Hello and happy Saturday. You have been (willingly or unwillingly) following me and my struggle have my students fall in love with reading by providing them with books that are somewhat relatable to their reality, that have been written by diverse authors and that portray diverse characters, and that are current. I am very close to accomplishing the goal of bringing said books to my students because I can have the head of the library order them. Both my boss and the head of the library have to approve the books, so it’s not like they’re going to be bought just because I said they should, but I’m hopeful that at least some of the titles suggested by me will reach the bookshelves. I started with a very long list, and I was able to reduce it to fifteen books, which I’d like to share with you because maybe you have a teen in your life or you want to read books that readers in that age range enjoy. I’ll make a three-part series, so here’s the first installment.

Ghost by Jason Reynolds

I think this book is incredibly powerful, especially for those kids who have been labelled as “troublemakers.” It is short, and it makes you want to keep reading it, which is great because it shows young readers that this can be an entertaining activity and it gives them a sense of accomplishment when they finish the book. I also love that this is the first book in a series because it has the potential to hook readers, getting them to read not one but four novels. Jason Reynolds is a Black author, and Ghost is about a Black boy in the United States, and I think through this novel the author shows a reality that traditional media often hides or exaggerates, which is key for me because I’m teaching English to my students, but I am also teaching them about the societies in which English is a first language, and how not everything is the way it’s portrayed on TV and movies.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

I will never get tired of recommending this book to anyone and everyone. I even have a series of resources that I made about this novel, which are sold through my Teachers Pay Teachers store. This is a great tool when teaching students about the Holocaust because it does not sugar-coat any attrocities that took place but it is not unnecessarily dense. Lowry understood that her readers are young and that they are probably just learning about the Holocaust. This is a book that can easily become a favorite, and that I hope that, like me, people read over and over again throughout the years. I still keep and deeply cherish the copy I read when I was in sixth grade.

Fish In a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

I already wrote a review about this book, so go ahead and click here to read it.

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

While I’ll suggest the previous books on this list to people who are probably just getting into reading, I wouldn’t suggest Turtles All the Way Down as a first. I would even suggest that you read other books by John Green before going into this one because in many ways it is unlike anything this author has written. I don’t remember if there is an on-page diagnosis of the main character, but there are explicit descriptions of her showing obsessive-compulsive tendencies. This is why even though I am adding this book as a “must,” I encourage you, as always, to look for trigger and content warnings, and to avoid it if you consider that it could be harmful to read it. I read this book either in 2019 or 2020, and I did so over two days. It destroyed be, but I couldn’t stop reading it, and if I were tasked with recommending a John Green book to someone, it’d be this, hands down.

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevine

I remember where I was when I read this book and how I felt while reading it. We were on vacation, and I chose to read this under a fan over going to the pool or baking under the sun. I remember I felt like I didn’t want it to end, as I kept reading, only stopping to eat or to go to the bathroom. This book is about death and what happens after you die. Think of it as The Good Place but from the POV of a teenager and without people lying about what The Good Place actually is. It was simply beautiful, and I actually hope the school buys it so that I can reread it.