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Spots are Limited!
We prioritize applicants who can attend the majority of meetings and live in our Pierce County service area. |
Questions? Attend an Information Session Are you thinking about applying for Teen Volunteer League, but aren't sure what to expect? Join Teen Services staff for program information and a Q&A session. Learn about the projects you'll be working on, the skills you'll learn, and how you'll give back to your library community (spoiler: it's not by putting away books).
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Online Info Session Friday April 3 |
Online Info Session Friday April 17 |
Follow us on Instagram |
April News - Programs: Spring Break at the Library
- Resources: Resume Support
- Community: HearMeWA
- Booklists: Recent Releases, Read Your Way: Future Visions, Award Winners
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Earth Crafts: A Teen Drop-In Program
Thursday, April 2, 3:30pm
University Place Library
Celebrate Earth Month by creating environmentally friendly crafts like native seed bombs and junk journals! There will also be tabletop games, Nintendo Switch games and snacks.
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Spring Break Game-A-Thon: A Teen Drop-In Program
Wednesday, April 8, 3:45pm
Graham Library
Spend part of your spring break at the library. Join us for Nintendo Switch games including Smash Bros. Mario Kart, Pikmin 4 and more! A variety of new board and card games will also be available for those who are fans of tabletop gaming. Free snacks will be provided!
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Recycle Fashion Show: A Teen STEAM Program
Tuesday, April 21, 4:00pm
Gig Harbor Library
Create stunning looks using sustainable and unconventional materials. Explore, build or experiment with hands-on projects, no experience needed.
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Sensory Gardens: A Teen STEAM Program
Sunday, April 26, 3:00pm
Summit Library
Learn about native plants, flowers and pollinators while designing mini sensory gardens focused on smell, taste or visual appeal. Make your own sensory planter creation to take home and contribute to the library's raised beds with a shared planting.
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Resume Lab with JobNowSubmit your resume to JobNow and receive expert feedback within 48 hours, just in time to apply to summer jobs. All free with your library card! |
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Make an Appointment with AskUsBook a one-on-one appointment with a trusted teen services librarian to ask all your job-related questions: get help with your resume, practice a mock interview, look for jobs, or fill out an application together. We're here for you! |
How HearMeWA Can Help
HearMeWA connects youth to trained counselors and local resources. It's safe and you can remain anonymous - whatever you're going through, we've got your back. |
4 Ways to Contact - Call the toll-free number: 888-537-1634
- Text HearMeWA to 738477
- Visit HearMeWA.org and click "Get Help"
- Download the HearMeWA app
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Find booklists by grade level on our website Check out the booklists below. All titles are available to download or pick up at the library: - Recent Releases
- Read Your Way: Future Visions
- 2026 Youth Media Award Winners
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| She Drinks the Light by Yasmin AngoeAddae grew up on South Carolina’s Golden Isle, where the Kinfolk uphold the traditions of the founders, African people who escaped enslavement. Although Addae rarely goes to the mainland, she risks exposing her island’s supernatural nature to find her missing best friend. Read-alikes: Xan Kaur’s When Devils Sing; Tigest Girma’s Immortal Dark. |
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| PostScript by Cory McCarthyThe “grids went down,” effectively ending human civilization, when West was 12. Now 18, he meets Emil, who brings him into his ragtag community. Fans of the video game The Last of Us and its television adaptation will appreciate this postapocalyptic tale about finding happiness against all odds.
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| Lies We Tell About the Stars by Susie NadlerIn near-future San Francisco, “The Big One” has rocked the earthquake-prone city. Although everyone else believes Nicky perished in the quake, Celeste hasn’t lost hope that she may find her best friend alive. Read-alikes: Cassandra Newbould’s Climate of Chaos; Jen Storm’s Little Moons.
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| If We Never End by Laura Taylor NameyWhile spending the summer with her beloved aunt in mystical hotspot of Sacred, Oregon, Sylvie buys an antique watch she thinks she can resell. Instead, the watch summons the ghost of 19-year-old Penn, who has amnesia. This dreamlike ghost story proves love transcends time and space.
