Our teen book spotlight this week is all about books that have been nominated for the Virginia Reader’s Choice (VRC) High School award for the 2022-2023 school year!! The VRC award was started back in the 1980s with the goal being that students across the state choosing what they thought the best book of the year is instead of adults. Every year, there are 10 YA books nominated for the award by a committee; readers then have a few months to read as many of the 10 as they can and then they will cast their vote for which one they think is the best. The book with the most votes wins the award!! Every teen, as long as you live in Virginia, qualifies to participate in this amazing experience and you can vote right here at your local Handley Regional Library System library (if you are interested just stop by and see someone in Youth Services!). These books and more can be found by searching the catalog using the search tag #vrchigh2022 as well as on Libby and Hoopla. Check back next week for a new teen book spotlight and if you have any book suggestions, please let us know!!
This is My America by Kim Johnson--Desperate to gain the attention of an organization that helps overturn wrongful convictions, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont uses an interview of her track star brother to plead her jailed father's innocence. The event has unintended consequences for her brother, when his girlfriend winds up murdered and he's the prime suspect. Tracy ends up fighting battles on both fronts and her investigations into her brother's and father's innocence uncovers entrenched racism in her hometown.
Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles--Kiera Westing is newly single and Del Rainey, who's been crushing on Kiera since kindergarten knows this is his chance to make his move. Despite his reputation as a player, Del's clumsy advances don't appeal to Kiera so he does something drastic--he follows her to a church function where he inadvertently signs up for an eight-week Purity Pledge class. He asks for help from fellow pledger Jameer who offers to talk him up to Kiera in return for answers to some practical sex questions that the pledgers aren't allowed to ask, which then forces Del to ask some uncomfortable questions in his school's sex-ed class.
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger--Seventeen-year-old Ellie lives in an alternate Earth where she has the ability to wake and train ghosts to assist her, a trait she inherited from her Lipan Apache grandmother. When her cousin Trevor, who died in a car accident, reveals to her in a dream that he was murdered, Ellie sets out with her ghost-dog Kirby to protect Trevor's family and reveal the truth of what happened.
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes--Homeless teen Avery Grambs is summoned to the will reading of Tobias Hawthorne, a man she's never heard of. Curious, she attends and learns she will inherit the bulk of the billionaire's estate, much to the chagrin of his daughters and grandsons. The only catch is that she will have to live in his mansion, alongside his family, for one year. Avery can handle the hostility of his family who think she is either a con-woman or a joke inflicted by their puzzle-loving grandfather, but she's not sure what to make of the secret passageways throughout the castle or the feeling that someone is out to kill her.
All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat--On June 23, 2018, twelve members of a Thailand youth soccer team known as the Wild Boars and their assistant coach went missing. Later it was discovered they went exploring in Tham Luang Nang Non, a nearby system of caves, and were trapped by rising flood waters. The world watched for the next seventeen days as hundreds of divers, personnel, and other volunteers set out to rescue them, eventually recovering all of them alive. Profiles the survivors and rescue personnel and details the complex rescue operation. Includes maps, photographs, illustrations, and back matter on Thai culture and religion.
This Light Between Us by Andrew Fukuda--In 1935, ten-year-old Alex Maki of Bainbridge Island, Washington, is horrified to discover that his new pen pal, Charlie Lévy of Paris, France, is a girl, but in spite of his initial reluctance, their letters continue over the years and they fight for their friendship even as Charlie endures the Nazi occupation and Alex leaves his family in an internment camp and joins the army.