A mysterious and noteworthy place, the Middle East has not always been viewed favorably. However, as the birthplace of modern civilization, the Middle East has shaped modern society. The books in this list are selected for young adult readers and feature authors and characters from and settings within the Middle East. Realistic fiction and fantasy tell stories that connect young adult readers of all backgrounds with this unique part of the world.
Contributed by: Mary Lanni

	Does My Head Look Big in This? By: Randa Abdel-Fattah Year Eleven at an exclusive prep school in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, would be challenging enough. Still, it is further complicated for Amal when she decides to wear the hijab, the Muslim headscarf, full-time as a badge of her faith—without losing her identity or sense of style.
	Down and Across By: Arvin Ahmadi His friends know what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but Scott Ferdowsi can hardly commit to a breakfast cereal, let alone a passion. With his parents pushing him to settle on a “practical” career, Scott sneaks off to Washington, DC, seeking guidance from a famous psychologist who claims to know the secret to success. He meets Fiora Buchanan, a ballsy college student whose life ambition is to write crossword puzzles. Now Scott is sneaking into bars, attempting to pick up girls at the National Zoo, and even giving the crossword thing a try. Will he be able to find out who he is—and who he wants to be?
	An Ember in the Ashes By: Sabaa Tahir Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars claiming that they will help save her brother from execution.
	A Girl Like That By: Tanaz Bhathena In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, sixteen-year-old half-Hindu/half-Parsi Zarin Wadia is the class troublemaker and top subject for the school rumor blogs, regularly leaving class to smoke cigarettes in cars with boys. Still, she also desperately wants to grow up and move out of her aunt and uncle’s house, perhaps realizing too late that Porus, another non-Muslim Indian who risks deportation but remains devoted to Zarin, could help her escape.
	The Glass Collector By: Anna Perera A fifteen-year-old boy lives amongst the rubbish piles in Cairo’s slums and collects broken glass while hoping to find a future he can believe in.
	Habibi By: Naomi Shihab Nye Fourteen-year-old Liyanne Abboud, her younger brother, and her parents move from St. Louis to a new home between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where her father was born. There, they face many changes and must deal with the tensions between Jews and Palestinians.
	Mirage By: Somaiya Daud In a star system dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, sixteen-year-old Amani is a dreamer. She dreams of what life was like before the occupation; she dreams of writing poetry like the old-world poems she adores; she dreams of receiving a sign from Dihya that she, too, will have adventure and travel one day beyond her isolated moon. But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and taken in secret to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is nearly identical to the cruel half-Vathek Princess Maram. The princess is so hated by her conquered people that she requires a body double, someone to appear in public as Maram, ready to die in her place. As Amani is forced into her new role, she can’t help but enjoy the palace’s beauty and her time with the princess’s fiancé, Idris. But the glitter of the royal court belies a world of violence and fear, and one wrong move could lead to her death.
	Rebel of the Sands By: Alwyn Hamilton Amani is desperate to leave the dead-end town of Dustwalk, and she’s counting on her sharpshooting skills to help her escape. But after she meets Jin, the mysterious rebel running from the Sultan’s army, she unlocks the powerful truth about the desert nation of Miraji…and herself.
	Rebels by Accident By: Patricia Dunn Mariam, a troubled teenage Egyptian American, is sent to live with her grandmother in Cairo. There, she meets Asmaa, a girl who calls Egypt’s people to protest against their president. Now Mariam finds herself in the middle of a revolution and falling in love for the first time.
	A Very Large Expanse of Sea By: Tahereh Mafi A year after 9/11, Muslim teenager Shirin has completely withdrawn from social life until she meets Ocean James in her biology class and is tempted to actually let her guard down.
	We Hunt the Flame By: Hafsah Faizal Zafira, who disguises herself as a man to become The Hunter, and Nasir, an assassin for his father, the sultan, are both seeking a lost artifact that could return magic to their cursed world.
	Where the Streets Had a Name By: Randa Abdel-Fattah Thirteen-year-old Hayaat of Bethlehem faces checkpoints, curfews, and the travel permit system designed to keep people on the West Bank when she attempts to go to her grandmother’s ancestral home in Jerusalem with her best friend.

