2022 YA Award Winners

"That book. It was about two womenm and they fell in love with each other." And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: "have you ever heard of such a thing?" Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called...

"Nima doesn't feel understood. By her mother, who grew up far away in a different land. By her suburban town, which makes her feel too much like an outsider to fit in and not enough like an outsider to feel like that she belongs somewhere else. At least she has her childhood friend Haitham, with whom she can let her guard down and be herself. Until she doesn't. As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life...

Moth, who lost her family in an accident, and Sani, who is battling ongoing depression, take a road trip that has them chasing ghosts and searching for ancestors, which helps them move forward in surprising, powerful and unforgettable ways.

Near-future Australia is controlled by Organicore, a company that produces the "perfectly balanced" synthetic meals that have all but replaced wild food, but Piper McBride, sixteen, deaf, and cued white, begins to wonder if wild food is as dangerous as Organicore's propaganda says.

"After being dumped at the beginning of freshman year, Iranian-American Parvin Mohammadi sets out to win the ultimate date to Homecoming"--

When seventeen-year-old Star Fuentez reaches social media stardom, her polar-opposite twin, Moon, becomes "merch girl" on a tour bus full of beautiful influencers and the grumpy but attractive Santiago Philips.

Told in two voices, Pen, whose dream of taking over her family's restaurant has been destroyed, and Xander, a new, undocumented, employee seeking his father, form a bond.

""The first thing I can remember," Ben said, "I drew." As an observant young child growing up in Lithuania, Ben Shahn yearns to draw everything he sees-and, after seeing his father banished by the Czar for demanding workers' rights, he develops a keen sense of justice, too. So when Ben and the rest of his family make their way to America, Ben brings with him both his sharp artistic eye and his desire to fight for what's right. As he grows, he speaks...

"Celebrated author Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrator Floyd Cooper provide a powerful look at the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the worst incidents of racial violence in our nation's history"--

As her father lies gravely ill with pancreatic cancer, eighteen-year-old Victoria's last hope is to find a vampire in New Orleans, an impossible mission that rekindles a special friendship.