Summer Booklists

LOOKING FOR A GREAT SUMMER READ? CHECK OUT THESE BOOK LISTS!

Bloomberg 10 Books for a Summer Reading List

Business Insider 20 Books Bill Gates Says You Should Read This Summer

Bustle 32 New Fiction Books Coming Out This Summer That You’ll Definitely Want In Your Travel Bag

Buzzfeed 30 Summer Books to Get Excited About

Coastal Living The Best New Books for Summer 2018

Elle Magazine The 40 Best Books to Read This Summer

Entertainment Weekly Summer 2018 Book Preview: 7 Thrillers You Need to Read This Summer

LOOKING FOR A GREAT SUMMER READ? CHECK OUT THESE BOOK LISTS!

Bloomberg 10 Books for a Summer Reading List

Business Insider 20 Books Bill Gates Says You Should Read This Summer

Bustle 32 New Fiction Books Coming Out This Summer That You’ll Definitely Want In Your Travel Bag

Buzzfeed 30 Summer Books to Get Excited About

Coastal Living The Best New Books for Summer 2018

Elle Magazine The 40 Best Books to Read This Summer

Entertainment Weekly Summer 2018 Book Preview: 7 Thrillers You Need to Read This Summer

Entertainment Weekly Summer 2018 Book Preview: The Best Beach Reads for Vegging Out

Entertainment Weekly The 10 Best Books of 2018… So Far

Esquire The 20 Smart Books You’ll Want to Read at the Beach This Summer

Esquire The Best Nonfiction Books of 2018 (So Far)

Esquire The Best Books of 2018 (So Far)

Fodor’s 22 New Books to Read on Your Summer Vacation

Fortune 8 Business Books That Are Actually Great Summer Beach Reads

Glamour Magazine The 17 Best Books to Read This Summer

Good Housekeeping The 25 Best New Books for Summer 2018

Harper’s Bazaar The 15 Best Beach Reads of 2018

Indie Next Summer 2018 List for Reading Groups

InStyle 11 Books to Bury Your Nose In This Summer

LitHub The Ultimate Summer Books Preview

New York Magazine 10 Book Editors on What They’re Reading for Fun This Summer

New York Magazine The Best Books of the Year (So Far)

New York Magazine 18 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer

New York Times 17 Refreshing Books to Read This Summer

New York Times 73 Books to Read While the Sun Is Out and the Days Are Long

Newsday Best Summer Books 2018

Newsweek The 50 Coolest Books to Read This Summer: 2018’s Best Fiction and Non-Fiction (So Far)

Nylon 46 Great Books to Read This Summer

Oprah Magazine Top Books of Summer

Parade Magazine The Top 26 Hottest Books of Summer 2018

People Magazine The Best Summer Books

Popsugar This Summer’s Hottest New Books for Every Type of Reader

Popsugar The 25 Best New Books to Put in Your Beach Bag This Summer

Publishers Weekly Summer Reads 2018

Real Simple 7 Authors on the Books They’re Packing for Their Summer Vacations

Southern Living The Best New Books Coming Out Summer 2018

Time Magazine Best Novels of 2018 So Far

Time Magazine Best Nonfiction Books of 2018 So Far

Time Magazine 22 New Books to Read This Summer

Town & Country 16 Books to Read This Summer

USA Today 10 Hot Books for Summer Reading

Vanity Fair Summer Reading: This Season’s Ultimate Fiction List

Vogue Magazine 13 Books to Thrill, Entertain, and Sustain You This Summer

Washington Post The 39 Books We’re Talking About This Summer

 

 

Explore New York! Authors V-Z

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.

Explore New York! Authors T

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.

 

Explore New York! Authors S

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.

 

Explore New York! Authors R

Racculia, Kate. Bellweather Rhapsody. 2014.
A high school music festival goes awry when a young prodigy disappears from the most infamous room in the Bellweather Hotel in a town in New York State.
2015 Alex Award Winner

Raphael, Marie. Streets of Gold: a novel. 2001.
After fleeing Poland and conscription in the Russian czar’s army, Stefan and his sister Marisia begin a new life in America on the Lower East Side of New York City at the turn of the century.

