But there’s another kind of book too: the non-issue book.

Almost invariably white (as college education was very difficult for Mexican Americans to access), many of these teachers found theirs an “undesirable” placement and were quick to underestimate the abilities of their students. When I asked for recommendations at my local library, I got pointed towards Alex Haley and Malcolm X…great men and writers, but not quite what I was looking for. That’s okay. Take a math problem as an example. Wash’s days as a womanizer come to an end when he meets Naomi Vargas, a beautiful and painfully shy high school senior who has just moved to New London with her younger twin half-siblings, Beto and Cari (short for Roberto and Caridad).

From there, I began to imagine what it would be like for a Mexican American teenager to enter the black-and-white community of New London. It means I know the sour taste of huckleberries and the smell of marionberry cobbler baking in an oven. In 2002 he won the Kodak/Liverpool Film Festival Award for his script, No Trace.

Lectures about Hell. The Bluford Series is a collection of contemporary young adult novels set in the fictional inner-city high school of Bluford High. This book sounds both adorable and impossible cute, and we can't wait to get our hands on it. Imagine that. Sometimes books were windows, giving me opportunities to learn about someone else’s experience. Demands that the two of them break up. Sign up for the BuzzFeed Books newsletter. For those aspiring kids who, for far too long, were unable to find the books and writers that represent them, there are resources. Newspaper stories often used dehumanizing terms like “wretch,” “fiend,” and “desperado” to refer to the victims.

What it's about: Yvonne is on the verge of graduating, and the only thing she feels certain about his her passion for playing violin.

The rationale for that “threat” seems to hinge on the notion that black bodies should not be in (what the killers consider) white spaces. It means I know the beauty of majestic mountains in my rearview mirror as I drive through the city. We don’t mention treatment. While this book reads quick, each word pounds straight into your heart. I remember when email became a thing (yes, I’m THAT old). With increased web presences, a bunch of writers opened up a new corridor of accessibility by adding a simple “contact” link. Diversity and queer representation shine on the pages through Kann's writing, penning a touching story with memorable, authentic characters. I’m not recovered 100%, and I don’t think many eating disordered people ever are, and Etta, though she’s deep in recovery for the entire book, probably won’t be.

Norris … The school students loved debating this stuff and teachers said it was the first time they had had an opportunity within school to talk like this, there were no YA novels that gave UK black identity anything more than a token examination. The gaps in the historical record on the New London school explosion catalyzed my imaginings of the two characters whose fictional story is at the center of Out of Darkness: Washington Fuller and Naomi Vargas. Acevedo's characters feel like people you've known for ages. Not so this time. She loved the book, specifically the character Panda, who reminded her of herself, and wasn’t a stereotypical sidekick to a more important dominant character, and she hopes to be a writer someday. At one of Manhattan’s most elite ballet schools, wafer-thin ballerinas pull their hair into sleek buns and lace their pointe shoes high, waiting for their chance to shine. One humid August afternoon many years ago, a 12-year-old girl huddled in the corner of a staircase, weeping. Issue books, especially the ones written for marginalized young adults struggling to come of age in a world that too often tells them they are deviant in some way, are crucial. In high school, my English teacher, Mrs. Christensen, introduced me to myself through novels and poetry. But in my momentary rage-cloud, I missed the really important part of what M said. When someone contacted you through your AOL Account, a perfectly chipper synthesized voice announced, “You Have Mail.” If you’re not ancient, like me, this probably sounds like nonsense. While email might be doing a slow fade, I’m so happy it hasn’t gone away completely. I needed a space to process what was happening in my neighborhood. Certain laws, such as the Native and Negro Reeducation Act, have been enacted to train children like Jane so they can learn to kill the walking dead. You can find her online at www.alexandra-duncan.com. Naomi may be able to attend a better school in East Texas, but in the absence of stores that cater to Mexican Americans, she faces blatant hostility when she tries to buy groceries at the one New London general store. It’s showing the possibilities.

The reverse might happen at Physical Education. There is a freedom to being misread, or not read at all. If you’re an ordinary reader, you don’t have to wait to show your support for books that show the world as it is. This family-focused YA contemporary promises to be full of both strength and heart.

In Being Me, Adele and Mikaela are best friends and worst enemies. Yet, even with that feeling, I still wanted to go out and enjoy these new places. It only took a total overhaul of the way the world communicated to make it possible. At that time, I left the classroom and did not return until I moved back to Texas eight years later. He is learning to tightrope walk. Don’t get me wrong…it was important to me at an early age that my baby dolls’ skin was reminiscent of my own, but that was easy because they were available. An illness that makes seven years feel like absolutely nothing. After being at the school for a few months, I was secretly dismayed by the lack of varied diversity at the school, and by the social dynamics. Her picture book, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen (Random House, 2010), is based on poetry workshops she facilitated with children in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and was featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. I enjoyed his first novel, Thunderland, a great deal and I told him so, via email.

Get it from Amazon for $17.99 Barnes & Noble for $17.99, or a local bookseller through Indiebound here.

“Ugh. One of my best friends from middle school is Vietnamese. I should have known that even with all of that going for her, things wouldn’t be as easy or perfect as they seemed. Still, that doesn’t stop her from outperforming every dancer in the school. In this new YA, the Allegedly-author seems to yet again promise a story full of twists, turns, and high suspense.