Families are anything but perfect, but the stories they share are what makes the world beautiful and vibrant. Under the right circumstances, family members confide deep-rooted truths in one another, allowing them to connect more deeply than they could have done before. Often, these connections grow between adult caregivers and their wards, but sometimes they occur between siblings, as well. This book list includes titles for teens ages 13-18 and highlights various family relationships in several unique circumstances. Through these novels, readers can learn more about themselves and the world around them.
Contributed by: Mary Lanni

	13 Little Blue Envelopes By: Maureen Johnson When seventeen-year-old Ginny receives a packet of mysterious envelopes from her favorite aunt, she leaves New Jersey to criss-cross Europe on a sort of scavenger hunt that transforms her life.
	I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade By: Diane Lee Wilson In early fourteenth-century China, Oyuna tells her granddaughter of her girlhood in Mongolia and how love for her horse enabled her to win an important race and bring good luck to her family.
	Lock and Key By: Sarah Dessen When her alcoholic mother abandons her, high school senior Ruby winds up living with Cora, the sister she has not seen for ten years. There, Ruby learns about Cora’s new life, what makes a family, how to allow people to help her when she needs it, and that she too has something to offer others.
	Mare’s War By: Tanita S. Davis Teens Octavia and Tali learn about strength, independence, and courage when they are forced to take a car trip with their grandmother, who tells about growing up Black in 1940s Alabama and serving in Europe during World War II as a member of the Women’s Army Corps.
	McKendree By: Sandra Belton In 1948, while spending the summer with her aunt in West Virginia to find her family roots, Tilara begins visiting the “colored” old folks’ home called McKendree, makes new friends, and learns to love herself.
	Our Wayward Fate By: Gloria Chao Seventeen-year-old Ali is simultaneously swept up in a whirlwind romance and down a rabbit hole of family secrets when another Taiwanese family moves into tiny, predominantly-white, Plainhart, Indiana.
	Secrets of the Casa Rosada By: Alex Temblador Sixteen-year-old Martha’s life is transformed when her mother leaves her in Laredo, Texas, in 1990 with a grandmother she never knew, who is a revered curandera.
	Shadows on the Sea By: Joan Hiatt Harlow In 1942, fourteen-year-old Jill goes to stay with her grandmother on the coast of Maine, where she is introduced to the often gossipy nature of small-town life and discovers that the war is closer than she thought.
	We Walked the Sky By: Lisa Fiedler Seventeen-year-old Victoria escapes an abusive father by joining the VanDrexel Family Circus in 1965. Fifty years later, her writings guide her granddaughter, sixteen-year-old Callie, in facing the uncharted waters of public high school.
	What the Moon Saw By: Laura Resau Fourteen-year-old Clara Luna spends the summer with her grandparents in the tiny, remote village of Yucuyoo, Mexico, learning about her grandmother’s life as a healer, her father’s decision to leave home for the United States, and her own place in the world.
	Witch & Curse By: Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié Holly Cather is sent to her aunt’s home in Seattle after the death of her parents, and there she and her twin cousins, Amanda and Nicole, become caught up in an intergenerational feud between rival clans of witches.
	You Can Pick Me Up at Peggy’s Cove By: Brian Doyle When Ryan’s father leaves the family during a midlife crisis, his mother sends him to spend the summer with his aunt in Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, where he learns to fish and gets into trouble.

Secrets are everywhere…but by their very nature, they are seldom seen. In some cases, secrets bring people together by sharing something unique; in other cases, secrets push people away through their inherent alienation. Regardless of their intent, secrets are coveted, sometimes shielding their carriers from unwanted attention. This book list is intended for readers aged 12-18 and includes titles based in both everyday and magical versions of the world. No matter where humans find themselves, secrets seem to never be far behind.
Contributed by: Mary Lanni