Revai, Cheri. Haunted Northern New York: True, Chilling Tales of Ghosts in the North Country. 2002.
This work presents a collection of ghostly stories and strange phenomena of Upstate New York, including haunted cemeteries, Ruby’s castle in Watertown, and many more.

Reynolds, Jason. When I Was the Greatest. 2014.
Ali lives in Bed-Stuy, a Brooklyn neighborhood known for guns and drugs, but he and his sister, Jazz, and their neighbors, Needles and Noodles, stay out of trouble until they go to the wrong party, where one gets badly hurt and another leaves with a target on his back.
2015 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Winner

Rosoff, Meg. Picture Me Gone. 2013.
Mila travels with her father to upstate New York to visit friends and family, looking for clues to the whereabouts of her father’s best friend, who has gone missing.

Rostan, Andrew, Kate Kasenow, and Dave Valeza. An Elegy for Amelia Johnson. 2010.
In her thirty years on earth, Amelia Johnson has touched many lives with her compassion, intelligence, and spirit. Now, at the end of a year-long battle with cancer, she asks her two closest friends to take her final messages to the people around New York State who have touched her life the most.

Rifka Brunt, Carol. Tell the Wolves I’m Home. 2012.
This book takes place in 1987 New York, following fourteen-year-old June Elbus and her uncle, the renowned painted Finn Weiss. June can only be herself in Finn’s company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies of a mysterious illness, June’s world is turned upside down.
2013 Alex Award

Rudetsky, Seth. Seth’s Broadway Diary, Volume 1. 2014.
Seth Rudetsky has worked as the music director and/or pianist for some of Broadway’s biggest stars. He spent years as a pianist on Broadway playing such shows as Les Miz, The Producers, and Ragtime, and currently divides his time between being the afternoon deejay on the SiriusXM Broadway challen/host of “Seth Speaks” and touring North America doing his show Deconstructing Broadway.

Explore New York! Authors N-O-P-Q

Nelson, Vaunda Micheaux. No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller. 2012.
The owner of Harlem’s National Memorial African Bookstore, Lewis Michaux, was passionate about knowledge. His bookstore became a legendary influence on people worldwide.
2013 Coretta Scott King Honor

New York Times Company. Sultans of Swat: The Four Great Sluggers of the New York Yankees. 2006.
Traces the careers of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle from the perspective of their love of the game and their significant contributions to the Yankee’s history and tradition.

Ockler, Sarah. Bittersweet. 2014.
Hudson Avery gave up a promising career in figure skating after her parents divorced. Now she spends her time baking cupcakes and helping out in her mother’s upstate New York diner, but when she gets a chance at a scholarship and starts coaching the boys’ hockey team, she realizes that she is not through with skating after all.

Pfeffer, Susan Beth. The Dead and the Gone. 2010.
After a meteor hits the moon and sets off a series of horrific climate changes, seventeen-year-old Alex Morales must take care of his sisters alone in the chaos of New York City.

Preston, Caroline. The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: a novel in pictures. 2011.
For her graduation from high school in 1920, Frankie Pratt receives a scrapbook and her father’s old Corona typewriter. Through a kaleidoscopic array of vintage postcards, letters, magazine ads, ticket stubs, catalog pages, fabric swatches, candy wrappers, fashion spreads, menus, and more, we meet and follow Frankie on her journey in search of success and love.
2012 Alex Award

Quinonez, Ernesto. Bodega Dreams: a novel. 2000.
The book features a cast of memorable characters, including dim-witted Neno, who can’t complete a sentence without quoting a song lyric; the drug runner and possible hit man, Sapo, who would rather be flying a kite from the top of the tenement; and cameo appearances by real artists and poets. But at the heart of everything is Willie Bodega, a former Young Lord who has become the biggest drug lord of them all.

