Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero by Saadia Faruqui, is about a boy named Yusuf Azeem and his troubles with being an immigrant Muslim in America. He is starting 6th grade in this close to the 20th anniversary of 9/11. With all the “never forget” banners around the school Yusuf starts to feel like he does not belong. Then on the first day of 6th grade he starts getting mean and racist notes in his locker. Yusuf is a boy who likes robotics and likes to code. He is very smart and brave.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a Classic Novel written in 1960. It is set in Maycomb, Alabama during the early 1930s and features the main characters Jean Louise “Scout” Finch and her older brother Jeremy “Jem” Finch, children of Atticus Finch, a lawyer.
This book is an anguished masterpiece. It follows Leonard, a troubled suicidal boy with a messed up life and a resolution: kill Asher, his best friend until the incident. In a perverted A Christmas Story plotline, Leonard gives four gifts to the four people who matter to him before he ends Asher’s life and his.
The House on Mango Street is a coming-of-age story that follows Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in a low-income neighborhood of Chicago. Through a series of heartfelt vignettes, Cisneros shows us Esperanza's struggles with poverty, adolescence, and her desire for a better life.
Splinters of Scarlet by Emily Bain Murphy is a historical fantasy novel set in 19th-century Denmark, following the story of Marit, a talented seamstress with a secret ability to sew magic into garments. When her best friend Eve is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Marit becomes entangled in a dangerous web of political intrigue, espionage, and forbidden magic.
A dizzying prose about body dysmorphia and anorexia, This Impossible Light is a short prose novel unlike any other. It has an interesting style of poetic workspace while telling the story of a short novel. However, the spacing does not help with the story, and the length of the entire book is likely less than one hundred pages without the spacing.
Won, the first Asian American basketball player in the NBA, rose to stardom as one of the best players on the team. A Korean American TV producer, Carrie is working to get Kdramas onto the American stage. Won wants to be a basketball star and renew his temporary contract with the New York Knicks, while Carrie wants to bring representative Korean shows to America. However, extreme racism is a hurdle for both Won and Carrie in their journey along with other life issues involving the relationships of their friends, Carrie’s sister’s cancer, and more.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll revolves around Alice, a young girl with an impressive imagination, as she travels through a land filled with impossibilities in search of a way back home. She encounters many characters along the way, such as the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, and the Queen of Hearts. Many of the characters act as obstacles as she tries to find her way back home but a few help to guide her through her adventure.
The main character in the book's name is Hazel and she gets diagnosed with cancer. While being a cancer patient she meets and falls in love with a boy named Augustus Waters, who she meets from her cancer support group. Throughout the story a relationship between Hazel and Augustus develops. Augustus then finds a way to make her dying wish to come true. He takes her to see her favorite author, who wrote the book An Imperial Affliction which she is obsessed with.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is a fantasy novel set in the Grishaverse, a world filled with magic and danger. The story follows a diverse group of six outcasts led by the cunning and skilled Kaz Brekker, as they embark on a seemingly impossible heist to break into the heavily guarded Ice Court and rescue a kidnapped scientist who possesses a deadly secret formula.
