Vlahos, Len. The Scar Boys. 2014.
Harry Jones was horribly disfigured in a childhood accident and despite years of therapy, he has never been able to move beyond his scarred appearance until he plays with The Scar Boys, a punk rock band.
2015 William C. Morris Award finalist

Waid, Mark, and Paul Azaceta. Potter’s Field. 2011.
A mysterious man sets out on a mission to name the unnamed dead in New York City’s Potter’s Field cemetery.

Weeks, Sarah. As Simple As It Seems. 2010.
Eleven-year-old Verbena Polter gets through a difficult summer of turbulent emotions and the revelation of a disturbing family secret with an odd new friend she meets in her small Catskill town, who believes she is the ghost of a girl who drowned many years before.

Weil, Cynthia. I’m Glad I Did. 2015.
It’s 1963 in New York City and sixteen-year-old JJ Green defies her parents by getting a summer job at the Brill Building, the musical epicenter for rock and roll. While writing music and trying to get one of her songs recorded, JJ must content with a murder and a romance.

Wilson, Daniel H. Robopocalypse: a novel. 2011.
Two decades into the future, humans are battling for their very survival when a powerful AI computer goes rogue, and all the machines on earth rebel against their human controllers.
2012 Alex Award

Wiseman, Eva. The World Outside. 2014.
Chanie Altman, an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn, is expected to live by many rules, but she dreams of becoming an opera singer (a forbidden profession). When a tragedy disrupts the life she has always known, she has to make a choice.

Wood, Brian and Riccardo Burchielli. DMZ. 2006.
DMZ presents the adventures of aspiring photojournalist Matty Roth. Roth lands his dream job following a veteran war correspondent who is covering the second American civil war, and the two journey into Manhattan, the heart of the DMZ.

Wood, Brian and Ryan Kelly. Local. 2008.
Local is a collection of twelve interconnected short stories, each featuring Megan McKeenan, a young woman who sets out from Portland, Oregon, with a rucksack and a bad case of wanderlust. This graphic novel is set in twelve real life cities, including New York.

Wood, Brian, Ryan Kelly, and Jared K. Fletcher. The New York Four. 2008.
Just starting her freshman year at NYU, Riley is about to find out what an adventure – and a mystery – living in New York City can be. The ultimate insider’s guide to NYC is seen through the eyes of Brooklyn-born Riley.

Woodson, Jacqueline. After Tupac & D Foster. 2010.
In 1996 Queens, two girls become friends through the music of Tupac Shakur; the music continues to touch their lives as they deal with their families and their futures.
2009 Newbery Honor

Wright, Bil. Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy. 2011.
Sixteen-year-old Carlos Duarte is on the verge of realizing his dream of becoming a famous make-up artist, but first he must face his jealous boss at a Macy’s cosmetics counter, his sister’s abusive boyfriend, and his crush on a punk-rocker classmate.
2012 Stonewall Book Award

Yolen, Jane. Briar Rose. 1992.
A deathbed promise to her grandmother takes Rebecca on a journey to discover the truth behind the woman’s claim that she is Briar Rose. A chilling variation on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale set in multiple locations, including Oswego, New York, which once served as a haven for Holocaust survivors.

Ziegelman, Jane. 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement. 2010.
Writing about food, Ziegelman relates the stories of five immigrant families who lived at 97 Orchard between 1863 and 1935. The book includes 40 recipes. 97 Orchard currently houses the Tenement Museum in New York City.

Taylor, Kim. Bowery Girl. 2006.
Two orphaned teenage girls in New York’s tenements in 1883 realize that their dream of saving enough money to move to Brooklyn across the newly built bridge may be achieved if they learn new trades at a nearby settlement house, rather than continuing their lives of prostitution and stealing.