 

Explore New York! Authors M

Mack, Tracy. Birdland. 2003.
Thirteen-year-old Jed spends Christmas break working on a school project filming a documentary about his East Village, New York City, neighborhood, where he is continually reminded of his older brother, Zeke, a promising poet who died the summer before.

Manzano, Sonia. The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano. 2012.
In New York City’s Spanish Harlem in 1969, fourteen-year-old Evelyn is trying to spread her wings and break free from her conservative family. When her activist grandmother comes to stay, she finds life getting more complicated and dangerous.
2013 Pura Belpré Award

Marshall, Paule. Brown Girl, Brownstones. 2009.
This book centers on the daughter of Barbadian immigrants living in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Selina Boyce is caught in the middle of her parents’ differing views of her future. Her mom wants Selina to get an American education, while her dad dreams of returning to Barbados. Along with her parental woes, the heroine must deal with the poverty and racism that surrounds her.

Marsico, Katie. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: Its Legacy of Labor Rights. 2010.
New York City’s garment district was at its heyday during the Industrial Revolution. Then, tragedy struck in 1911, when hundreds of laborers – mostly women – died, primarily because of their crowded and unsafe work environment. Afterward, a trial helped bring about changes for children, women, and laborers everywhere.

McCann, Jim. Mind the Gap Volume 1: Intimate Strangers TP. 2012.
This graphic novel is a mystery taking place in New York City with a paranormal twist. Elle, in a spirit form detached from her comatose body, must not only unravel the mystery of her attacker’s identity and motive, but her entire life as well. Who can she trust, in both this world and in the gap she exists that lies between life and death?

McCreight, Kimberly. Reconstructing Amelia. 2013.
In this mystery/thriller, Kate tries to prove that her fifteen-year-old daughter, Amelia, didn’t jump from the roof of her prestigious Brooklyn private school. The story is told in alternating voices, Kate’s and Amelia’s, as well as through text messages, Facebook updates, and blog posts revealing that the teen was involved with a secret club.
2013 School Library Journal Best Books Adult Books for Teens

McCulloch, Derek. Gone to Amerikay. 2012.
In this graphic novel, Ciara O’Dwyer is a young woman raising a daughter alone in the Five Points slums of 1870; Johnny McCormack is a struggling actor drawn to the nascent folk music movement in 1960 Greenwich Village; and Lewis Healy is a successful Irishman who’s come to present-day Manhattan on his wife’s anniversary-present promise to reveal a secret.

McNeal, Laura and Tom McNeal. Zipped. 2003.
At the end of their sophomore year in a small town high school outside Syracuse, New York, the lives of four teenagers are woven together as they start a tough new job, face family problems, deal with changing friendships, and find love.

Medina, Meg. Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass. 2014.
Piddy Sanchez’s life is turned upside down when she finds out that Yaqui Delgado wants to kick her ass. While struggling to deal with the threat on her own, Piddy explores her identity, her culture, and the role of others in her life. A powerful story about bullying and resilience, set in a Queens school.
2014 Pura Belpré Author Award Winner

Mercer, Paul and Vicki Weiss, for the Friends of the New York State Library. The New York State Capital and the Great Fire of 1911. 2011.
In the early morning hours of March 29, 1911, a fire broke out in the New York State Capital at Albany. Within the building lay the entire collection of the New York State Library, almost completely reduced to ashes. The authors have included recently discovered photographs documenting the original construction of the building, beginning in 1867, as well as eyewitness accounts of its destruction.

Miller, Barnabas. Rock God: The Legend of B.J. Levine. 2012.
After moving to New York City, thirteen-year-old B.J. Levine decides he’s going to become the next big rock star, despite his lack of musical talent.

Monir, Alexandra. Timekeeper. 2013.
Philip Walker is a new student at Michele Windsor’s high school and he seems to be the love she lost when they said goodbye during her time travels. He does not remember her or the Philip Walker of 1910. Michele must thwart her nemesis and deal with Philip’s reappearance in this sequel to Timeless.

