Lily Sparks – The Hub

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Nominations Round-Up, Summer

Due to the large number of nominees, not all titles are shown here. See full list below.

Each quarter, the Selected Lists teams compile the titles that have been officially nominated to date. These books have been suggested by the team or through the title suggestion form, read by multiple members of the team, and received approval to be designated an official nomination. At the end of the year, the final list of nominations and each Selected List’s Top Ten will be chosen from these titles.

Amari and the Night Brothers. By B.B. Alston. HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, $17.99 (9780062975164).

Amari’s brother Quinton has disappeared, and her only hope of finding him is to follow in his footsteps and become a Junior Agent with the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs.

Amber and Clay. By Laura Amy Schlitz. Candlewick Press, $22.99 (9781536201222).

In ancient Greece, two unlikely friends Rhaskos and Melisto find their lives intertwined in a search for freedom and purpose. As a ghost bound to Rhaskos, Melisto must help free him before she can find her own rest in the Halls of Hades.

The Hub Challenge 2021 – Amazing Debuts

The Hub Challenge 2021 is in full swing, and readers are taking advantage of all the ways to participate! Even if you didn’t sign up officially, you can always join the fun by keeping a copy of the Bingo Challenge board handy for inspiration.

Several of our Challenge participants have tackled that “Read an Amazing Debut” square, and others are curious about how to connect with those titles that might be Morris Award-contenders for 2022. To begin, some participants are using the 2021 Morris Award finalists to earn their Amazing Debut square.

Here is Leanna Chappell, Hub Challenge participant and Head of Youth Services at the Swanton Public Library in Ohio, describing her love of Christina Hammonds Reed’s tremendous debut The Black Kids:

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Featured Review of The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur

The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur
Macmillan / Feiwel and Friends
Publication Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1250229588

Five years ago, Hwani and her sister Maewol got lost in the forest and were later found unconscious, just a few paces away from the apparent suicide of a young woman. Then Hwani’s father, Detective Min, disappears in the same area, and Hwani returns to the hometown they left after the incident, following cryptic clues in her father’s journal that seem to connect the Forest Incident–as it came to be called–with the recent disappearance of thirteen girls. As she reconnects with her estranged sister and doggedly follows in the footsteps of her father’s investigation, lost memories begin to bubble to the surface — memories that someone else would like to see buried forever.

Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers (#QP2022) Nominations Round-Up, Spring

Each quarter, the Selected Lists teams compile the titles that have been officially nominated to date. These books have been suggested by the team or through the title suggestion form, read by multiple members of the team, and received approval to be designated an official nomination. At the end of the year, the final list of nominations and each Selected List’s Top Ten will be chosen from these titles.

Becoming Muhammad Ali. By James Patterson and Kwame Alexander. Art by Dawud Anyabwile. 2020. Little, Brown/JIMMY Patterson. $16.99 (9780316498166).

James Patterson and Kwame Alexander tackle the life of Cassius Clay before he became Muhammad Ali in this novel that mixes prose and verse.

Chlorine Sky. By Mahogany L. Browne. Penguin Random House/Crown. $17.99 (9780593176399).

In this novel in verse, Mahogany Browne explores what it’s like to lose a best friend but find yourself.

Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers (#QP2022) Featured Review of Teen Killers Club by Lily Sparks

Teen Killers Club, by Lily Sparks
Crooked Lane / Penguin Random House
Publication Date: November 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64385-229-4

Signal Deere was once an ordinary girl, a misfit goth with concerns like where to sit at lunch and when she’d get her first kiss. That all changed the day she was convicted of the gruesome murder of her best friend. She is just getting used to life in prison when she gets an offer that seems too good to be true: if she joins a top-secret program based out of an abandoned summer camp, she won’t have to serve another day of her sentence. For once, she should fit right in — the camp is full of “Class A” killers like her, the most dangerous type of criminal. There’s just one problem: she was framed. She has no idea who actually killed her friend. And, in Teen Killers Club, being innocent makes her prey.

Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers (#QP2022) Featured Review of This is Not a Ghost Story by Andrea Portes

The Selected Lists teams read throughout the year in search of the best titles published in their respective categories. Once a book is suggested (either internally or through the field nomination form), it must pass through a review process to be designated an official nomination.

Each week, the teams will feature a review of one of the officially nominated titles. Additional titles to receive this designation will be listed as well. At year’s end, the team will use that list of nominated titles to select a final list and Top Ten. The previous years’ lists are also made available on The Hub.

This is Not a Ghost Story by Andrea Portes
HarperTeen / Harper Collins
Publication Date: November 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0062422446

Daffodil doesn’t have a typical plan for the summer before her Freshman year of college. Instead of hanging out with friends or traveling, she agrees to house-sit all alone in a creepy mansion. As the summer progresses, things in the house get progressively stranger and more sinister, and Daffodil can’t ignore that there is something evil about the house. Will she be able to discover the house’s secret before it’s too late?

This is Not a Ghost Story is a quick-paced read that delves into the action of the story quickly with short chapters that keep the story moving. Told from a first-person, stream-of-consciousness point of view, teens will appreciate that the voice actually sounds like a teenager. The mystery of the story is compelling and will keep teens guessing until the twist ending.