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| Estela, Undrowning by René Peña-GoveaEstela is stressed. She’s got college applications looming, a Spanish teacher who scorns heritage speakers, and a landlord threatening to evict her family. The racial tensions ignited by her school’s Latiné Heritage Poetry Contest bring everything to a head. This poignant novel balances angst with moments of humor and joy.
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| Ramin Abbas Has Major Questions by Ahmad SaberWith a college scholarship on the line, Ramin joins the soccer team for his last Physical Education credit. The good news? His crush is a welcoming teammate. The bad news? Someone threatens to out him if he doesn’t sabotage his team. This funny, heartfelt tale explores the courage required to live authentically.
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| To the Death by Andrea TangEager to gain independence from her famous father, Tamsin agrees to a magical duel against undefeated champion Lysander. There’s danger from every side: the deadly magic, the revenge plot Tamsin’s unwittingly embroiled in, and her blossoming crush on Lysander. Read-alikes: Kacen Callender’s Chaos King; J.D. Myall’s Heart’s Gambit.
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Read Your Way: Future Visions
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A Snake Falls to Earth
by Darcie Little Badger
Starring: Nina, a 16-year-old Lipan Apache girl from Texas. She believes her family's stories about shapeshifting animal people.
Enter: Oli, a cottonmouth snake person, who emerges from the Reflecting World seeking help for an ancient friend. Together, Nina and Oli must untangle the interconnected problems of Earth and the Reflecting World.
Book buzz: This imaginative and immersive work of Indigenous futurism was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature.
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The Electric Kingdom
by David Arnold
Welcome to: the near-future United States, where the deadly Fly Flu has wiped out most of the population.
What happens: 18-year-old Nico and 12-year-old Kit are forced together as they search for a better life.
Why you might like it: With strong world-building, The Electric Kingdom is also a complex slow-burning and ultimately hopeful dystopia with well-developed characters.
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Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions
by Book Author
Ten speculative short stories by leading young-adult authors imagine what the world could be through the lens of technologies emerging today. In tales buzzing with possibility, hope, innovation, anger, and tenderness, Tasting Light offers a dazzling challenge to connect with open minds, hearts, and senses in a fast-changing world.
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No Time Like Now
by Naz Kutub
A teen finds himself in a race against time when he learns he's given away more years than he has left to live in this thought-provoking speculative romp inspired by A Christmas Carol.
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Pet
by Akwaeke Emezi
In a near-future society that claims to have gotten rid of all monstrous people, a creature emerges from a painting seventeen-year-old Jam's mother created, a hunter from another world seeking a real-life monster.
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The goal of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature is to honor and recognize individual work about Asian/Pacific Americans and their heritage, based on literary and artistic merit. The award is administered by the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), an affiliate of the American Library Association. |
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The Red Car to Hollywood
by Jennie Liu
In LA's Chinatown in 1924, sixteen-year-old Ruby Chan rebels against her parents' conventional plans for her future when a friendship with nineteen-year-old Anna May Wong, a rising Hollywood film star, opens up new possibilities.
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The Coretta Scott King Book Awards recognize an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults. The award is administered by the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee. |
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Will's Race for Home
by Jewell Parker Rhodes
During the land rush of 1889, African American Will and his father journey from Texas to Oklahoma, racing thousands of others to stake their claim.
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The John Steptoe New Talent Award is established to affirm new talent and to offer visibility to excellence in writing and/or illustration. The award is administered by the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee. |
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Under the Neon Lights
by Arriel Vinson
Sixteen-year-old Jaelyn Coleman falls in love for the first time at her local, beloved roller-skating rink, just as news hits it is shutting down amidst her neighborhood quickly gentrifying--
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The Margaret A. Edwards Award honors an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature. The award is administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. Candace Fleming is the 2026 Margaret A. Edwards Award winner, whose books include Death in the Jungle, Enigma Girls, Family Romanov, The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh. |
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Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown
by Candace Fleming
In 1978, cult leader Jim Jones led over 900 people to their deaths in a tragic massacre in Guyana. This richly detailed and thoughtful nonfiction account tracing the rise and fall of the Peoples Temple draws from survivors’ stories, including interviews author Candace Fleming conducted herself.
