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List: 2023 Teen Reading Challenge: Multiple Timelines


A photo of Bridge of Clay

Bridge of Clay

The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father's disappearance. At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge--for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle. The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?

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A photo of Displacement

Displacement

"Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II. These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself stuck back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive."

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A photo of Every Body Looking

Every Body Looking

"Ada" means first daughter, means oldest girl, means most pressure. When Ada leaves home for her freshman year at a historical Black college, it's the first time that she's been able to make her own choices. As she stumbles deeper into the world of dance and explores her sexuality, she also begins to wrestle with her past-- her mother's struggle with addiction, her Nigerian father's attempts to make a home for her. Will she find the courage to shape a life of her own?

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A photo of Most Likely

Most Likely

In 2049, as the President of the United States waits to be sworn in, she reflects on senior year in high school when she and her three dear friends vied for the attention of the future First Gentleman.

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A photo of As If On Cue

As If On Cue

It seems that aspiring playwright Natalie and musician Reid have been in competition all their young lives. But when they are forced to compete for scarce school budget dollars they embark on an all-out prank war which backfires. Now they are forced to cooperate, pool their talents and ambitions to produce a school musical. And not only is cooperation an unfamiliar role, but they are suddenly starting to have feelings for each other.

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A photo of Truly Devious

Truly Devious

Ellingham Academy was founded by Albert Ellingham, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym "Truly, Devious." Years later, Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan to solve this cold case. But the past has crawled out of its grave: Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy.

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A photo of The Voting Booth

The Voting Booth

The first year they are eligible to vote, Marva and Duke meet at their polling place and, over the course of one crazy day, fall in love.

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A photo of Our Crooked Hearts

Our Crooked Hearts

Told in alternating voices, years after it began, seventeen-year-old Ivy and her mom Dana's shared story comes down to a reckoning among a daughter, a mother, and the dark forces they never should have messed with.

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A photo of One of the Good Ones

One of the Good Ones

Although distraught, Happi is also unsettled by the way people have idealized the memory of her sister who was killed after attending a social justice rally -- why do people have to be perfect in order to be missed? As a way to honor the memory, however, Happi and her other sister Genny go on a roadtrip using the original "Green Book" -- but the trip reveals secrets neither sister knew about the dead Kezi.

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A photo of The Paper Girl of Paris

The Paper Girl of Paris

Sixteen-year-old Alice is spending the summer in Paris, but she isn't there for pastries and walks along the Seine. When her grandmother passed away two months ago, she left Alice an apartment in France that no one knew existed. An apartment that has been locked for more than seventy years. Alice is determined to find out why the apartment was abandoned and why her grandmother never once mentioned the family she left behind when she moved to America after World War II. With the help of Paul, a charming Parisian student, she sets out to uncover the truth. However, the more time she spends digging through the mysteries of the past, the more she realizes there are secrets in the present that her family is still refusing to talk about. Then, sixteen-year-old Adalyn doesn't recognize Paris anymore. Everywhere she looks, there are Nazis, and every day brings a new horror of life under the occupation. When she meets Luc, the dashing and enigmatic leader of a resistance group, Adalyn feels she finally has a chance to fight back. But keeping up the appearance of being a much-admired socialite while working to undermine the Nazis is more complicated than she could have imagined. As the war goes on, Adalyn finds herself having to make more and more compromises--to her safety, to her reputation, and to her relationships with the people she loves the most.

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A photo of The Storyteller

The Storyteller

Jess Morgan is growing tired of living her life to please everyone else. When she discovers her late aunt's diaries, Jess learns she's not the only one struggling to hide who she really is. But was her aunt Anna truly the Romanov princess Anastasia? Or is this some elaborate hoax? As Jess digs into the century-old mystery she discovers another, bigger truth: only you can write your own story.

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A photo of The Weight of Blood

The Weight of Blood

When Springville residents--at least the ones still alive--are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation . . . Maddy did it. An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she's dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington. After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High's racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school's first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it's possible to have a normal life. But some of her classmates aren't done with her just yet. And what they don't know is that Maddy still has another secret . . . one that will cost them all their lives.

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A photo of See You Yesterday

See You Yesterday

Barrett Bloom is hoping college will be a fresh start, but when school begins on September 21st, everything goes wrong. Humiliated by the know-it-all in her physics class, she botches her interview for the college paper. At a party that night she accidentally sets a frat on fire. Locked out of the dorm by her roommate, Barrett falls asleep in the common room. The next morning it's September 21st. Again. And after a confrontation with Miles, the guy from Physics 101, she learns he's been trapped for months. After her attempts to fix her timeline fail, they work together to find a way out. As they start falling for each other, what happens to their developing relationship if they finally make it to tomorrow?

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A photo of Family of Liars

Family of Liars

A windswept private island off the coast of Massachusetts. A hungry ocean, churning with secrets and sorrow. A fiery, addicted heiress. An irresistible, unpredictable boy. A summer of unforgivable betrayal and terrible mistakes. Welcome back to the Sinclair family. They were always liars.

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A photo of You Bring the Distant Near

You Bring the Distant Near

From 1965 through the present, an Indian American family adjusts to life in New York City, alternately fending off and welcoming challenges to their own traditions.

