January
02
Tags
The 2023 Nerdies: Young Adult Fiction Day One Announced by a Chapter of Nerds
Recommendations like the Nerdy Book Club Awards lists, collected from experienced readers and educators, can be useful as one resource when identifying and evaluating titles to include in library collections or offer for independent reading. Nominations for the Nerdy Book Club awards come from scholars, teachers, librarians, authors, illustrators, editors, families and other readers of books for children and teens. The 2023 Nerdy Book Club Young Adult Fiction award winners include a wide range of voices, lived experiences, topics, historical time periods, formats and writing styles—something to entice every young reader. Check out more YA titles in other Nerdies categories, including poetry, nonfiction, and graphic novels.
Congratulations to the authors and publishers of these incredible books. Let’s all do what we can to get these books to kids!
Thank you to the volunteer reviewers who have offered their enthusiastic opinions about each title on Nerdy’s YA Fiction Awards list this year. We will feature the second half of the list in tomorrow’s post.
A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgen
The first rule of reading any Scott Reintgen book: do not, under any circumstances, get attached to the characters.
Ren, Theo, Avy, Cora, Timmons, and Clyde are all students at Kathor’s private school of magic, Balmerick. As a student from the city’s Lower Quarter, Ren knows that she has to work harder than her classmates to secure a spot with one of the powerful houses after graduation; she has no connections and little money, but she does have a mind like a steel trap and a talent for complicated magic. Both of these skills are put to the test when she and the five others are accidentally transported from their school into the dangerous wilderness beyond, instead of to their homes, apparently as the result of a botched traveling spell.
The magic knocks them unconscious, and as they start to wake up and take in the gravity of their situation, the students are horrified to find that one of them is dead. What happened in the traveling chamber? How are they going to survive and make their way back home? And what, exactly, killed their classmate? As they start to formulate a plan and make their way through the rough terrain, more and more dangers pop up at every turn until none of them are sure what to expect…or whom to trust.
Scott Reintgen has, once again, kept me on the edge of my seat and drawn me into a beautiful and terrifying world. He weaves together adventure, survival, fantasy, romance, and history in this thrilling first book in a planned trilogy. –Maggie Coyne
All That’s Left to Say by Emery Lord
When Hannah McClaren pulls the fire alarm at senior prom, she doesn’t think she can tell the headmaster why she ruined the night for her classmates. Two years earlier, the summer before junior year, Hannah’s cousin and best friend, Sophie, died of an opioid overdose. Sophie’s death shocked Hannah and all of her friends and family, as no one knew she was using drugs. Hannah is determined to find out who gave Sophie the pills that killed her, to the point that she becomes single-mindedly focused on finding out what happened on that terrible night. But answers don’t always bring closure, and Hannah may find that grief can evolve, but sometimes we can’t heal the wounds we feel in our soul. Lord is careful to treat addiction as an illness, but she doesn’t shy away from the way it affects the addict and those around them. Hannah’s grief takes over her life in obvious ways, but everyone in Sophie’s life feels her loss, and their reactions range from healthy to not healthy at all. Lord weaves together alternating timelines of Hannah’s junior and senior years as she navigates the grief and anger she feels, and it all culminates at senior prom. A compelling look at grief, friendship, and family, All That’s Left to Say explores themes not often explored in YA literature. –Sarah Mulhern Gross
Chaos Theory by Nic Stone
The honesty of the interactions between Shelbi and Andy are what make Stone’s newest YA title a refreshingly appealing read. In a chance encounter via text message, Shelbi and Andy’s lives become linked as they navigate the complicated relationships they have with the adults in their lives. Shelbi has been able to prioritize her mental health however Andy’s alcoholism is leaving him in a spiral.
Witty banter between the two coupled with the realism of their situations is vibrant and complex leaving no doubt that it deserves accolades for its spotlight on self care and meaningful relationships. A true contemporary coming of age story. –Alicia Abdul
Dear Medusa by Olivia A. Cole
I love a good novel-in-verse; I love realistic fiction when it includes a journey toward empowerment and healing; and I love when my friends, who know me the best, put a book in my hands and tell me, “You have to read this!” Dear Medusa by Olivia A. Cole is the trifecta.
16-year-old Alicia is carrying a burden that she cannot speak aloud. Forced to grow up too fast, she navigates the world through unhealed anger, pain, and betrayal. Not only has she been sexually abused, but it was by someone who she is supposed to respect, admire, and trust—an adult who others revere. Alicia’s classmates and former friends shun and shame her, thinking she wants such attention. Alicia is feeling as disconnected at home as she feels isolated at school. Then mysterious notes start showing up in Alicia’s locker. At first, Alicia assumes that the notes are another way for her classmates to throw shade . . . hate notes. it turns out that the notes might actually be coming from someone who is experiencing the same abuse.
