As a teenager, it is enjoyable to fall in love with a character or a world and want to keep reading about it. This is exactly what trilogies for teenagers are designed to do: keep teens engaged from one book to the next, continuing a story through several installments. Many of these story arcs involve the complexities of self-discovery, and no matter whether the setting is Earth, space, or somewhere else entirely, the strength of the protagonist shines through. In this book list, readers will find a selection of trilogies written for teens ages 13-18. Taking place in a variety of settings, there is always something more to discover in these titles. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
In The 5th Wave, Cassie finds herself in a world devastated by an alien attack, desperate to save herself and find her lost brother. As the onslaught from the Others—the beings that look human and kill anyone they see—continues, Cassie’s mission is to stay alone and stay alive. But then she meets Evan Walker, who may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother–or even saving herself. Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, defiance and surrender, life and death. Book 1: The 5th Wave; Book 2: The Infinite Sea; Book 3: The Last Star
Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters–the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known. The series tells the exploits of Karou, who struggles to come to terms with the truth about who and what she is and her role in an ancient war that is still being waged. Book 1: Daughter of Smoke & Bone; Book 2: Days of Blood & Starlight; Book 3: Dreams of Gods & Monsters
Lee Westfall, a young woman with the magical ability to sense the presence of gold, must flee her home to avoid people who would abuse her powers, so when her best friend Jefferson heads out across Gold Rush-era America to stake his claim, she disguises herself as a boy and sets out on her own dangerous journey. Book 1: Walk on Earth a Stranger; Book 2: Like a River Glorious; Book 3: and Into the Bright Unknown
Caught in the crossfire of a megacorporation rivalry in 2575, Kady and Ezra, who have just broken up, flee their home planet on an evacuation ship that is quickly overwhelmed by a fast-spreading plague. Book 1: Illuminae; Book 2: Gemina; Book 3: Obsidio
Tom, a fourteen-year-old genius at virtual reality games, is recruited by the United States Military to begin training at the Pentagon Spire as a Combatant in World War III, controlling the mechanized drones that do the actual fighting off-planet. Book 1: Insignia; Book 2: Vortex; Book 3: Catalyst
In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, fifteen-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy. Presents the complete Legend trilogy as well as two original short stories that shed light on the lives of June and Day before they met. Book 1: Legend; Book 2: Prodigy; Book 3: Champion
March (Trilogy)
By: John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis’ personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book 1: March Book One; Book 2: March Book Two: Book 3: March Book Three
All her life, Cassia has never had a choice. The Society dictates everything: when and how to play, where to work, where to live, what to eat and wear, when to die, and most importantly to Cassia as she turns 17, whom to marry. When she is Matched with her best friend Xander, things couldn’t be more perfect. But why did her neighbor Ky’s face show up on her match disk as well? Book 1: Matched; Book 2: Crossed; Book 3: Reached
A hundred years in the future, New York is a city of innovation and dreams. Everyone there wants something, and everyone has something to lose. Leda is addicted to drugs she never should have tried, and a boy she never should have touched. Eris faces a betrayal that will tear her family apart. Rylin’s job leads to a new romance and a new life—at the cost of her old one. Watt is a tech genius hired to spy on an upper-floor girl and caught in a web of lies. Avery is genetically designed to be perfect; she has it all—except the one thing she can never have. Book 1: The Thousandth Floor; Book 2: The Dazzling Heights; Book 3: The Towering Sky
A sixteen-year-old girl is caught in an epic clash of civilizations when a society of undersea warriors marches out of the ocean into modern-day Coney Island. Book 1: Undertow; Book 2: Raging Sea; Book 3: Heart of the Storm
In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives “unwound” and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs—and, perhaps, save their own lives. Book 1: Unwind; Book 2: UnWholly; Book 3: UnSouled
An aristocratic girl who is a member of a warmongering and enslaving empire purchases a slave, an act that sets in motion a rebellion that might overthrow her world as well as her heart. Book 1: The Winner’s Curse; Book 2: The Winner’s Crime; Book 3: The Winner’s Kiss
Families come in all shapes and sizes, and they do not always include parents and their biological children. Sometimes, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and even great-grandparents are included in the mix, creating a canvas of experience that shapes children’s lives. The books included in this list are selected to celebrate families that include intergenerational relationships in honor of September, which is Intergeneration Month. Ideally suited to readers ages 8-12, these stories can be shared within families to recognize shared experience or understand more about the lives of others. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
When two brothers decide to prove how brave they are, everything backfires—literally.
Bob
By: Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead
Illustrated by: Nicholas Gannon
Visiting her grandmother in Australia, Livy is reminded of the promise she made five years before to Bob, a strange, green creature who cannot recall who or what he is.
Since her father’s death, Cat has taken care of her brother, Chicken, for their hard-working mother. But, while spending time with grandparents they never knew, Cat has the chance to be a child again.
Even though his awful Great-Aunt Gertrudis doesn’t approve, Micah believes in the stories his dying Grandpa Ephraim tells him of the magical Circus Mirandus: the invisible tiger guarding the gates, the beautiful flying bird woman, and the magician more powerful than any other—the Man Who Bends Light. Finally, Grandpa Ephraim offers proof. The Circus is real. And the Lightbender owes Ephraim a miracle. With his friend Jenny Mendoza in tow, Micah sets out to find the Circus and the man he believes will save his grandfather. The only problem is, the Lightbender doesn’t want to keep his promise. And now it’s up to Micah to get the miracle he came for.
