8 Books for High Schoolers with a Strong Sense of Justice

One of River’s best friends, Dylan, died a year ago, the fatal consequence of responding to a text while driving, and much to River’s frustration, his complex and beloved friend has been reduced to a PSA on a local billboard: “DON’T DREXT LIKE DYLAN DID.”

The novel opens amid a mild scandal at school: someone has vandalized Dylan’s billboard, painting a mustache on his portrait, and River seems to be the only one who loves it, knowing Dylan would have found it hilarious. But River’s not coping well with the loss, and he’s been isolated since Dylan died, especially from his former best friend Mavis, who happens to be Dylan’s former girlfriend.

When a mysterious organization, Affinity Mind and Body, recruits students for a research study on teenagers who are struggling socially, River could not possibly be less interested. But when he’s blackmailed into participating by a student who suspects River painted the mustache on Dylan’s billboard, he finds himself living on campus for a week with several other students, including his blackmailer and . . . Mavis.

Something seems off about the study, however, and as River and his fellow participants try to figure out what it is, they discover an unexpected community and uncover important truths about the night Dylan died.

Couch tells a compelling and relatable story about friendship, grief, loneliness, and the surprise of discovering romantic feelings for someone you’ve always considered to be just a friend.

The novel does include profanity, including in the first chapter. Be aware of this before selecting the title for a First Chapter Friday.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

Ten years ago, Malik raced home from a Fourth of July celebration to discover cloaked strangers surrounding his mother. In his fear and shock, he manifested a mysterious wind current, his mother was swallowed up by a bolt of green light, and a swirling ribbon of blue light shot from him, exploding everything in sight.

Losing his mother led to years in the foster system, where Malik met his foster brother Taye, and when the novel opens, Malik is on a mission to rescue Taye from an abusive foster home. Things quickly go awry, however, and Malik finds himself outside a gas station, reading a letter from the grandmama he didn’t know he had, inviting him to stay with her in New Orleans.

Malik quickly learns that the mysterious lights from ten years ago are manifestations of magic, and there is an entire world of magic he was completely unaware of, one his mother belonged to before she started dabbling in dangerous dark magic. At his grandmama’s insistence, Malik enrolls at Caiman University, an HBCU for Black students with magical abilities.

As Malik adjusts to his new world, new abilities, and new friends, he hears about a series of disappearances in the surrounding Black communities while also having nightmares about a mysterious group that he begins to suspect has something to do with his mother’s disappearance ten years ago.

Williams grew up during the explosion of the young adult genre when Twilight, The Hunger Games, and Percy Jackson topped the bestseller lists. He loved fantasy, but didn’t see himself and his friends depicted in these magical worlds, and so he set out to write his own book that “let Black boys be the heroes of their own stories.” 

We love the world he created and the way he made the conventions of the “magical teen” genre his own, infusing Southern culture and Black culture, creating something that feels entirely new (and very modern). We think many students will love the book, and we’re glad Williams wrote the book he longed to read.

Do be aware that there is heavy use of profanity in the novel, which means we would probably not recommend it to middle school students.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Children’s, and Labyrinth Road for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

Buckmire wrote his novel in response to a question from his younger brother in 2020, amidst the pandemic and the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd’s murder: “How do I not become another hashtag?”

The novel tells the story of Reed and Olive, half-white and half-Black siblings living in Brooklyn, who have two unjust run-ins with police officers in which they are falsely accused, mistreated, and injured. Their father is a criminal defense attorney who has educated them on their rights and strategies they can use to stand up for themselves and de-escalate these situations, which the siblings use in their encounters. While they do come home safe on both occasions, the injustices have lasting effects on both of them.

The book’s purpose is clearly to educate rather than to entertain, so as a work of fiction, it comes across as awkward and message-driven. But in his author’s note, Buckmire, a public defender himself, explains that his novel “began as a tool to help young people learn their rights and spark a conversation.” And in this, it certainly succeeds.

There is a wealth of information in the novel about the rights Americans have in any encounter with police, how to de-escalate these encounters when they become confrontational, and ultimately, to “come home safe.” The narrative is engaging, and it’s heartbreaking to see the unjust way Reed and Olive are treated, knowing that this is a reality for many men, women, and children in America. It’s also appropriate for middle and high school students, allowing teachers to explore questions of social justice without worrying about objectionable content.

Thank you NetGalley, Zonderkidz-Books, and Blink for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

Eli lives in urban London with his best friends Sunny and Max. Eli has magical powers, and the three friends live in a magical safehouse that doubles as a Caribbean restaurant.

In the first part of the novel, Eli saves a young man who was attacked in the street, and a piece of the young man’s magic transfers to him. This is how the healing process works, but there’s something different about this bit of magic he has to navigate while also working with his friends to recover a magical artifact, the fang of the leopard god Osebo.

In Part 2 of the novel, we meet Malcolm: a young man whose father is a notorious high-ranking figure in the realm of dark magic. Malcolm and his father have been estranged ever since Malcolm’s father left Malcolm to care for his mother, who has early-onset dementia.

