Books

By: Alex Gino (Author), 2020, Paperback

Alex Gino, the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Melissa, is back with another sensitive tale based on increasingly relevant social justice issues.

Jilly thinks she's figured out how life works. But when her sister, Emma, is born deaf, she realizes how much she still has to learn. The world is going to treat Jilly, who is white and hearing, differently from Emma, just as it will treat them both differently from their Black cousins.

A big fantasy reader, Jilly makes a connection online with another fantasy fan, Derek, who is a Deaf, Black ASL user. She goes to Derek for help with Emma but doesn't always know the best way or time to ask for it.

As she and Derek meet in person, have some really fun conversations, and become friends, Jilly makes some mistakes . . . but comes to understand that it's up to her, not Derek to figure out how to do better next time -- especially when she wants to be there for Derek the most.

Within a world where kids like Derek and Emma aren't assured the same freedom or safety as kids like Jilly, Jilly is starting to learn all the things she doesn't know--and by doing that, she's also working to discover how to support her family and her friends.

With You Don't Know Everything, Jilly P!, award-winning author Alex Gino uses their trademark humor, heart, and humanity to show readers how being open to difference can make you a better person, and how being open to change can make you change in the best possible ways.

By: Nina Lacour & David Levitan, 2021, Paperback

You Know Me Well is a deeply honest story about navigating the joys and heartaches of first love, one truth at a time.

Who knows you well? Your best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A stranger you meet on a crazy night? No one, really?

Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed.

That is until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way.

When Kate and Mark meet up, little do they know how important they will become to each other -- and how, in a very short time, they will know each other better than any of the people who are supposed to know them more.

Told in alternating points of view by Nina LaCour, author of Watch Over Me, We Are Okay, Hold Still, and The Disenchantments, and David Levithan, author of Every Day and co-author of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (with Rachel Cohn) and Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with John Green).

By: Cory Silverberg (Author), Fiona Smyth (Author), 2022, Paperback, Illustrated

In a bright graphic format featuring four dynamic middle schoolers, You Know, Sex grounds sex education in social justice, covering not only the big three of puberty—hormones, reproduction, and development—but also power, pleasure, and how to be a decent human being. 
 
Centering young people’s experiences of pressures and joy, risk and reward, and confusion and discovery, there are chapters on body autonomy, disclosure, stigma, harassment, pornography, trauma, masturbation, consent, boundaries and safety in our media-saturated world, puberty and reproduction that includes trans, non-binary, and intersex bodies and experience, and more. 
 
Racially and ethnically diverse, inclusive of cross-disability experience, this is a book for every kind of young person and every kind of family.

You Know, Sex is the first thoroughly modern sex ed book for every body navigating puberty and adolesence, essential for kids, everyone who knows a kid, and anyone who has ever been a kid.

By: Liz Theoharis (Author), Noam Sandweiss-Back (Author), 2025, Hardcover

One of the nation’s leading anti-poverty organizers and moral voices shares the largely untold story of the movement to end poverty, open to all, and led by the poor themselves

As one of the nation’s leading anti-poverty organizers and moral voices, Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis explores the largely untold history of poor people’s movements in the United States and traces her own journey through some of the most significant anti-poverty struggles of the past thirty years.

In this book, Theoharis introduces us to the people leading the movement to end poverty, including:

• multiracial groups of homeless people rising up from the streets and seizing empty, federally-owned homes;
• mothers on welfare shutting down entire city blocks and going toe-to-toe with some of the most powerful people in the country;
• farmworkers busting modern-day slave rings and winning living wages from multinational fast-food companies; and
• coal miners, veterans, unemployed workers, students, artists, and more joining together in unusual and creative alliances to fight, sing, and pray their way toward freedom.

Drawing from personal experience, history, religion, political strategy, and more, Theoharis argues that American poverty will not end because of the goodwill of the powerful or through the charitable actions of well-meaning people alone. It will happen through a mass movement to end poverty, open to all, and led by the poor.

