8th Grade Reads

The first year they are eligible to vote, Marva and Duke meet at their polling place and, over the course of one crazy day, fall in love.

Author: Brandy Colbert

Call Number: TEEN FICTION COLBERT

Lily, who has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and Abelard, who has Asperger's, meet in detention and discover a mutual affinity for love letters--and, despite their differences, each other.

Author: Laura Creedle

Call Number: TEEN FICTION CREEDLE

After a fatal car accident that reveals Emory's brother Joey's opioid addiction, Emory struggles to help him on his road to recovery and make herself heard in a town that insists on not listening.

Author: Kathleen Glasgow

Call Number: TEEN FICTION GLASGOW

A society wife-in-training has an uncomfortable awakening about her strictly polarized society after being recruited into a band of rebel spies and falling for her biggest rival.

Author: Tehlor Kay Mejia

Call Number: TEEN FICTION MEJIA

At the Castellana Hilton in 1957 Madrid, eighteen-year-old Daniel Matheson connects with Ana Moreno through photography and fate as Daniel discovers the incredibly dark side of the city under Generalissimo Franco's rule.

Author: Ruta Sepetys

Call Number: TEEN FICTION SEPETYS

Divya Sharma is a queen. Or she is when she's playing Reclaim the Sun, the year's hottest online game. Divya--better known as popular streaming gamer D1V--regularly leads her #AngstArmada on quests through the game's vast and gorgeous virtual universe. But for Divya, this is more than just a game. Out in the real world, she's trading her rising-star status for sponsorships to help her struggling single mom pay the rent. Gaming is basically Aaron Jericho's entire life. Much to his mother's frustration, Aaron has zero interest in becoming a doctor like her, and spends his free time writing games for a local developer. At least he can escape into Reclaim the Sun--and with a trillion worlds to explore, disappearing should be easy. But to his surprise, he somehow ends up on the same remote planet as celebrity gamer D1V. At home, Divya and Aaron grapple with their problems alone, but in the game, they have each other to face infinite new worlds...and the growing legion of trolls populating them. Soon the virtual harassment seeps into reality when a group called the Vox Populi begin launching real-world doxxing campaigns, threatening Aaron's dreams and Divya's actual life. The online trolls think they can drive her out of the game, but everything and everyone Divya cares about is on the line... And she isn't going down without a fight.

Author: Eric Smith

Call Number: TEEN FICTION SMITH

When his volatile father is picked to become an astronaut for NASA's mission to Mars, seventeen-year-old Cal, an aspiring journalist, reluctantly moves from Brooklyn to Houston, Texas, and looks for a story to report, finding an ally (and crush) in Leon, the son of another astronaut.

Author: Phil Stamper

Call Number: TEEN FICTION STAMPER

On a visit to San Francisco, Kiku finds herself transported in time back to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II.

Author: Kiku Hughes

Call Number: GRAPHIC NOVEL TEEN HUGHES

Rose and her parents have been going to Awago Beach since she was a little girl. It's her summer getaway, her refuge. Her friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had, completing her summer family. But this summer is different. Rose's mom and dad won't stop fighting, and Rose and Windy have gotten tangled up in a tragedy-in-the-making in the small town of Awago Beach. It's a summer of secrets and heartache, and it's a good thing Rose and Windy have each other.

Author: Mariko Tamaki

Call Number: GRAPHIC NOVEL TEEN TAMAKI

When Becca transfers to a high school in an elite San Francisco suburb, she’s worried she’s not going to fit in. To her surprise, she’s immediately adopted by the most popular girls in school. At first glance, Marley, Arianna, and Mandy are perfect. But at a party under a full moon, Becca learns that they also have a big secret.

Author: Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Call Number: GRAPHIC NOVEL TEEN TOKUDA-HALL

Nina is a Lipan girl in our world. She's always felt there was something more out there. She still believes in the old stories. Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he's been cast from home. He's found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake. Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli's best friend, will drive their worlds together in ways they haven't been in centuries. And there are some who will kill to keep them apart.

Author: Darcie Little Badger

Call Number: Y FICTION LIT

Moving to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, a young gymnast hides a secret as she makes new friends and investigates her grandmother's claim that someone is trying to destroy her cricket farm.