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The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh
by Candace Fleming
A layered portrait of one of America's most celebrated heroes, and most complicated, troubled and controversial men, aviator Charles Lindbergh.
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Murder among friends : how Leopold and Loeb tried to commit the perfect crime
by Candace Fleming
What it is: the compelling true crime tale of two young men who plotted the murder of a child in 1924, only to be caught and narrowly escape the death penalty.
Is it for you? This well-researched nonfiction book blends the suspense of a thriller with the drama of courtroom proceedings, all while examining social issues.
Author alert: Fans of gripping historical narratives will also appreciate author Candace Fleming’s The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh and The Family Romanov.
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The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. The award is administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. |
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Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories
by Cynthia Leitich Smith, editor
Sandy June’s Legendary Frybread Drive-In is a food truck that appears wherever Indigenous people across North America need to meet. It provides the setting for the linked stories in this touching and magical anthology that takes readers from Hawai’i to Alaska to Manitoba and many liminal places in between.
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The Odyssey Award is given to the producer of the best audiobook produced for children and young adults, available in English in the United States. The award is jointly given and administered by the Association of Library Services to Children and the Young Adult Library Services Association. |
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Trans history : from ancient times to the present day
by Alex L. Combs
Diversity in human sex and gender is not a modern phenomenon, as readers will discover through illustrated stories and records that introduce historical figures ranging from the controversial Roman emperor Elagabalus to the swashbuckling seventeenth-century conquistador Antonio de Erauso to veterans of the Stonewall uprising Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. The book explores some of the societal roles played by trans people beginning in ancient times and shows how European ideas about gender were spread across the globe.
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The award is named after Pura Belpré, the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library. The Pura Belpré Award, established in 1996, is presented annually to a Latino/Latina writer whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth. |
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On the Wings of La Noche
by Vanessa L. Torres
Although Estrella “Noche” Villanueva spends her nights guiding souls to the afterlife, she keeps her late girlfriend Dante’s spirit on Earth. A new relationship forces Noche to confront her grief and find a loving way to let Dante go. This haunting fantasy takes inspiration from the Mexican legend of La Lechuza.
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The Schneider Family Book Awards honor an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences. The award is donated by Dr. Katherine Schneider. |
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Whale Eyes: A Memoir about Seeing and Being Seen
by James Robinson
Told through an experimental mix of intimate anecdotes and interactive visuals, this book immerses readers in James’s point of view, allowing them to see the world through his disabling eye conditions.
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The Stonewall Book Award–Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award is given annually to English-language works of exceptional merit for children or teens relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience. The award is sponsored by the American Library Association's Rainbow Roundtable. |
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One of the Boys
by Victoria Zeller
Grace was sure of a Division I football scholarship -- before she came out as trans. As senior year begins, Grace struggles to find her place in early transition, new social circles, and a life without football. But when her skills as the best kicker in the state prove to be vital, her old teammates drag her back into a sport and a way of life she thought had turned its back on her forever.
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The William C. Morris YA Debut Award, first awarded in 2009, honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature. The award is administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. |
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All the Noise at Once
by DeAndra Davis
Star quarterback Brandon is happy to have his autistic brother Aiden on the team. When a post-game fight results in Brandon’s unjust arrest, it’s up to Aiden to prove his older brother’s innocence. Read-alikes: Sonora Reyes’ The Luis Ortega Survival Club; Christina Hammonds Reed’s The Black Kids.
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Contact your librarian for more great books for age 14 and up!
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Pierce County Library System
3005 112th St. E, Tacoma, Washington 98446
253-548-3300mypcls.org |
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