The Halloween season is the perfect time to read spooky stories. Nights are getting colder and longer and mentions of ghosts seem to be everywhere. Ghost stories are often associated with campfires, marshmallows, and bumps in the night. But sometimes, a ghost story is best read alone. This book list includes twelve riveting ghost stories, all written for readers ages 13-18. Varying in length, style, and level of fright, teen readers who enjoy ghost stories are sure to find a new favorite on this list.
Contributed by: Mary Lanni

	The Agony House By: Cherie Priest Illustrated by: Tara O’Connor Seventeen-year-old Denise Farber, her mom, and her stepfather are moving back to New Orleans, into the Argonne house, which is over 100 years old and showing its age, but her mother plans to turn into a bed-and-breakfast. But, old houses have histories, sometimes ghosts, and a mysterious old comic book that Denise finds in the attic may hold the answer to a crime and the terrifying things that keep happening in what she thinks of as the “Agony” house.
	Anna Dressed in Blood By: Kendare Blake For three years, seventeen-year-old Cas Lowood has carried on his father’s work of dispatching the murderous dead, traveling with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. But, everything changes when he meets Anna, a girl unlike any ghost he has faced before.
	Anya’s Ghost By: Vera Brosgol Anya, embarrassed by her Russian immigrant family and self-conscious about her body, has given up on fitting in at school. However, falling down a well and making friends with the ghost there just may be worse.
	The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall By: Katie Alender Sixteen-year-old Cordelia and her family move into the house they just inherited in Pennsylvania, a former insane asylum the locals call Hysteria Hall. Unfortunately, the house does not want defiant girls like Delia, so it kills her. As she wanders the house, meeting the other ghosts and learning the dark secrets of the Hall, she realizes that she has to find a way to save her sister, parents, and perhaps herself.
	The Girl from the Well By: Rin Chupeco Okiku has wandered the world for centuries, freeing the innocent ghosts of the murdered-dead and taking the lives of killers with the vengeance they are due. But when she meets Tark, she knows the moody teen with the series of intricate tattoos is not a monster and needs to be freed from the demonic malevolence that clings to him.
	I am Alfonso Jones By: Tony Medina Illustrated by: Stacey Robinson and John Jennings The ghost of fifteen-year-old Alfonso Jones travels in a New York subway car full of the living and the dead, watching his family and friends fight for justice after he is killed by an off-duty police officer while buying a suit in a Midtown department store.
	In the Shadow of Blackbirds By: Cat Winters In San Diego in 1918, as deadly influenza and World War I take their toll, sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches desperate mourners flock to seances and spirit photographers for comfort and, despite her scientific leanings, must consider if ghosts are real when her first love, killed in battle, returns.
	Long Way Down By: Jason Reynolds There are three rules in the neighborhood: Don’t cry; Don’t snitch; Get revenge. Will takes his dead brother Shawn’s gun and gets in the elevator on the 7th floor. As the elevator stops on each floor, someone connected to Shawn gets on. Someone already dead. Dead by teenage gun violence. And each has something to share with Will.
	Mary: The Summoning By: Hillary Monahan Teens Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna follow all the rules, but when their summoning circle is broken, the vengeful spirit of Bloody Mary slips through. As the girls struggle to escape Mary’s wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are changed forever.
	Pemba’s Song: A Ghost Story By: Marilyn Nelson and Tonya Hegamin As fifteen-year-old Pemba adjusts to leaving her Brooklyn, New York, home for small-town Connecticut, a Black history researcher helps her understand the paranormal experiences drawing her into the life of a mulatto girl who was once a slave in her house.
	A Room Away From the Wolves By: Nova Ren Suma Teenage Bina runs away to New York City’s Catherine House, a young women’s residence in Greenwich Village with a tragic history and dark secrets, where she is drawn to her mysterious downstairs neighbor Monet.
	Shutter By: Courtney Alameda Seventeen-year-old Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat, able to see ghosts in color and capture them on film. But when a routine hunt goes awry, Micheline is infected with a curse known as a soulchain, and if she is unable to exorcise the entity in seven days, she will be destroyed, body and soul.