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A photo of 6 Times We Almost Kissed (and OneTtime We Did)

6 Times We Almost Kissed (and OneTtime We Did)

Penny and Tate have often clashed, despite their mothers' epic friendship; but now that they are living in the same house, beset by medical crises and Penny's problems dealing with the trauma of her father's death, they have to come to terms with their true feelings for each other.

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A photo of Sadie

Sadie

Sadie's been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated Colorado town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water. When Mattie is found dead, and the police investigation is botched, Sadie is determined to bring her sister's killer to justice. She hits the road following a few meager clues. When West McCray, a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America, hears Sadie's story, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie's journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it's too late--

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A photo of Nothing Burns as Bright as You

Nothing Burns as Bright as You

A novel in verse that captures the unbalanced experience of an all-consuming love between two unnamed, queer, Black teen girls who move rapidly from strangerhood into a protective best friendship before becoming dysfunctional lovers and mutually destructive partners in crime.

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A photo of I Killed Zoe Spanos : a novel

I Killed Zoe Spanos : a novel

Anna Cicconi's summer gig in the Hamptons village of Herron Mills as a nanny is supposed to be a fresh start. But the community has been on edge since Zoe Spanos, a local girl, disappeared New Year's Eve. Anna's resemblance to Zoe causes her to delve into Zoe's life. She becomes increasingly convinced that she and Zoe are connected-- and that she knows what happened to her. When Zoe's body is found in a nearby lake, Anna is charged with manslaughter. But Martina Green, teen host of the Missing Zoe podcast, isn't satisfied. Can her podcast uncover the truth?

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A photo of A Complicated Love Story Set in Space

A Complicated Love Story Set in Space

When Noa closes his eyes on Earth and wakes up on a spaceship called Qriosity just as it is about to explode, he's pretty sure things can't get much weirder. Boy, is he wrong. Also trapped aboard Qriosity are DJ and Jenny, neither of whom remember how they got onboard the ship. Together, the three face all the dangers of space: murder, aliens, a school dance, and one really, really bad day. But none of this can prepare Noa for the biggest challenge-- falling in love. And as Noa's feelings for DJ deepen, he has to contend not just with the challenges of the present, but also with his memories of the past.

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A photo of The Girl From Everywhere

The Girl From Everywhere

Nix has sailed across the globe and through centuries aboard her time-traveling father's ship. As long as he has a map, Nix's father can sail The Temptation to any place, any time. But now he's uncovered the one map he's always sought: 1868 Honolulu, before Nix's mother died in childbirth. Nix's entire existence is at stake: if her father changes the past, it could erase Nix's future, her dreams, her connection with the charming Persian thief Kash. If Nix helps her father reunite with the love of his life, will it will cost her her own?

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A photo of Refugee

Refugee

Although separated by continents and decades, Josef, a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany; Isabel, a Cuban girl trying to escape the riots and unrest plaguing her country in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy in 2015 whose homeland is torn apart by violence and destruction, embark on harrowing journeys in search of refuge, discovering shocking connections that tie their stories together.

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A photo of The Girls I've Been

The Girls I've Been

When seventeen-year-old Nora O'Malley, the daughter of a con artist, is taken hostage in a bank heist, every secret she is keeping close begins to unravel.

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A photo of Jane Anonymous

Jane Anonymous

"Jane" was just your typical high school student... until a series of small coincidences led to seven months locked up in a stark white room. Instructed how to eat, bathe, and behave; never knowing if it was day or night. Holding hands with Mason through a hole in the wall, taking solace from their pact to escape together. But the day she escaped she had to leave him behind... and now the detectives say there were no other kidnapped kids. How far will "Jane" go to uncover the truth of what happened?

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A photo of Monday's Not Coming

Monday's Not Coming

Monday Charles is missing, and Claudia seems to be the one person who notices. They've always been inseparable, and when Monday doesn't show up for school for two weeks, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday's mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and her sister April is even less help. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she's gone?

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A photo of Early Departures

Early Departures

What if you could bring your best friend back to life--but only for a short time? Jamal's best friend, Q, doesn't know that he died, and that he's about to die again. He doesn't know that Jamal tried to save him. And that the reason they haven't been friends for two years is because Jamal blames Q for the accident that killed his parents. But what if Jamal could have a second chance? A new technology allows Q to be reanimated for a few weeks before he dies permanently. And Q's mom is not about to let anyone ruin this miracle by telling Q about his impending death. So how can Jamal fix everything if he can't tell Q the truth?--

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A photo of The Cousins

The Cousins

After receiving an invitation to spend the summer with their estranged grandmother, the Story cousins arrive at her house only to discover that she is not there, and the longer they stay on the island, the more they realize their mysterious family history has some deadly secrets.

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A photo of The Electric Kingdom

The Electric Kingdom

When a deadly Fly Flu sweeps the globe, it leaves a shell of the world that once was. Among the survivors are Nico and her dog, on a voyage devised by Nico's father to find a mythical portal; a young artist named Kit, raised in an old abandoned cinema; and the enigmatic Deliverer, who lives Life after Life in an attempt to put the world back together. As swarms of infected Flies roam the earth, these few survivors navigate the woods of post-apocalyptic New England, each on their own quest to find life and light in a world gone dark.

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