Alicia’s participation in an empowerment group at school, a new relationship with Deja, and Alicia’s own strengths play a role in her journey toward healing. Dear Medusa offers each of us a chance to feel the pain associated with trauma and offers each of us an invitation to hope and resilience. –Julie Hoffman
Enter the Body by Joan McCullough
“Even when they know how it will turn out, there’s the spark of hope that this time might be different.” (McCullough, p 127)
Full disclosure: The only thing I spend more money on than books is theater tickets so this book appealed to me from the beginning. No matter how many times I see a play performed or how many times I have studied it with students, I always hope that somehow, some way, the outcome might play out differently. We know from the very beginning of Enter the Body by Joy McCullough, that the heroines of Shakespeare’s plays will not have any better treatment on the stage than in the time before. We meet the abused and deceased women of Shakespeare’s plays under the stage in the trap room where Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Cordelia (King Lear), Ophelia (Hamlet), and Lavinia (Titus Andronicus) share their lives with each other – and with us – in verse that invites us to consider them as more than what happens on the stage, as more than just what happens to them to move the action forward in the story. Their stories will continue to play out in all their tragic brutality as before, but I don’t doubt that seeing these works again will have me seeing these women and their respective plays in a whole new light. –Cindy Minnich
Into the Light by Mark Oshiro
Mark Oshiro’s novel Into the Light delves into the darkness of Christian nationalism, conversion therapy, and adoption, among other important social issues. Told in first person following two time lines, the novel slowly reveals the pain of 17-year-old Manny’s past as he lives a life on the run, until he finds a vagabond family willing to help him face what he left behind and save others. Manny’s intersectional identity of a young man pushed to the margins as boy who grew up in foster care, wearing both his sexuality and his ethnicity carefully, knowing that who he is has spurred so many to abandon him. Despite the heavy topics, Oshiro manages a book that offers grace and humor as it brings the darkness into the light. –Jennifer Ansbach
Just Do This One Thing for Me by Laura Zimmerman
Laura Zimmerman’s second novel, Just Do This One Thing for Me, follows up on her debut, My Eyes Are Up Here, which won the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for YA Literature and was a Mighty Girl 2020 book of the year pick. This second novel offers a funny, quick read that will be timely and relatable to teen readers. Drew, an epitome of #eldestdaughtersyndrome, is trying to keep her family together after the untimely disappearance of her mother. She is used to solving all her mother’s problems, “I just need you to do this one thing for me, Drew,” but raising her 8-year-old brother, Lachlan, and dealing with her 15-year-old sister, Carna, during the last half of her senior year was not part of her plans.
When her mother disappears, the scams that had kept the family afloat, such as Social Security fraud and making fake reviews of products online, start to come to a head. Drew, a consummate rule follower, must decide whether these lies are essential to the family’s continued survival. As Drew tries to manage all the family’s affairs while completing homework and her college applications, she is visited by a touch of the supernatural, or maybe it is just a mental breakdown from the stress. At first, she just needs to hang on a little longer while the weather stays below freezing or to her 18th birthday when she can legally be her siblings’ guardian. Even her relationship with her boyfriend gets strung along when he inadvertently gets caught up in one of the scams. Finally, when it seems her mother’s disappearance might be revealed to the world, Drew and Carna must act, and they conceive a final scam, one worthy of their mother, one that might be able to keep their family together long-term. –Amanda Harrison
Invisible Son by Kim Johnson
Andre Jackson is just getting out of juvenile detention for a crime he didn’t commit, and returning to his Portland, Oregon neighborhood is tougher than he thought, despite only being gone two months. He immediately notices changes. The area is quickly gentrifying, his father’s bookstore is not doing so well, and his close friend Eric is now missing. Sierra, Eric’s biological sister, is close with Andre, for her adopted family, the Whitakers, live right across the street. As Andre tries to live a “normal” life with his ankle monitor and daily check-ins with his “counselor,” he can’t help but think the details of Eric’s disappearance, and his own arrest, don’t add up. As he begins snooping around, Andres realizes there’s a lot he doesn’t know. A lot that people are keeping hidden. The Whitakers aren’t the picture-perfect family they appear to be.
Another gripping, intense, and all-too-real story from Kim Johnson. Like her first book, This Is My America, Johnson weaves together important topics like gentrification, racism, the juvenile justice system, adoption, family, friendship, and love. This novel’s pacing was perfect, and readers who like mysteries will find themselves guessing until the very end. Like Johnson says at the end of her author’s note, Andre, Sierra, Eric, and the others may not be real, but people like them can be found everywhere. –Sarah Krajewski
Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian
It’s 2019, and Moud is an openly gay senior at a Los Angeles high school who is in love with his boyfriend, Shane. Saeed is Moud’s father, who doesn’t shame his son for being gay, but seems to resent him, for they aren’t close. After hearing that Saeed’s Baba is terminally ill, they must travel to Tehran together, which changes everything for Moud.
