A lowly kitchen maid turned shapeshifter fights against evil forces in Hannah West’s enchanting debut.

Sixteen-year-old Bristal’s life is spared when elicromancers (shapeshifters) Brack and Tamarice rescue her from kidnappers determined to prove that she possesses magical powers. Bristal is surprised to discover her shapeshifting powers, and Brack and Tamarice acknowledge that she is the third in a group of remaining elicomancers. While the duty of elicomancers is to protect mortals, discord arises when Tamarice chooses the dark side of elicromancy. Casting a cruel spell during a royal child’s naming day is just the beginning of Tamarice’s machinations to overcome the realm of Nissera. Bristal takes on several guises to protect the cursed princess as well as to recover a lost duchess. But saving Nissera is more difficult than expected, especially when Tamarice seeks to destroy Bristal’s power.

Bristal, the mistress of disguises, shares common qualities of kindness and meekness as the other female characters she helps—Rosemund, the cursed princess (Sleeping Beauty), and Elinor, the lost duchess (Cinderella). But unlike her regal friends, Bristal is an amazing heroine, and her account is just as intriguing, if not more so, as the beloved fairy tales. Careful readers may catch glimpses from other stories, such as Jane Austen’s Emma and the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan. West’s narrative is replete with an unforgettable cast and wondrously descriptive, imaginative scenes.

A spellbinding, one-of-a kind fairy tale, Kingdom of Ash and Briars is a perfect balance of drama, comedy and romance.

Pitched as We Were Liars meets 1996’s The Craft, The Graces is the story of a trio of witches, told through the viewpoint of an outsider who wants to be like them. After 15-year-old River’s father disappears, she and her mother move to a small, coastal town. River quickly becomes obsessed with siblings Thalia, Fenrin and Summer Grace, who rule their high school with an unspoken power. Although the Graces don’t often get close to their classmates, they inexplicably welcome River into their inner circle. Soon, she’s being included in spells and invited to parties at the Grace’s exclusive home. River eventually discovers why the family has embraced her so willingly—they understand River in a way no one else does.

While author Laure Eve does a fair job of creating a mysterious air in River’s first-person narration, The Graces is a story that relies heavily on ambiguity and a major plot twist. The surfing town setting isn’t well drawn, and it isn’t until the teens use British slang (“take the piss”) that readers get a sense of place. The characters, as seen through River’s viewpoint, are enigmatic beings that River idolizes—but are they to be feared or worshipped? Readers will sense that River isn’t who she claims to be (River isn’t even her real name), and for that reason, they’ll anxiously flip through pages, trying to pinpoint her angle and motives. The payoff of the twist ending will be determined by the reader.

Kimberly Giarratano is the author of Grunge Gods and Graveyards, a young adult paranormal mystery.

Joanna’s out-and-proud life in Atlanta takes a devastating hit when her preacher father remarries and decides to move his Christian radio broadcast—and Joanna—to Rome, Georgia. It’s awful enough that Joanna has to spend her senior year as the new kid in a small town. But out of deference to the conservative attitudes prevalent in Rome, Joanna’s father asks her to lie low when it comes to her sexuality. Joanna promises, lured by a promise of a summer trip with her best friend and the chance to have her own radio show. And Joanna surprises herself by making friends with teens from her church group, enjoying a camaraderie that embraces her deep Christian faith. But one of the girls, Mary Carlson, takes Joanna’s breath away with both her beauty and her flirtatiousness. Is Mary Carlson gay? How can Joanna find out without breaking her promise to her father?

In this lovely, nuanced novel, Jaye Robin Brown explores many facets of life as a gay teen, including the risk of revealing a crush, the humiliating fiction of heterosexual dating and the fear of attracting hateful bigotry. Perhaps most moving, however, is Joanna’s expression of her fierce religious faith. She prays often (Dear heavenly Mother . . .) and aspires to spread hope and strength through her radio show by being “young, queer, and faithful.” This is what torments Joanna most about passing as straight, the sense that she is contributing to a toxic shame of homosexuality. This is a heartfelt look at one girl’s search for her true self.

Diane Colson is the Library Director at City College in Gainesville, Florida.

Set in 1976, Calla Devlin’s impressive debut, Tell Me Something Real, is a compelling coming-of-age novel with a trio of sisters at its center. The Babcock siblings—tight-knit but all very different—struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy in the face of their mother’s illness.

Adrienne, the outspoken oldest sister; Vanessa, the introverted middle child; and Marie, the adored baby of the family, split their time between San Diego and Tijuana, where their mother receives alternative treatments for leukemia. Vanessa, 16 years old and a talented pianist, narrates the story, chronicling changes both large and small in her sisters as they react to their fractured family life. The sisters’ overworked father is often absent, so when Caleb, a 17-year-old cancer patient in need of treatment, comes to live with the Babcocks, life looks a little brighter.

A rewarding read for teens, this is a smart, compassionate story about living with loss and learning to make the most of each moment.

This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Stealing Indians by John Smelcer is unapologetically grim, and this is a good thing. This story chronicles a very sad social experiment in American history: For nearly 100 years the Federal government sponsored a program of education that removed, sometimes forcibly, young Native-American children from their homes and families, often for years.

