break out of prison. Helped by a few flying monkeys, they struggle to escape the city before it falls under siege. Their arresting officer, Lucikles, also retreats with his family to a highland redoubt. But safety eludes them all. Chaos thunders upon them in the form of warriors, refugees, and brigands.

For listeners of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Great Depression comes the astonishing tale of nine working-class boys from the American West who at the 1936 Olympics showed the world what true grit really meant. With rowers who were the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew was never expected to defeat the elite East Coast teams, yet they did, going on to shock the world by challenging the German boat rowing for Adolf Hitler.

Oof! After solving the case of the Royal Rumpus, Olive Cobin Zang and her elite team of underdogs are on top of the world. As the awkward, crime-fighting Misfits, they’re acing every mission thrown at them from NOCK (aka No One Can Know, the covert agency they work for). But when their classmate Zeke starts receiving threatening notes, the Misfits are stumped. They’re no strangers to danger, but this case is a total head-scratcher. Who would target kind, friendly Zeke . . . unless he’s not what he seems to be?

Everyone has heard of Albert Einstein - but what exactly did he do? How much do kids really know about Albert Einstein besides the funny hair and genius label? For instance, do they know that he was expelled from school as a kid? Finally, here's the story of Albert Einstein's life, told in a fun, engaging way that clearly explores the world he lived in and changed.

Seventh grade begins, and Kareem’s already fumbled it. His best friend moved away, he messed up his tryout for the football team, and because of his heritage, he was voluntold to show the new kid—a Syrian refugee with a thick and embarrassing accent—around school. Just when Kareem thinks his middle school life has imploded, the hotshot QB promises to get Kareem another tryout for the squad. There’s a catch: to secure that chance, Kareem must do something he knows is wrong.

Flight is the hilarious and tragic story of an orphaned Indian boy - "Zits" - who travels back and forth through time in a charged search for his true identity. With powerful, swift prose, Flight follows the troubled teenager as he learns that violence is not the answer.

On the outside, Yumi Chung suffers from #shygirlproblems, a perm-gone-wrong, and kids calling her "Yu-MEAT" because she smells like her family's Korean barbecue restaurant. On the inside, Yumi is ready for her Netflix stand-up special. Her notebook is filled with mortifying memories that she's reworked into comedy gold. All she needs is a stage and courage.

Growing up in an affluent suburb of New York City, 16-year-old Nevaeh Levitz never thought much about her biracial roots. When her Black mom and Jewish dad split up, she relocates to her mom's family home in Harlem and is forced to confront her identity for the first time. Nevaeh wants to get to know her extended family, but because she inadvertently passes as white, her cousin thinks she's too privileged, pampered, and selfish to relate to the injustices African Americans face on a daily basis.

Lately, seventh grader Nizhoni Begay has been able to detect monsters, like that man in the fancy suit who was in the bleachers at her basketball game. Turns out he's Mr. Charles, her dad's new boss at the oil and gas company, and he's alarmingly interested in Nizhoni and her brother, Mac, their Navajo heritage, and the legend of the Hero Twins. When Dad disappears the next day, leaving behind a message that says "Run!", the siblings and Nizhoni's best friend, Davery, are thrust into a rescue mission, which can only be done with the help of Navajo gods.

Samantha Madison is just your average disenfranchised sophomore gal living in DC when, in an inadvertent moment sandwiched between cookie buying and CD-perusing, she puts a stop to an attempt on the life of the president. Before she can say “MTV2”, she’s appointed Teen Ambassador to the UN and has caught the eye of the very cute First Son.

Library of Small Catastrophes, Alison Rollins's ambitious debut collection, interrogates the body and nation as storehouses of countless tragedies. Drawing from Jorge Luis Borges's fascination with the library, Rollins uses the concept of the archive to offer a lyric history of the ways in which we process loss. "Memory is about the future, not the past", she writes, and rather than shying away from the anger, anxiety, and mourning of her narrators, Rollins's poetry seeks to challenge the status quo.

Summer and her family always spend relaxed summers in Alberta, Canada, on the reservation where her mom’s family lives. But this year is turning out to be an eye-opening one. First, Summer has begun to have vivid dreams in which she's running away from one of the many real-life residential schools that tore Native children from their families and tried to erase their Native identities. Not long after that, she learns that unmarked children’s graves have been discovered at the school her grandpa attended as a child.

When the Watson family—ten-year-old Kenny, Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron—sets out on a trip south to visit Grandma in Birmingham, Alabama, they don’t realize that they’re heading toward one of the darkest moments in America’s history. The Watsons’ journey reminds us that even in the hardest times, laughter and family can help us get through anything.

Bryan knows what's tight for him--reading comics, drawing superheroes, and hanging out with no drama. But drama is every day where he's from, and that gets him tight, wound up. And now Bryan's friend Mike pressures him with ideas of fun that are crazy risky. At first, it's a rush following Mike, hopping turnstiles, subway surfing, and getting into all kinds of trouble. But Bryan never really feels right acting so wrong, and drama really isn't him. So which way will he go, especially when his dad tells him it's better to be hard and feared than liked?

Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha’s Vineyard with her best friends—one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria’s parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West....