Theoharis passionately reminds us that poor people are not condemned to be subjects of history, but have always been agents of transformative change, and can be once again. Indeed, to reorient our society around the needs of everyone and reinvigorate the promise of democracy, the poor can and must become the architects of a new America.

An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, queer mid-century romance for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first season—set in the same universe as We Could Be So Good.

The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O’Leary’s life. He can’t manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he’s living out of a suitcase, and he’s homesick. When the team’s owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he’s ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he’s already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.

Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he’s barely even managing to do that much. He’s had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner he’d never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New York’s obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers.

Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that he’ll never be someone’s secret ever again, and Eddie can’t be out as a professional athlete. It’s just them against the world, and they’ll both have to decide if that’s enough.

By: Leah Johnson, 2021, Paperback

A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time

A Stonewall Honor Book

A Reese's Book Club YA Pick

 Liz Lighty has always believed she's too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed midwestern town. But it's okay -- Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uber-elite Pennington College, play in their world-famous orchestra, and become a doctor.But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz's plans come crashing down . . . until she's reminded of her school's scholarship for prom king and queen. There's nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events, but despite her devastating fear of the spotlight she's willing to do whatever it takes to get to Pennington.The only thing that makes it halfway bearable is the new girl in school, Mack. She's smart, funny, and just as much of an outsider as Liz. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams . . . or make them come true?

Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia.

Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. It’s an offer that none refuse.

Crane is grateful. Among his hive’s followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that won’t destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant—and the hive demands the child’s birth, no matter the cost—Crane’s desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood.

You Weren’t Meant to Be Human is a deeply personal horror; a visceral statement about the lives of marginalized people in a hostile world, echoing the works of Stephen Graham Jones and Eric LaRocca.

Writer, actor, and director Desiree Akhavan shares the stories she was told to shut up about—hilarious, horny, heartbreaking tales of a life in pursuit of art, love, and a better haircut.

“Hilariously raw, relatable, and—dare I even say—sexy.”—Jessi Klein

When it comes to shame, Desiree Akhavan knows what she’s talking about—whether it’s winning the title of the Ugliest Girl at her high school, acquiescing to the nose job she was lovingly forced into by her Iranian parents, or losing her virginity to a cokehead she met in a support group for cutters. In You’re Embarrassing Yourself, Akhavan goes to the rawest places—the lifelong struggle to be at peace in one’s body, the search for home as the child of immigrants, the anxious underbelly of artistic ambition—in pursuit of wisdom, catharsis, and lolz.

Equal parts funny and heartfelt, these seventeen essays chart an artist’s journey from outcast to overnight indie darling, to (somewhat) self-aware adult woman. The result is a collection that captures the pathetic lows and euphoric highs of our youth—and how to survive them.

Social media sensation Darby Hudson offers this collection of encouraging and humorous reflections to encourage others to continue expressing themselves, no matter what. 

You're Going to Be OK is a book on art, jobs, magic and muddling through. These hand-typed fragments were gathered by the train tracks at night over ten years, after author Darby Hudson worked meaningless jobs, trying to make sense of a strange world that insisted it was "perfectly normal." The observations in You're Going to Be OK are little fragments of collected wisdom that sit somewhere between poetry, comedy and aphorism. With sixty new poems, this updated edition includes even more of Hudson's reflections to enjoy.

By: Emma R. Alban (Author), Paperback, 2024  (The Mischief & Matchmaking Series, 2)

The enemies-to-lovers queer Victorian romance follow-up to Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend, in which a young lord and a second son clash, but find themselves thrust together again and again by their meddling cousins.

“That man is, without a doubt, the absolute most obnoxious…

Bobby Mason is sick of being second best: born the spare, never trusted with family responsibility, never expected to amount to much. He’s hungry to contribute something that matters, while all around him his peers are squandering their political and financial power, coasting through life. Which is exactly why he can’t stand the new Viscount Demeroven.