	All About Mia By: Lisa Williamson One family, three sisters. Grace, the oldest, is a straight-A student. Audrey, the youngest, is a future Olympic swimming champion. Mia is in the middle. Mia is wild and daring, great with hair and selfies, and the undisputed leader of her friends, not attributes appreciated by her parents or teachers. When Grace makes a shock announcement, Mia hopes that her now-not-so-perfect sister will get into the trouble she deserves. But instead, it is Mia whose life spirals out of control — boozing, boys and bad behaviour — and she starts to realise that her attempts to make it ‘All About Mia’ might put at risk the very things she loves the most.
	American Panda By: Gloria Chao A freshman at MIT, seventeen-year-old Mei Lu tries to live up to her Taiwanese parents’ expectations, but no amount of tradition, obligation, or guilt prevent her from hiding several truths–that she is a germaphobe who cannot become a doctor, she prefers dancing to biology, she decides to reconnect with her estranged older brother, and she is dating a Japanese boy. Can she find a way to be herself, before her web of lies unravels?
	Eliza and Her Monsters By: Francesca Zappia In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and friendless. Online, she’s LadyConstellation, the anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves the online one, and she has no desire to try. Then Wallace Warland, Monstrous Sea’s biggest fanfiction writer, transfers to her school. Wallace thinks Eliza is just another fan, and as he draws her out of her shell, she begins to wonder if a life offline might be worthwhile. But when Eliza’s secret is accidentally shared with the world, everything she’s built, her story, her relationship with Wallace, and even her sanity begins to fall apart.
	Every Heart a Doorway By: Seanan McGuire Children have always disappeared from Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere … else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced … they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter. No matter the cost.
	Four Secrets By: Margaret Willey Through journal entries required by their social worker at a juvenile detention center, middle-schoolers Katie, Nate, and Renata relate how they came to kidnap their tormentor, Chase, a star athlete from the town’s most prominent family, who surprisingly became their willing victim.
	Keeping You a Secret By: Julie Anne Peters As she begins a very tough last semester of high school, Holland finds herself puzzled about her future and intrigued by a transfer student who wants to start a Lesbigay club at school.
	Openly Straight By: Bill Konigsberg Tired of being known as “the gay kid”, Rafe Goldberg decides to assume a new persona when he comes east and enters an elite Massachusetts prep school–but trying to deny his identity has both complications and unexpected consequences.
	Peanut By: Ayun Halliday and Paul Hoppe Nervous about starting her sophomore year at a new high school, Sadie decides to make herself more interesting by claiming to be allergic to peanuts, but her lie quickly spirals out of control.
	Secret Keeper By: Mitali Perkins In 1974 when her father leaves New Delhi, India, to seek a job in New York, Ashi, a tomboy at the advanced age of sixteen, feels thwarted in the home of her extended family in Calcutta where she, her mother, and sister must stay, and when her father dies before he can send for them, they must remain with their relatives and observe the old-fashioned traditions that Ashi hates.
	The Secret Sky: A Novel of Forbidden Love in Afghanistan By: Atia Abawi Two teens from different ethnic groups in present-day Afghanistan must fight their culture, tradition, families, and the Taliban to stay together as they and another village boy relate the story of their forbidden love.
	Speak By: Laurie Halse Anderson A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda’s freshman year in high school.
	The Undoing of Thistle Tate By: Katelyn Detweiler Seventeen-year-old Thistle Tate, a bestselling author with glowing reviews, diehard fans across the globe, and more, struggles with secrets that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect world.

Our teen summer reading list includes essential summer settings. Recommended towards ages 13 and up.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

	Camp So-and-So By: Mary McCoy Twenty-five girls are invited to attend the mysterious Camp So-and-So over the summer where they work with their cabin mates to compete in the All-Camp Sports 7 Follies.
	Girls of July By: Alex Flinn Told from separate perspectives, four girls, Britta, Meredith, Kate, and Spider, only two of whom had met before, spend an unforgettable July with Spider’s aunt in the Adirondacks.
	Girl Out of Water By: Laura Silverman When her aunt gets into a car accident, Anise is forced to leave her friends and surfing behind to spend the summer in Nebraska to help care for her cousins, and by doing so, forms familial bonds and new friendships that challenge her feelings of abandonment by her mother.
	Happy Messy Scary Love By: Leah Konen Olivia plans to spend her summer in the Catskills, binge-watching horror movies and chatting with her online friend Elm. But, things get complicated when she sends Elm her best friend’s picture, and she runs into the last person she thought she would ever see in real life.
	Harlem Summer By: Walter Dean Myers In 1920s Harlem, sixteen-year-old Mark Purvis, an aspiring jazz saxophonist, gets a summer job as an errand boy for the publishers of the groundbreaking African American magazine, “The Crisis,” but soon finds himself on the enemy list of mobster Dutch Shultz.
	In a Perfect World By: Trish Doller When her mother has the chance to establish an eye clinic for the poor in Cairo, Egypt, seventeen-year-old Caroline reluctantly gives up her plans for a summer spent with her best friend and boyfriend and instead moves to Cairo, where she encounters a culture and city that enchants her and a charming boy who challenges her thoughts on love, faith, and privilege.
	We Were Beautiful By: Heather Hepler Fifteen-year-old Mia’s scarred face is a constant reminder of the car crash that killed her sister, but a summer at her grandmother’s Manhattan apartment and new friends help her find happiness again.
	We Were Liars By: E. Lockhart Spending summers on her family’s private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer.
	When Dimple Met Rishi By: Sandhya Menon When Dimple Shah and Rishi Patel meet at a Stanford University summer program, Dimple is avoiding her parents’ obsession with “marriage prospects,” but Rishi hopes to woo her into accepting an arranged marriage with him.