Author: Kate Messner

Call Number: Y MYSTERY MES

When his father starts a new job at Minerva Hall as gardener, twelve-year-old Jim discovers an ancient curse that needs to be unraveled before disaster happens.

Author: Christine Morton-Shaw

Call Number: Y MYSTERY MOR

Newly arrived in 1892 New England, Abigail Rook becomes assistant to R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with the ability to see supernatural beings, and she helps him delve into a case of serial murder which, Jackaby is convinced, is due to a nonhuman creature.

Author: William Ritter

Call Number: Y MYSTERY RIT

In 2194 in Zimbabwe, General Matsika's three children are kidnapped and put to work in a plastic mine while three mutant detectives use their special powers to search for them.

Author: Nancy Farmer

Call Number: Y SCIENCE FICTION FAR

When aspiring astronaut Maisie Danger Brown, who was born without a right hand, and the other space camp students get the opportunity to do something amazing in space, Maisie must prove how dangerous she can be and how far she is willing to go to protect everything she has ever loved.

Author: Shannon Hale

Call Number: Y SCIENCE FICTION HAL

When twelve-year-olds Madison and Felix kidnap him, Ethan learns that the Earth has been taken over by aliens and that all the adults in the world are under mind control.

Author: Eric S. Nylund

Call Number: Y SCIENCE FICTION NYL

Omar and his younger brother Hassan live in a refugee camp, and when an opportunity for Omar to get an education comes along, he must decide between going to school every day or caring for his nonverbal brother in this intimate and touching portrayal of family and daily life in a refugee camp.

Author: Victoria Jamieson

Call Number: Y FICTION JAM (Graphic Novel)

Recounts the author's experiences in the summer after seventh grade, in which he tries to bulk up his skinny physique using miracle cures found in the back of his comic books.

Author: Mark Tatulli

Call Number: J FICTION TAT (Graphic Novel)

After a string of bad luck, Kipp takes a woman up on her generous offer of free room and board, but he soon learns that things are not as they seem.

Author: Jocelyn Shipley

Call Number: HI LO SHI

Chronicles the friendship between an American girl and her pen pal from Zimbabwe, discussing how a class assignment was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives.

Author: Caitlin Alifirenka

Call Number: J305.235 ALI

This self-help guide for young readers delivers real talk about eating disorders and body image; tools and information for recovery; and suggestions for dealing with the media messages that contribute so much to disordered eating, written in a easy-to-understand, conversational way.

Author: Jen Petro-Roy

Call Number: J616.852 PET

For Every One is just that: for every one. For every one person. For every one dream. But especially for every one kid. The kids who dream of being better than they are. Kids who dream of doing more than they almost dare to dream. Kids who are like Jason Reynolds, a self-professed dreamer. Jason does not claim to know how to make dreams come true; he has, in fact, been fighting on the front line of his own battle to make his own dreams a reality. He expected to make it when he was sixteen. Then eighteen. Then twenty-five. Now, some of those expectations have been realized. But others, the most important ones, lay ahead, and a lot of them involve kids, how to inspire them. All the kids who are scared to dream, or don’t know how to dream, or don’t dare to dream because they’ve NEVER seen a dream come true. Jason wants kids to know that dreams take time. They involve countless struggles. But no matter how many times a dreamer gets beat down, the drive and the passion and the hope never fully extinguish—because just having the dream is the start you need, or you won’t get anywhere anyway, and that is when you have to take a leap of faith.

Author: Jason Reynolds

Call Number: J811.6 REY

To make change, you have to make trouble. Cecile Richards has been fighting for what she believes in ever since she was taken to the principal's office in seventh grade for wearing an armband in protest of the Vietnam War. She had an extraordinary childhood in ultra-conservative Texas, where her father, a civil rights attorney, and her mother, an avid activist and the first female governor of Texas, taught their kids to be troublemakers. From the time Richards was a girl, she had a front row seat to observe the rise of women in American politics. And by sharing her story with young readers, she shines a light on the people and lessons that have gotten her though good times and bad, and encourages her audience to take risks, make mistakes, and make trouble along the way.

Author: Cecile Richards

Call Number: J BIO RICHARDS