YA Reads for 2016

A Big Dose of Lucky by Marthe Jocelyn 

Malou is a sixteen-year-old mixed race girl who has no family and has been living in an orphanage all her life. She has the desire to search for her family and find her roots. After her orphanage burns down, Malou receives some hints that she may have been born in Ontario’s cottage country and goes on a mission to find out where she comes from. This novel is set around the time of John F. Kennedy's assassination, continuous racial tension, social and sexual inequalities. A Big Dose of Lucky is part of a seven book series, but the series can be read in any order.

Juba! A Novel by Walter Dean Myers 

William Henry Labe, also known and Master Jubba, was a free slave and a dancer who danced in America and England in the 1840s. In his final novel, Walter Dean Myers captures the light of a person who helped influenced today’s tap, jazz, and step dancing.  

Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom 

Parker Grant does not allow her vision disability to define her while balancing her life as a normal teen. In her short life, Parker already dealt with a lot of tragedy. She lost her mother and sight at an early age and her father died when she started her junior year of high school. To add to all the problems weighing on Parker’s shoulders, her ex boyfriend, Scott Kilpatrick, resurfaced after breaking her heart when she was thirteen. Parker is a strong individual who has set a ground rule for no one to treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. But when her ex tries to reach out to her, she tries hard to stick to her rules, which makes her second guess them.

Yo, Miss A Graphic Look at High School by Lisa Wilde 

This graphic memoir is told from the point of view of the author, who is also a teacher at John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy. Wildcat Academy is a school in New York City to give teens who have been suspended, had issues with the law, and even teen parents, a second chance at an education.Wilde's graphic novel was inspired by portraits she created during her lunch break as well as poetry created by some of her students.