The story follows four youngsters from different tribes who travel many days on buses and trains with little or no food, drink or information to one of these so-called Indian schools. The three boys and one girl form a strong bond of friendship that proves to be steadfast. Whether they are searching in the middle of the night for Lucy, who jumps out a window to avoid a male predator, or providing food for Sammy through a loose brick in the wall while he is chained to a radiator as punishment for speaking Navajo, they always have each other’s backs.

The book covers the eradication of the children’s Native-American heritage through the cutting of hair and forbidding native language, ceremonies and stories. The scenes are not overly graphic, thus giving a glimpse into this sorry chapter of history that is appropriate for the targeted audience.

While the events of Stealing Indians are often disturbing, the young characters support each other's indomitable spirits and share stolen moments of freedom and defiance. 

Indian-American Reshma Kapoor isn’t the smartest or the most beloved at her Silicon Valley high school, but she is the best. Through careful study and manipulation of the grading system, she has become valedictorian. But with sub-standard SAT scores and meager extracurriculars, she’s not the ideal student for Stanford, her dream school. After her op-ed is published by the Huffington Post and a literary agent contacts her, Reshma realizes that she finally has her hook into Stanford. She will write a YA novel, using herself as the protagonist. She’s willing to do anything—from blackmailing her way into a friendship to threatening to sue anyone who might oppose her—to move her story arc along.

Rahul Kanakia’s debut is a definitive metafiction experience. Readers will question whether Reshma is a satirical antihero who reflects today’s convoluted race relations, education system and need for fame, or simply a teen who wants acceptance and love. Readers may not always like Reshma, but they won’t forget her story.

This article was originally published in the August 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Wendy Mills’ latest novel is a haunting story of hope amid heartbreak and hatred.

The year is 2001. Alia, a 16-year-old Muslim, is hoping to apply to a college that will help fulfill her dream of becoming a comic book artist, but her parents don’t support her choice. In a last-ditch effort to persuade her father, Alia heads to the World Trade Center North Tower, where he works. She is unaware that her life is about to change drastically, especially when she encounters Travis. 

Fifteen years later, 16-year-old Jesse struggles with the hate-filled environment that has affected her family since the tragic death of her brother, Travis. Jesse’s decision to follow the wrong crowd leads not only to community service at a mosque and an eye-opening learning experience about Islam, but also to the truth about her brother.

Leading up to the 15th anniversary of the horrific events of 9/11, Mills’ compelling novel offers a stark look at disturbingly prevalent issues of religious and ethnic stereo-typing and xenophobia. The split-narrative storyline reveals that Alia and Jesse have more in common than their familial and religious beliefs seem to indicate. As their stories build and merge, Mills highlights the power of the human spirit that prevails “even in the face of incomprehensible evil”—a theme that the author hopes “the children of today and tomorrow will understand about the day the world changed.”

This article was originally published in the August 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Teen Top Pick, August 2016

Hailey and Clara are conjoined at the hip, back-to-back, with guts “as tangled together as a vat of discarded Christmas tree lights, and partially fused.” Beyond that, they are normal 17-year-old sisters, with loving parents and good friends. But it’s pretty hard for people to look beyond that. Despite the pains their parents took to raise them in rural California, away from gawkers and media hounds, Hailey and Clara know they are not normal. If Hailey were normal, for instance, she could go to the art summer intensive in San Francisco. She wouldn’t need to worry about Clara’s terror of new places, where people stare and point phones and make the same unoriginal, lewd comments. Clara, for her part, is beginning to wonder about surgical separation, because what guy would want a girl with a sister on her back? 

With her debut novel, Sonya Mukherjee sensitively envisions how two conjoined sisters grow through their high school years. As each twin narrates alternating chapters, readers quickly understand that Hailey and Clara are different people. Hailey is sarcastic and arty, while Clara dreams of constellations to explore. And yet the intimacy of their relationship, the way they have learned to walk together, to sit and sleep together, is extraordinary. Nothing is easily resolved here. There are achingly huge decisions and risks ahead for the twins.

This is recommended reading for fans of thought-provoking novels such as Luanne Rice’s The Secret Language of Sisters or Amélie Sam’s I Love I Hate I Miss My Sister.

Diane Colson is the Library Director at City College in Gainesville, Florida.

This article was originally published in the August 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s just an ordinary high school football game. Mana, a flyer on the cheerleading squad, is ready to cheer with her neighbor and crush, Lyle, the reliable cheerleading base. Their friend September will be cheering, too, and it seems like it’ll be a nice, normal game. That is, until the band’s cute drummer is revealed to be an alien in disguise.

During the ensuing chaos, Mana meets the enigmatic China, who introduces himself as Mana’s mother’s partner and tells Mana the truth: Her quiet, mousy mother is really an alien hunter. And not only has her mother disappeared, but she may be carrying a computer chip with vital information that could save—or destroy—all of humanity. Not that the stakes are high, or anything.

Who’s really human? Who’s an alien? Who’s been replaced by a bad doppelgänger? And why does Mana suddenly have the ability to land spectacular jumps—and maybe even to really fly? As Mana, Lyle, Seppie and China search for Mana’s mother, dodge aliens who may or may not be friendly and navigate a town that’s suddenly become an interstellar obstacle course, they face these questions and more. (Does Lyle want to kiss Mana as much as Mana wants to kiss Lyle?)

Funny and playful, with a diverse cast of characters and a bit of romance and adventure, Flying is the perfect light summer read.

Jill Ratzan matches readers with books in a small library in southeastern Pennsylvania.