When Saeed was Moud’s age in 1978, he was part of a revolution for change in Tehran. When his parents discovered that he was participating in the protests, they sent him to America to live with his grandmother, keeping him away from the woman he loved.
Bobby struggled with a neurotic “stage mother” in 1939, Los Angeles. She had high hopes of her son becoming famous, but neither of them truly understand all that goes into being a child actor in Hollywood.
As these three stories begin to connect, and secrets are revealed, the reader will see how trauma and love can affect family.
This multigenerational story is filled with beautiful moments. There’s just something so special about the characters that Abdi Nazemian creates. Moud, Saeed, and Bobby are unforgettable and real. But it’s their identities, their curiosity about Iranian queer culture, and the love they have for others that stand out the most. –Sarah Krajewski
Pedro & Daniel by Federico Erebia
In this dazzling debut novel, Federico Erebia revisits and reimagines his own childhood and relationship with his younger brother, Daniel, who died of HIV/AIDS in 1993. Told through alternating, and sometimes combined, perspectives and across several decades, Erebia explores the complexities of growing up gay and neurodivergent in a traditional Mexican-American family while facing homophobia, racism and abuse – all in the shadow of the looming AIDS pandemic.
While today’s readers will no doubt relate to Pedro and Daniel’s quest for love and acceptance in a cruel and often violent world, scenes such as when the two brothers visit the Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, (when it was on display in Washington DC), offer an invaluable glimpse into a period that may seem to some like ancient history. While seeped in tragedy, Pedro & Daniel is ultimately a story about love and resilience. Through lyrical prose sprinkled with poetry and dichos/proverbs, Erebia weaves a rich and captivating story about two brothers whose bond is stronger than everything the world throws at them. This creative format combines with illustrations by Julie Kwon to craft an unforgettable story that continues to resonate long after the last page is turned. –Jennifer LaGarde
Alicia Abdul is a high school librarian in Albany, NY and teaches young adult literature at two universities. She shares her reading (and dresses) on Instagram @ReadersBeAdvised and blogs at readersbeadvised.wordpress.com. She’s served or chaired several YALSA book committees, presents at local, state, and national conferences on books, programs, and graphic novels, and is an adjunct for two graduate programs on young adult literature.
Jennifer Ansbach has taught high school English for over 25 years. She is currently finishing her PhD in American Studies at Rutgers University, working at the intersection of YA literature and social justice. When she’s not reading and writing, she can be found wrangling her rescued English springer spaniels from whatever chaos they are creating.
Maggie Coyne is a middle school teacher who has worked for 18 years to get books into the hands of her students so they can experience falling in love with the right book at the right time. And it’s a two-way street: she is an avid reader who thought she hated fantasy and graphic novels until her students convinced her to try them! You can find her most often with a book in one hand and coffee in the other.
Sarah Mulhern Gross is a National Board certified teacher at a STEM-focused high school in NJ. She has degrees in English and biology, because science+humanities will save the world some day!
Amanda Harrison is an assistant professor in the Educational Technology and Library Sciences department at the University of Central Missouri. Before academia, she was part of the 2006 Teach for America, Chicago cohort and has worked as a school librarian in Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. Current and ongoing interests include school libraries, global librarianship, critical pedagogies, and diversity in children’s literature.
Dr. Julie Hoffman is a Literacy and Social Studies Teacher Instructional Leader (TIL) with Springfield Public Schools in Illinois. She is also an adjunct professor in the Teacher Education Program at University of Illinois Springfield. Her research interests include urban education, social and emotional learning, children’s literature, and empathy. She is an advocate for the underserved and unheard. She believes that children’s literature and poetry can be a message of perseverance and hope. Her passion is to help students who have experienced trauma find healing, resilience, and empowerment through their own writing and the writing of others.
Sarah Krajewski teaches 12th grade English and Journalism near Buffalo, New York. She is currently in her 22nd year of teaching, and is always looking for new, creative ways to encourage her students to read and write. At school, she is known for helping students become lifelong readers, and for being a devoted reader herself who “knows her books.” You can follow Sarah on Twitter @shkrajewski.
Jennifer LaGarde is a lifelong teacher and learner with over 20 years in public education. Her educational passions include leveraging technology to help students develop authentic reading lives, meeting the unique needs of students living in poverty and helping learners (of all ages) discern fact from fiction in the information they consume. Jennifer is the coauthor of the books Fact VS Fiction: Teaching Critical Thinking In the Age of Fake News (ISTE, 2018) and Developing Digital Detectives (ISTE, 2021) with Darren Hudgins. Subscribe to their free monthly information literacy newsletter here! A huge fan of YA Literature, Jennifer currently lives, works, reads and drinks lots of coffee in Olympia, Washington. Follow her adventures at http://www.librarygirl.net or on Twitter @jenniferlagarde.
Cindy Minnich is a high school librarian and English teacher from Central Pennsylvania.
Nerdy Book Club 
Thanks so much for including PEDRO & DANIEL!