High School Library

Juliette doesn't hate Priya Pendley. At least, not in the way teen movies say she should hate the hot popular girl. They don't do cat fights, love triangles, or betrayal. To survive their intertwined small town lives, they’ve agreed to a truce. They complete group projects without fighting, never gossip to mutual friends, and stand on opposite sides of photos so it’s easy to crop each other out. Priya seems to have everything during the school year—social media stardom, the handsome track captain boyfriend, and millions of adoring fans—and Juliette is at peace with that.

Do you want to be popular? Stephanie Landry does. That's why this year, she has a plan to get in with the It Crowd in no time flat. She's got a secret weapon: an old book called (what else?) How to Be Popular.

Sixteen-year-old Alicia Rivers has a reputation that precedes her. But there’s more to her story than the whispers that follow her through the hallways at school—whispers that splinter into a million different insults that mean: a girl who has had sex. But what her classmates don't know is that Alicia was sexually abused by a popular teacher, and that trauma has rewritten every cell in her body into someone she doesn't recognize. To the world around her, she’s been cast, like the mythical Medusa, as not the victim but the monster of her own story: the slut who asked for it.

For Chicago's Oak Park and River Forest High School's Spoken Word Club, there is one phrase that reigns supreme: Respect the Mic. It's been the club's call to arms since its inception in 1999. As its founder Peter Kahn says, "It's a call of pride and history and tradition and hope." This vivid new collection of poetry and prose - curated by award-winning and bestselling poets Hanif Abdurraqib, Franny Choi, Peter Kahn, and Dan "Sully" Sullivan - illuminates just that, uplifting the incredible legacy this community has cultivated.

My mother named me Gabriella, after my grandmother who, coincidentally, didn't want to meet me when I was born because my mother was unmarried, and therefore living in sin. My mom has told me the story many, many, many, times of how, when she confessed to my grandmother that she was pregnant with me, her mother beat her. BEAT HER! She was 25. That story is the basis of my sexual education and has reiterated why it's important to wait until you're married to give it up.

At fourteen years old, Carlotta Walls was the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine. The journey to integration in a place deeply against it would not be not easy. Yet Carlotta, her family, and the other eight students and their families answered the call to be part of the desegregation order issued by the US Supreme Court in its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case.

Rotten Tooth has finally decided it’s time to teach the pirate kids some real pirating skills! They are overjoyed - until he begins by showing them how to tie and untie different knots. BOR-ING! But one night while the kids are belowdecks practicing their knots, the Sea Rat comes under attack by the Filthy Sails, a rival pirate ship!

Something’s rotten in Apple country! Hildy Biddle is a high school reporter eager to stand up for the truth. She’s just waiting for a chance to prove herself as a journalist, and yearning for a big story. The trouble is, the town’s biggest story stars...a ghost. Not a very easy interview! This ghost has the town in a tizzy, and the local paper is playing up people’s fears with shocking headlines of eerie happenings and ghostly sightings. Hildy’s determined to discover what’s really going on, but her desire to uncover the truth is making some people awfully nervous.

LaToya Williams lives in Montgomery, Alabama, and attends a mostly white high school. It seems as if her only friend is her older brother, Alex. Toya doesn't know where she fits in, but after a run-in with another student, she wonders if life would be different if she were...different. And then a higher power answers her prayer: to be "anything but black". Toya is suddenly white, blond, and popular. Now what?

From master storyteller An Na comes the Printz Award-winning novel about a Korean girl who tells her firsthand account of trying to find her place and identity in America from the day she leaves Korea as a child to her rocky journey through the teenage years.

Aside from the stitches and the head wound, Tom Henderson is the same old King Dork. He's still trying to work out who to blame for the new scar on his forehead, the memory loss, and his father's mysterious death. But illicit female hospital visitations, The Catcher in the Rye, and the Hillmont High sex-pocalypse have made him a new man. What doesn't make you stronger can kill you, though, and 10th grade, act two, promises to be a killer. Tom's down one bloodstained army coat, one Little Big Tom, and two secret semi-imaginary girlfriends.

Senior Paul Wagoner walks into his school with a stolen gun, threatens his girlfriend, Emily Beam, and then takes his own life. Soon after, angry and guilt-ridden Emily is sent to a boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where two quirky fellow students and the spirit of Emily Dickinson offer helping hands. But it is up to Emily Beam to heal her own damaged self, to find the good behind the bad, hope inside the despair, and springtime under the snow.

High-school senior Tyler Miller used to be the kind of guy who faded into the background. But ever since he got busted for spraying graffiti on the school, and spent the summer doing outdoor work to pay for it, he stands out like you wouldn't believe. His new physique attracts the attention of queen bee Bethany Milbury, who just happens to be Tyler's secret crush. And that sets off a string of events and changes that have Tyler questioning his place in the school, in his family, and in the world.

Being a hefty, deaf newcomer almost makes Will Halpin the least popular guy at Coaler High. But when he befriends the only guy less popular than him, the dork-namic duo has the smarts and guts to figure out who knocked off the star quarterback. Will can’t hear what’s going on, but he’s a great observer. So, who did it? And why does that guy talk to his fingers? And will the beautiful girl ever notice him? (Okay, so Will’s interested in more than just murder...).

Carly: She was sweet. Smart. Self-destructive. She knew the secrets of Brighton Day School's most privileged students. Secrets that got her killed. Neily: Dumped by Carly for a notorious bad boy, Neily didnt answer the phone call she made before she died. Now he can't get the image of her lifeless body out of his mind. Audrey: Shes the reason Carly got tangled up with Brighton's fast crowd, and now she regrets it—especially since she's convinced the police have put the wrong person in jail.

Tom Henderson (a.k.a. King Dork, Chi-mo, Hender-fag, and Sheepie) is a typical American high school loser until he discovers the book, The Catcher in the Rye, that will change the world as he knows it.

All Dylan wants is mojo. What is mojo? It's power. The ability to command respect. It's everything Dylan doesn't have. He gets no respect at school, and when he finds the dead body of a classmate, even the police push him around. All the thanks he gets for trying to help the investigation with his crime-drama skills is a new nickname at school: Body Bag. So when Dylan hears about a missing rich girl from the other side of town, he jumps at the chance to dive into this mystery. Surely if he cracks a case involving a girl this beautiful and this rich, he'll get the mojo he's looking for.

In Kuckachoo, Mississippi, 1963, Addie Ann Pickett worships her brother Elias and follows in his footsteps by attending the black junior high school. But when her careless act leads to her brother’s disappearance and possible murder, Addie Ann, Mama, and Uncle Bump struggle with not knowing if he’s dead or alive. Then a good deed meant to unite Kuckachoo sets off a chain of explosive events. Addie Ann knows Old Man Adams left his land to the White and Black people to plant a garden and reap its bounty together, but the mayor denies it.

This is not how seventeen-year-old Gil imagined beginning his senior year—on the subway dressed in a tie and khakis headed towards Manhattan instead of his old public school in Brooklyn. Augustin Prep may only be a borough away, but the exclusive private school feels like it's a different world entirely compared to Gil's predominately Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn. If it weren't for the partial scholarship, the school's robotic program and the chance for a better future, Gil wouldn't have even considered going.

In a Philadelphia high school, who doesn’t care about the prom? It’s pretty much the only good thing that happens there, and everyone plans to make the most of it - especially Ash’s best friend, Natalia, who’s the head of the committee and has prom stars in her eyes. Then the faculty advisor is busted for taking the prom money, and Ash finds herself roped into putting together a gala dance. But she has plenty of help - and in making the prom happen, Ash learns some surprising things about making her life happen, too.