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Here are our favorite books about everyday diversity for teens in middle school. These titles are classified as Teen Middle School (TM) and can be found in the Teen section of the library.
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Rainbow Fair
by Diana Ma
Twelve-year-old Sophie Hu navigates friendship drama, family expectations and learning about her Hui, Chinese Muslim, identity and sparks change in a student body whose identity is not easily categorized by the cultural fair's limited booths. Gr 4-6
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Zarina Divided
by Reem Faruqi
This is a stirring coming-of-age story about a Muslim girl who, during the Partition of India, must learn to cope with loss, guilt, and change in order to grow.
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No Purchase Necessary
by Maria Marianayagam
Ajay Anthonipillai wins a million-dollar prize in a candy bar he stole trying to impress a popular kid, pushing Ajay to navigate his identity and morality in deciding whether to claim something that could change his family's life forever. Simultaneous eBook.
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Please Pay Attention
by Jamie Sumner
After surviving a school shooting that left her feeling helpless in her wheelchair, Bea finds healing and empowerment through horseback riding therapy and begins to advocate for change.
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Cruzita And The Mariacheros
by Ashley Granillo
Cruzita must save her family's failing panaderia by winning a mariachi band contest. The only problem? She absolutely hates mariachi and cannot speak Spanish.
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Summer at Squee
by Andrea Wang
A senior camper at Summertime Chinese Culture, Wellness and Enrichment Experience (Squee), Chinese American tween Phoenny Fang finds her summer even more transformative than she could've imagined, with new friendships, her first crush, and a bigger love for and understanding of her community.
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The Science of Friendship
by Tanita S. Davis
Paired with science geek DeNia for a journalism assignment, Rylee Swanson, starting eighth grade with zero friends, works with DeNia to research what makes friendships?—?and breaks them?—?but the more she learns, the more she wonders if there's a science to it.
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Upstaged
by Robin Easter
Best friends Ivy and Ash arrive for a third summer at arts camp, but Ash struggles to tell Ivy about their developing feelings for her.
This book can be found in the Teen Graphic Novel section.
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Kareem Between
by Shifa Saltagi Safadi
With the school year getting off to a rough start, Syrian American seventh grader Kareem finds himself stuck between friends, between football, between parents and between right and wrong, and must find his voice amidst the chaos.
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Tiger Daughter
by Rebecca Lim
Wen Zhou is a first-generation daughter of Chinese migrant parents. She has high expectations from her parents to succeed in school, but she dreams of creating a future for herself more satisfying than the one her parents expect her to lead. Then she befriends a boy named Henry. Both of them dream of escaping; together they come up with a plan to take an entrance exam for a selective school far from home. But when tragedy strikes, it will take all of Wen's resilience and tiger strength to get herself and Henry through the storm that follows
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Drawing Deena
by Hena Khan
When young Pakistani American artist Deena promotes her mom's home-based business, which takes off and makes her anxiety unmanageable, she and her mother learn the importance of asking for help and that, with the right support, she can create something truly beautiful.
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Good Different
by Meg Eden Kuyatt
Neurodivergent girl Selah, who always tries to keep her feelings in check- especially her anger- explodes at school one day, hitting a fellow student, and must figure out more about who she is in order to understand that different doesn't mean damaged.
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Finally Seen
by Kelly Yang
Arriving in America to live with her parents and sister after five years apart, 10-year-old Lina Gao struggles to fit in with her family and at her new school until she learns about the power of friendship, family and being finally seen.
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Barely Floating
by Lilliam Rivera
Channeling her rage into synchronized swimming dreams, 12-year-old Nat, who doesn't care what people think, fights for what she wants as she builds a community of those who lift her up and help her stay afloat when waters get rough.
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The Many Fortunes of Maya
by Nicole D. Collier
Always turning to her Wheel of Fortunes (a cardboard circle covered with wisdom she's collected from fortune cookies) for answers and a dose of luck, 12-year-old Maya must find the courage to write her own fortune to help answer her deep-down questions.
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The Language of Seabirds
by Will Taylor
While staying with his dad and uncle in a seaside cabin in Oregon, Jeremy meets and forms a friendship with local boy Evan that turns into something neither boy expected, but something they both wished for.
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Finding Junie Kim
by Ellen Oh
Motivated by an act of racism at her school, Junie Kim learns about her ancestral heritage and her grandparent's experiences as lost children during the Korean War.
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Turning Point
by Paula Chase
Told from alternating perspectives, a standalone companion to So Done and Dough Boys follows the experiences of two African American best friends who navigate changing perspectives when their careful practice of the rules does not shield them from racism.
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Omar Rising
by Aisha Saeed
While attending an elite boarding school on scholarship, Omar, the son of a servant, discovers the school makes it nearly impossible for scholarship students to graduate and sets out to do the impossible change a rigged system.
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Fast Pitch
by Nic Stone
Shenice Lockwood, captain of the Fulton Firebirds, is hyper-focused when she steps up to the plate. But life has thrown some curveballs her way. Strike one: As the sole team of all-brown faces, Shenice and the Firebirds have to work twice as hard to prove that Black girls belong at bat. Strike two: Shenice's focus gets shaken when her great-uncle Jack reveals that a career-ending crime may have been a setup. Strike three: Broken focus means mistakes on the field. And Shenice's teammates are beginning to wonder if she's captain-qualified.
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