The two young men’s paths intertwine as the novel continues, and the search for the leopard fang becomes increasingly dangerous. The farther they go in their pursuit of it, the more it becomes clear that there are family secrets and injustices to be uncovered and resolved.

We enjoyed this window into the world of Caribbean folklore, and we think students will be engaged by the high-stakes adventure these magical teens find themselves in.

The novel does include profanity.

Thank you NetGalley, Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing, and Athenium Books for Young Readers for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

Darius Logan lives in a world that was devastated by an alien attack and is now protected by the Super Justice Force, a team of superheroes and crime fighters led by Captain Freedom. But ever since his parents and brother died in The Attack, Darius hasn’t felt particularly protected. He stayed with an abusive uncle for a while, and then he spent years bouncing around the foster system.

Unfortunately, Darius had a few run-ins with the law while part of the foster system, so when Darius is caught with drugs in his possession and assaults a police officer, he’s headed to prison.

That is, until Captain Freedom himself invites Darius to join Second Chance, a program that tries to rehabilitate criminals by providing jobs and career training to convicted felons. They don’t ordinarily take on people before they’re sentenced to prison, but they make an exception in Darius’s case, and he’s quickly moved into the Super Justice Force headquarters and placed under the supervision of Manny, another Second Chancer, on the night shift.

As Darius adjusts to his new world, he finds himself interacting with the superheroes and supervillains he’s read about in comic books, and it’s not long before he makes friends and becomes a valuable part of the community.

When a traitorous attack threatens everything Darius has come to love, it’s up to him and his new friends to save the world.

Out of curiosity, we looked up David F. Walker, and his writing experience has largely been in comics (Marvel and DC), which makes perfect sense. His comic book world is rich, interesting, and utterly delightful, and we loved following along with Darius and his friends as they attempted to save the world. The book will appeal to a wide range of students and would be appropriate for middle and high schoolers.

Thank you NetGalley and Scholastic for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

If you’ve got true crime lovers, Cooper’s nonfiction deep dive into the Kids for Cash scandal in Pennsylvania in the early 2000s will make a great addition to your classroom library.

Cooper introduces readers to Judge Mark Ciavarella, known for handing out excessively harsh sentences for juvenile offenders in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Numerous children and teenagers brought before his bench were sentenced to years in juvenile detention facilities for crimes as minor as using a Sharpie to vandalize a street sign. His sentences were arbitrary: one girl was directed to count the buttons on her shirt and sentenced to prison for that number of years.

Behind Ciavarella’s harsh sentences is an even greater injustice. He and fellow judge Michael Conahan went into business with two other men, essentially becoming investors in the juvenile detention center where they were sending all these children. Of course, the fuller the detention center was, the more money the men made.

Cooper details the injustices committed in the courtroom and behind the scenes and the long-term impact these harsh sentences had on the children and their families. It’s hard not to feel angry at the injustices that were allowed to happen, and the focus on juvenile justice will appeal to many students.

Thank you NetGalley, Astra Publishing House, and Calkins Creek for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

J. Albert Mann attempts to do for the labor movement what Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds did for the history of racism in America in Stamped, providing a thorough retelling of the history of labor in the United States that directly appeals to teenagers.

Mann’s history is expansive, beginning with Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus and tracing labor’s history in the United States up to the present. The chapters are short, but her bibliography and source notes are extensive, and she tries to provide quotations directly from primary sources and newspapers of the time period. The labor movement isn’t always a focus in history classes (we certainly learned quite a bit from Mann’s book), and we appreciate the effort to make this part of history accessible and appealing to young people.

That being said, however, Mann lacks the scholarly credibility of Kendi and doesn’t share Reynolds’s natural ability to connect to teenagers, which does merit mentioning, especially since it’s being marketed directly to readers of Stamped. 

Mann has a clear perspective and she presents a fairly one-sided view of history in which the heroic workers stand up to the villainous capitalists. There is, certainly, a lot of truth in what she has to say, but it’s oversimplified in a way that could cause problems in some communities. 

Her attempts to “write like a teenager” (including the use of profanity) feel a bit awkward, though they get significantly better as the book goes along.

We do think this is a worthwhile read for students, particularly those who are interested in history, but you’ll want to be aware of the social/political leanings of your community prior to recommending.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Children’s Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

Henry’s novel opens with Milan getting kicked out of her third boarding school since her father died in a car accident and her mother took over his seat in the Senate. Milan blames herself for her father’s accident since he was arguing with her when it happened, and her deep homesickness has made it difficult for her to thrive at school.

Her mom picks her up on her private plane, but before they can land in Portland, a bomb goes off and the plane crashes in the wilderness. Milan is the only survivor, but just before her mother dies, she tells Milan that her father’s accident wasn’t an accident and the same person is responsible for killing them both. She directs Milan to find a flash drive of important files at their home and get it to her godfather, the only person she can trust.

Milan’s efforts to survive and discover the truth about her parents’ murderer intertwines with the perspective of the killer’s efforts to track Milan and a story about environmental damage done by a fracking company, the truth Milan’s father was working to uncover when he died.

Henry’s novel is a quick and engaging read that will appeal to many students, particularly those who love suspense. 

Thank you NetGalley, Christy Ottaviano and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.