Thoms, Annie. With Their Eyes: September 11th: The View From a High School at Ground Zero. 2011.
In response to September 11, the students of New York City’s Stuyvesant High School, which is located just blocks from Ground Zero, staged a powerful theatrical event. Inspired by Anna Deavere Smith’s interview-based monologue performances, the students talked with peers, faculty, and others in their community about personal responses to the tragedy. Based on the transcripts of those conversations, the students created the monologues that are collected here with photographs of the performers, as well as excellent introductions by Smith and Thoms, the teacher who initiated the project.

Torrey, E. Fuller. Ride with the Loomis Gang. 1997.
An adaptation of the author’s Frontier Justice: Rise and Fall of the Loomis Gang. It chronicles the exploits of the legendary Loomis Gang, a group of more than 200 men who terrorized central New York State during the mid-1800s.

Trigiani, Adriana. The Shoemaker’s Wife. 2012.
Enza and Ciro meet at the turn of the 20th century as teens in the Italian Alps. Through unfortunate circumstances, both are forced to immigrate to America, and they find each other again in New York City. A wonderful depiction of the immigrant experience and of New York City during the early 20th century.

 

Sabar, Ariel. Heart of the City: Nine Stories of Love and Serendipity on the Streets of New York. 2011.
Nine real-life stories about couples who met in some of New York City’s iconic locations. Postscripts at the end of the book relate how the relationships turned out.

Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican. 2006.
The author recalls the hardships and joys of her life with humor and poignancy, from her childhood in Puerto Rico to her move to a very different life in Brooklyn, and, finally, to her admission to the High School of Performing Arts.

Sedgwick, Marcus. She Is Not Invisible. 2014.
A blind London teenager and her younger brother travel to New York to find their missing father, using clues from his notebook.

Serle, Rebecca. The Edge of Falling. 2014.
Caggie’s life of privilege in Manhattan seems perfect, but she blames herself from her younger sister’s death and doesn’t want to be known as a hero when she saves a classmate from suicide. A new friend, though, causes her to reexamine her past.

Sheldon, Dyan. Sophie Pitt-Turnbull Discovers America. 2005.
While spending the summer in Brooklyn with her mother’s former schoolmate, Sophie, a sheltered English teenager, makes new and unlikely friends and finds a new side to her formerly “dull and passive” personality.

Shorto, Russell. Island at the Center of the World. 2005.
This fascinating and very readable history of Manhattan draws on 17th-century Dutch records that were recently translated by scholar Charles Gehring.

Silver, Charlotte. The Summer Invitation. 2014.
When Franny and Valentine are asked to spend a summer with their aunt Theodora in New York City, they unearth secrets about Aunt Theo’s romantic past and have a few romantic adventures of their own.

Slouka, Mark. Brewster. 2013.
Teenagers Jon and Ray dream of escaping from their dysfunctional and even dangerous parents in their rural New York town in this novel set in 1969. Themes of friendship and violence reflect the tensions of the Vietnam War.
2014 Alex Award
2013 School Library Journal Best Books Adult Books for Teens

Smith, Jennifer E. The Geography of You and Me. 2014.
Lucy Patterson and Owen Buckley meet on a stuck elevator during a New York City blackout. As their lives diverge, Lucy and Owen stay in touch and try to find a way to reunite.

Spollen, Anne. Light Beneath Ferns. 2010.
Upon moving to her mother’s upstate New York home after her gambler father leaves, ninth-grader Elizah just wants to be left alone. She then meets Nathaniel in the cemetery where her mother is caretaker and feels instantly drawn to him.

Staub, Wendy Corsi. Lily Dale: Awakening. 2007.
When seventeen-year-old Calla’s mother suddenly dies, she goes to stay with her psychic grandmother in Lily Dale, a spiritualist community in western New York, where she discovers some disconcerting secrets about her practical, down-to-earth mother, and realizes that she herself may also have some psychic abilities.

Swerling, Beverly. City of Dreams: a novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan. 2002.
In 1661, a brother and sister stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven perilous weeks at sea to seek a new life in the Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam. Bound to each other by blood and necessity, these gifted healers become deadly enemies as betrayal and murder enter their lives. Their descendents – dedicated physicians and surgeons, pirates and more – will shape the future of medicine and the growing city.