National Network for Equitable Library Service

All Katrina really wants is a home, a forever home where she can live with her three sisters. She is even willing to give up her Disney-princess dream of living happily ever after for the chance. But giving up her birth parents for the possibility of a predictable life is not an easy choice, no matter what they have done. After five years of fending for herself and her little sisters, six foster homes and an eighteen-hour car ride to their new lives, Katrina lives in constant fear that one of her sisters will blow it and get them sent back to Blackwater Creek.

It's the year 2135, almost four decades since the Water Wars ended. Much of the continent is a desert wasteland, and the powerful Consortium rules Adanac, one of the few habitable areas remaining, with an iron fist. Cee and Dee, 16-year-old twins who share a special, almost psychic bond, are runaways from a Consortium workhouse. The twins are tested to their limits as they confront the demons of their past and try to save the future, for themselves and all of Adanac.

The Discovery of Flight is a novel in two voices about the relationship between two sisters, the older of whom is disabled by cerebral palsy and only able to communicate with assistive technology (she can control her computer by moving her eyes). It interweaves the fantasy novel sixteen-year-old Libby is writing for Sophie's thirteenth birthday, and Sophie's diary, in which she discusses the deteriorating condition of her older sister.

Inspired by the kinds of real-life stories that prompted the It Gets Better campaign, Paul Dunn's play for middle-grade and high-school students brings the discussion around homophobia, bullying, mental health, and gay-straight alliances directly to the young people who are on the front lines.

Chanda is a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl in Harare, Zimbabwe, who suffers from unexplained memory lapses, which become even more worrisome when she starts seeing her totem animal, a zebra, in all sorts of places. But nobody else can see it. Afraid of being institutionalized in a hospital, she follows the advice of an old aunt and sets off for her ancestral village, a backward, primitive settlement without the amenities she is used to in the city.

What does a teenage girl do when she sees her beloved older brother commit a horrific crime? Should she report to her parents, or should she keep quiet? Should she confront him? All her life, Naledi has been in awe of Basi, her charming and outgoing older brother. They've shared their childhood, with its jokes and secrets, the alliances and stories about the community. Having reached thirteen, she is preparing to go to the school dance. Then she sees Basi commit an act that violates everything she believes about him. How will she live her life now?

The Youth of God tells the story of Nuur, a sensitive and religious seventeen-year-old Somali-Canadian boy who becomes radicalized by the teachings of Imam Yusuf at the local mosque in a neighbourhood in Toronto called Dixon that has become synonymous with crime, unemployment, and the broken dreams of many Somali immigrants. Trying to rescue Nuur from Islamic radicalism is his Somali biology teacher, Mr Ilmi. Through the story of this one boy, the novel dramatizes the struggle for the soul of Islam.

[This is the story of] Edie Murphy, an indomitable and engaging heroine who leaves Newfoundland on the cusp of womanhood. Against the backdrop of the history-making "Uprising" of 1909 and the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (1911), Edie begins to find her own voice, hone her already-strong will, and learn about the true nature of home. A celebration of the strength of women and the power of community.

Poppy wants to go to college like everyone else, but her father has other ideas. Ever since her mirror twin sister, Lola, mysteriously vanished, Poppy’s father has been depressed and forces her to stick around. She hopes she can convince Lola to come home, and perhaps also procure her freedom, by sending her twin a series of eighteen letters, one for each year of their lives. When not excavating childhood memories, Poppy is sneaking away with her girlfriend Juniper, the only person who understands her.

In the world of Sorrow's Knot, the dead do not rest easy. Every patch of shadow might be home to something hungry, something deadly. Most of the people live on the sunlit, treeless prairies. But a few carve out an uneasy living in the forest towns, keeping the dead at bay with wards made from magically knotted cords. The women who tie these knots are called binders. And Otter's mother, Willow, is one of the greatest binders her people have ever known. But Willow does not want her daughter to lead the lonely, heavy life of a binder, so she chooses another as her apprentice.