…insufferable…

James Demeroven, just come of age and into the Viscountcy, knows that he’s a disappointment. Keeping his head down and never raising anyone’s expectations is how he’s survived life with his stepfather. To quiet, careful James, Bobby Mason is a blazing comet in his endless night, even more alive than he was at Oxford when James crushed on him from afar. But Mason is also brash and recklessly unapologetic, destined to shatter the fragile safety of James’s world. Worst of all, he keeps rubbing James’s failures in his face.

…hottest man to ever walk the ton.”

They can barely get through a single conversation without tensions boiling over. Neither Bobby nor James has ever met a more intriguing, infuriating, infatuating man.

If only they could avoid each other entirely. Bad enough their (wonderful but determined) cousins Beth and Gwen keep conveniently setting up group outings. But when an extortionist starts targeting their families, threatening their reputations, Bobby and James must find a way to work together, without pushing each other’s buttons (or tearing them off) in the process… 

A star-crossed love. A different sky. Oliver’s story will break your heart open in the much-awaited companion to the New York Times bestselling You’ve Reached Sam.

I’ve missed you every day since you left. But I’m sure you already knew that. It’s time to let you go now. I’ll miss you all the time, Sam.

It’s been a year since his best friend, Sam, died. Even though Oliver knows he won’t get a response, he can’t stop texting Sam’s number, especially as the anniversary of his death approaches.

Then one day he accidentally hits the call button, and someone picks up.

The voice on the other end isn’t Sam. Sam’s number was reassigned and a stranger has been receiving Oliver’s private and vulnerable messages for months. But Ben, a college student in Seattle, won’t remain a stranger for long. Oliver knows he should stop communicating now that he knows the truth—but he can’t get Ben out of his head.

By: Dustin Thao (Author), 2024, Paperback

This collectable trade paper edition of You've Reached Sam features gorgeous sprayed edges, an exclusive bonus scene and a sneak peek of Dustin's new novel, When Haru Was Here!

A heartfelt novel about love and loss and what it means to say goodbye.

Seventeen-year-old Julie Clarke has her future all planned out―move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city; spend a summer in Japan. But then Sam dies. And everything changes.

Heartbroken, Julie skips his funeral, throws out his belongings, and tries everything to forget him. But a message Sam left behind in her yearbook forces memories to return. Desperate to hear him one more time, Julie calls Sam's cell phone just to listen to his voice mail recording. And Sam picks up the phone.

The connection is temporary. But hearing Sam's voice makes Julie fall for him all over again and with each call, it becomes harder to let him go.

What would you do if you had a second chance at goodbye?

A 2021 Kids' Indie Next List Selection
A Cosmo.com Best YA Book Of 2021
A Buzzfeed Best Book Of November
A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book

By: Trish Hutchison MD FAAP (Author), Kathryn Lowe MD FAAP (Author), Melisa Holmes MD FACOG (Author)

From the most trusted name in child health, American Academy of Pediatrics, comes a new, inclusive approach to learning about puberty! Remember that awkward day in school when the boys went to one classroom and the girls to another and everyone nervously giggled, learning about taboo topics like menstruation and erections? What if your kids could learn about changing bodies in a way that isn’t secretive or shameful? And what if it could even be inclusive, fun, and, well, kind of adorable? A new kind of puberty guide, You-ology embraces an inclusive approach that normalizes puberty for all kids. Traditional puberty education only contributes to a sense of isolation and often does not include all kids’ experience of puberty and leaves kids with questions about how puberty will affect their friends and classmates. For curious kids and parents looking to talk about puberty in an inclusive way, You-ology offers fact-based, age-appropriate, and body positive information about the physical, social, and emotional changes ahead for all kids. Colorful illustrations keep the tone upbeat and engaging, while short stories featuring a cast of diverse characters add relatability and humor. Helping kids understand what EVERY body goes through in puberty, grows greater compassion and empathy for all.