Twelve-year-old Frankie Joe Huckaby, forced to live with the father he never knew, a stepmother, and four half-brothers in Illinois, starts a delivery service to finance his escape back to his mother in Texas, not realizing he is making a better life for himself than he ever had with her.
After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.
To battle giant robots and stop his evil grandmother from destroying Earth, Hap Conklin, Jr. will need the help of his family, friends, and some very unlikely allies.
Twelve-year-old Candice Miller is spending the summer in Lambert, South Carolina, in the old house that belonged to her grandmother, who died after being dismissed as city manager for having the city tennis courts dug up looking for buried treasure. But, when she finds the letter that sent her grandmother on the treasure hunt, Candice finds herself caught up in the mystery and, with the help of her new friend and fellow book-worm, Brandon, she sets out to find the inheritance, exonerate her grandmother, and expose an injustice once committed against an African American family in Lambert.
Twelve-year-old Ellie, who has cerebral palsy, finds her life transformed when she moves with her mother to small-town Oklahoma to help care for her grandfather, who has Alzheimer’s Disease.
After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother’s route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.
Twelve-year-old Trevor Firestone loves playing war-based video games, and he idolizes his great-grandfather Jacob who came home from World War II a celebrated hero. Jacob, now ninety-three, wants to retrace his journey in memory and reality and return to the small French village that his unit liberated, and Trevor is going with him. Not everyone in the town wants Jacob to come, however, and Trevor is going to learn an important lesson: real war is not a video game, and valor and heroism can be very murky.
Charlie Reese is sent to live with a family she barely knows, but with the help of a skinny stray dog who captures her heart and a neighbor boy named Howard, she learns what the real meaning of family may be.
Mustafa By: Marie-Louise Gay
Reviewer: Uma Krishnaswami
Simple, elegant, and deeply child-centered, this is the story of how Mustafa, a child refugee from an unnamed country in crisis, finds a friend in his new home. The country he arrives in is unnamed as well. The setting is urban, offering the relief of a green park safe enough for a child to venture into on his own. The delight of this book lies in its close adherence to its small hero’s perspective, both in the choice of words and in the finely rendered multi-media illustrations. The new world is so different from the one Mustafa has left, and there is so much here that seems incomprehensible. Slowly, his terrible experiences of war and brokenness find expression when he draws in the sand. Drawings become the vehicle as well for the first overture of friendship from a girl who is only named on the very last two-page spread. At first Mustafa hesitates to respond and that, too, is perfectly pitched. Every detail is placed with painstaking intention, leaving plenty of room for interpretation by a child reader. It seems no coincidence that music is an element of both Mustafa’s initial invisibility, his foreignness, and his ultimate recognition. Clear, simple dialogue, repetition, and a child’s eye for the small details of setting lead cumulatively from confusion and distrust to the healing warmth of friendship. Gay manages to shine a loving light on many facets of a new immigrant’s experience—not only on how children cope with the traumas of displacement but also where the ingredients of comfort might be found.
Families are different and so are our relationships with our cousins. Cousins can be friends, foes, distant, or close. This list of middle grade and YA books highlight cousin relationships.
When Woodrow’s mother suddenly disappears, he moves to his grandparents’ home in a small Virginia town where he befriends his cousin, and together they find the strength to face the terrible losses and fears in their lives.
Tabitha’s parents send her on a hiking trip with her cousins, but even though Tabitha is not much of a hiker and she is almost certain that her cousins do not like her, the trip gives Tabitha the chance to prove her courage, to her cousins and to herself.
When Margie’s cousin Lupe comes from Mexico to live in California with Margie’s family, Lupe must adapt to America, while Margie, who thought it would be fun to have her cousin there, finds that she is embarrassed by her in school and jealous of her at home.
As the daughter of biracial parents, fourteen-year-old Staggerlee already feels like an outsider in her largely African-American community, and a summer with her cousin Trout during which both girls question their sexuality, allows Stagerlee to think about the type of person she can become.
To get away from her pregnant stepmother in New York City, fifteen-year-old Daisy goes to England to stay with her aunt and cousins, with whom she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks out and rips apart the family while devastating the land.
When Ted and Kat’s cousin Salim disappears from the London Eye Ferris wheel, the two siblings must work together–Ted with his brain that is “wired differently” and impatient Kat–to try to solve the mystery of what happened to Salim.
Sixteen-year-old Danny searches for his identity amidst the confusion of being half-Mexican and half-white while spending a summer with his cousin and new friends on the baseball fields and back alleys of San Diego County, California.
While spending the summer with Aunt Ursa and her fourteen-year-old cousin Foley, twelve-year-old Nell is happy to be in the company of her cousin and his friend Slade until they ask her to hide a pistol in her old doll house.
Fifteen-year-old Marne is excited to be able to spend her summer vacation in Hawaii, not realizing the change in her lifestyle it would bring staying with her aunt, seven cousins, and uncle who is a Chasidic rabbi.
