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List: 2023 Teen Reading Challenge: Unusual Storytelling


A photo of Ain't Burned All the Bright

Ain't Burned All the Bright

A smash up of art and text that viscerally captures what it is to be Black. In America. Right Now.

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A photo of I am Princess X

I am Princess X

Years after writing stories about a superheroine character she created with a best friend who died in a tragic car accident, sixteen-year-old May is shocked to see stickers, patches, and graffiti images of the superheroine appearing around Seattle.

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A photo of Going Dark

Going Dark

Amelia Ashley shares everything with her followers-- even her European trip-of-a-lifetime with her hot boyfriend. Josh Reuter had no choice but to return home without Amelia after she abandoned him in Rome. He has no clue where she went-- or how her blood got in her suitcase. To hacker Harper Delgado, Amelia is just another missing white girl whipping up a media frenzy. Her disappearance has captured the world's attention-- what comes next? -- adapted from jacket

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A photo of Over My Dead Body

Over My Dead Body

One day, everything was exactly as it was supposed to be. And the next, the closest thing Abby ever had to a sister, Noreen, was just... gone. Distracted by the annual preparations for the Samhain festival, Abby's classmates are quick to put Noreen's disappearance aside. The Coven will find her, Abby's friends say. They have it under control. But Abby can't let it go. Soon a search for answers leads her down a rabbit hole that uncovers more secrets than Abby can handle. As mounting evidence steers her toward the off-limits woods that surround the academy, she begins to see that Noreen's disappearance mysteriously has a lot in common with another girl who went missing all those years ago...

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A photo of Tortot: The Cold Fish Who Lost His World and Found His Heart

Tortot: The Cold Fish Who Lost His World and Found His Heart

In the Great Wars a new battle is fought every week. Soldiers perish like mayflies, while friend and foe change more often than fashions in Paris. Struggling to survive amid the chaos is Tortot, the finest army cook in the land. With only his pots and pans and his flask of Eternal Soup he can magic up mouthwatering meals from the dullest of ingredients. But as well as being a genius in the kitchen, he also has an uncanny knack for saving his own skin, and people say he has a heart as cold as a fish at the bottom of the ocean. Then one day, Tortot finds a surprise hiding in a barrel of gherkins - a boy soldier who has lost both his brothers and his legs in battle, and who begs the cook not to give him away. Can Tortot find it within his cold heart to help? This is a deeply moving and beautifully illustrated tale of friendship and the absurdity of war.

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A photo of Grasshopper Jungle

Grasshopper Jungle

Austin Szerba narrates the end of humanity as he and his best friend Robby accidentally unleash an army of giant, unstoppable bugs and uncover the secrets of a decades-old experiment gone terribly wrong.

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A photo of Cook Korean!: A Comic Book with Recipes

Cook Korean!: A Comic Book with Recipes

A charming introduction to the basics of Korean cooking in graphic novel form, with 64 recipes, ingredient profiles, and more, presented through light-hearted comics. Playful and instructive, Cook Korean! is the intersection of cookbook and graphic novel in one easy-to-use package dedicated to this increasingly popular Asian cuisine. Illustrator Robin Ha presents colorful, humorous comics that fully illustrate all the steps and ingredients necessary for all 64 recipes in a clear, concise presentation (with no more than 2 pages per recipe on average). Recipes featured include Easy Kimchi (Makkimchi), Spicy Bok Choy (Cheonggyeongche Muchim), and Seaweed Rice Roll (Kimbap), among many other dishes. Each chapter includes personal anecdotes and cultural insights from Ha, providing an intimate entry point for those looking to try their hand at this cuisine. Perfect for beginners and seasoned cooks alike, Cook Korean! is accessible, fun, and inviting.

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A photo of Noggin

Noggin

After dying at age sixteen, Travis Coates' head was removed and frozen for five years before being attached to another body, and now the old Travis and the new must find a way to coexist while figuring out changes in his relationships.

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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 Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard

Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard

Echo Brown is a wizard from the East Side of Cleveland, where apartments are small and parents suffer addiction to the white rocks. Yet there is magic everywhere. Every day Echo travels between worlds, attending a rich white school on the West Side. But there are dangers to leaving behind the place that made you ...

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A photo of Love Letters to the Dead

Love Letters to the Dead

When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister's mysterious death, her mother's departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.

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A photo of A Good Girl's Guide to Murer

A Good Girl's Guide to Murer

As her senior capstone project, Pippa Fitz-Amobi is determined to find the real killer in a closed, local murder case, but not everyone wants her meddling in the past.

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A photo of Illuminae

Illuminae

The planet Kerenza is attacked, and Kady and Ezra find themselves on a space fleet fleeing the enemy, while their ship's artificial intelligence system and a deadly plague may be the end of them all.

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A photo of Everything, Everything

Everything, Everything

The story of a teenage girl who's literally allergic to the outside world. When a new family moves in next door, she begins a complicated romance that challenges everything she's ever known.

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A photo of Monster

Monster

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

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A photo of Jane, Unlimited

Jane, Unlimited

Recently orphaned Jane accepts an unexpected invitation from an old acquaintance to an island mansion where she will face five choices that could ultimately determine the course of her newly untethered life.

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A photo of Hopepunk

Hopepunk

Growing up in a conservative Christian household, Hope Cassidy spent her whole life being told that the devil speaks through Led Zeppelin. Her sister, Faith, can't be honest about dating the record shop cashier, Mavis. When their youngest sister outs Faith to their parents, there is nowhere for Faith to go but the Change Through Grace conversion center... or running away. Needing to rebel, Hope gets a tattoo and tries singing through the hurt. When her long-time crush Danny comes out and is subsequently kicked out of his house, Hope can't just stand by. Now living in Faith's room, Danny and Hope strike up a friendship... and a band. And their music might be the answer to dethroning Alt-Rite, Danny's twin brother's new hate-fueled band.-- adapted from jacket

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A photo of They Called Us Enemy

They Called Us Enemy

Takei's firsthand account of years spent in a Japanese concentration camp, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.

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A photo of Isla to Island

Isla to Island

A wordless graphic novel in which twelve-year-old Marisol must adapt to a new life 1960s Brooklyn after her parents send her to the United States from Cuba to keep her safe during Castro's regime.

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A photo of The Book Thief

The Book Thief

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

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A photo of Technically, You Started It

Technically, You Started It

A hilarious, snarky, and utterly addicting #ownvoices debut that explores friendship, sexual orientation, mental health, and falling in love (even if things might be falling apart around you). When a guy named Martin Nathaniel Munroe II texts you, it should be obvious who you're talking to. Except there's two of them (it's a long story), and Haley thinks she's talking to the one she doesn't hate. A question about a class project rapidly evolves into an all-consuming conversation. Haley finds that Martin is actually willing to listen to her weird facts and unusual obsessions, and Martin feels like Haley is the first person to really see who he is. Haley and Martin might be too awkward to hang out in real life, but over text, they're becoming addicted to each other. There's just one problem: Haley doesn't know who Martin is. And Martin doesn't know that Haley doesn't know. But they better figure it out fast before their meet-cute becomes an epic meet-disaster...

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