NCW Libraries

After an alien attack devastates the Earth, pilot and future astronaut Clover Martinez bands with seven other teens in a struggle to survive.

"A story set on the American border with Mexico, about family and friendship, life and death, and one teen struggling to understand what his adoption does and doesn't mean about who he is"--

"1937. Naomi Vargas is Mexican American. Wash Fuller is Black. These teens know the town's divisive racism better than anyone. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines. And the consequences can be explosive. Naomi and Wash dare to defy the rules, and the New London school explosion serves as a ticking time bomb in the background. Can their love survive both prejudice and...

Told in two voices, Pen, whose dream of taking over her family's restaurant has been destroyed, and Xander, a new, undocumented, employee seeking his father, form a bond. As an aspiring pastry chef, Penelope Prado has always dreamed of opening her own pasteleria next to her father's restaurant, Nacho's Tacos. But her traditional Mexican-American mom and dad have different plans. Xander Amaro Is a new hire at Nacho's. For him, the job is an opportunity...

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship -- the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves...

"Aristotle and Dante continue their journey to manhood in this achingly romantic, tender tale set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic in 1980s America. In Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, two boys fell in love. Now they must learn what it means to stay in love-and to build their relationship in a world that doesn't seem to want them to exist. In their senior year at two different schools, the boys find ways to spend...

Best friends Parisa Naficy and Gabriela Gonzales grapple with the complexities of their relationship even while they spend their senior year apart due to a pandemic that disproportionately affects young people. Parisa Naficy, an earnest and privileged Iranian American, struggles to live up to her own impossible standards. Gabriela Gonzales, a cynical Mexican American, has all the confidence Parisa lacks but none of the financial stability. Despite...

In the two years since his mother left him with his grandparents in Des Moines, Washington, Sam has avoided making friends and perfected the art of being a slacker, but being paired with a frightening new student for a slam poetry unit transforms his life.

From the author of the widely acclaimed The House on Mango Street comes a story collection of breathtaking range and authority, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

Sixteen-year-old Mexican American Yami Flores starts Catholic school, determined to keep her brother out of trouble and keep herself closeted, but her priorities shift when Yami discovers that her openly gay classmate Bo is also annoyingly cute.