Monir, Alexandra. Timeless. 2012.
When tragedy strikes Michele Windsor’s world, she is forced to uproot her life and move across the country to New York City, to live with her wealthy, aristocratic grandparents. There, she discovers a diary that sends her back to the year 1910.

Montalvan, Luis Carlos with Bret Witter. Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him. 2011.
The story of how two wounded warriors, one soldier and one golden retriever, who had given so much and suffered the consequences, found salvation in each other. It is a story about war and peace, injury and recovery, psychological wounds and spiritual restoration.

Moriarty, Chris. The Watcher in the Shadows. 2013.
In early 20th-century New York, as thirteen-year-old Sacha Kessler, the Inquisitor’s apprentice, faces enemies old and new that threaten him and his family, he changes his mind about learning magic.

Myers, Walter Dean. Darius & Twig. 2013.
Darius and Twig are an unlikely pair: Darius is a writer whose only escape is his alter ego, a peregrine falcon named Fury, and Twig is a middle-distance runner striving for athletic success. But they are drawn together in the struggle to overcome the obstacles that Harlem life throws at them.
2014 Coretta Scott King Honor Book
2014 Notable Children’s Book

Myers, Walter Dean. Game. 2008.
If Harlem high school senior Drew Lawson is going to realize his dream of playing college, then professional, basketball, he will have to improve at being coached and being a team player, especially after a new – white – student threatens to take the scouts’ attention away from him.

Myers, Walter Dean. Lockdown. 2010.
Reese needs to stay on track to get early release from the Progress juvenile detention facility in the Bronx.
2011 Coretta Scott King Author Honor
2015 YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults Top Ten

Myers, Walter Dean. 145th Street: Short Stories. 2000.
Myers uses ten short stories to create snapshots of a pulsing, vibrant community with diverse ethnic threads.
2001 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

 

Explore New York! Authors F-G

Farnsworth, Cheri. Haunted Hudson Valley: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of New York’s Sleepy Hollow Country. 2010.
Contains accounts of paranormal activity in and around New York’s Hudson River Valley, including hauntings, ghosts, and UFOs.

Finney, Jack. Time and Again. 1995.
This novel is about an experiment that causes 20th century illustrator Si Morley to step out of the Dakota apartment building into the streets of 1882 New York.

Fredericks, Mariah. The Girl in the Park. 2012.
When the body of Wendy Gellar is found in Central Park one Sunday morning, everyone is quick to blame Wendy’s notorious partying habits. Everyone, that is, except her old friend, Rain, who takes it upon herself to find out what really led to the death of her friend.

Friedman, Aimee. The Year My Sister Got Lucky. 2008.
When Katie and Michaela Wilder move from New York City to upstate rural New York, Katie has a hard time fitting in – and getting accustomed to local culture, like friendly neighbors and cows that need to be milked. Michaela, though, becomes the town’s social belle, loving her new life and her new country friends. Can they ever be as close as they once were?

Gansworth, Eric. If I Ever Get Out of Here. 2013.
Set in 1975, this coming of age story explores the cross-cultural friendship of Lewis Blake, a Native American teen living on the Tuscarora Reservation in Western New York, and George Haddonfield, a military kid from a nearby Air Force base.

Gillies, Isabel. Starry Night. 2014.
Fifteen-year-old Wren and her three lifelong best friends are celebrating the opening of a major exhibit curated by her father at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when Wren finds first love with her brother’s new friend, Nolan. The relationship transforms her and her life.

Godbersen, Anna. The Luxe. 2008.
In Manhattan in 1899, five teens of different social classes lead dangerously scandalous lives, despite the strict rules of society and the best-laid plans of parents and others.

Greene, Meg. Elena Kagan. 2014.
This biography of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan covers her growing up in New York City to her roles at the White House and more.

Gregory, Kristiana. Stalked. 2011.
When Rikke Svendsen, a fifteen-year-old Danish servant, arrives at Ellis Island in 1912, she realizes that a fellow passenger is stalking her. In the chaos of immigration and trying to flee from him, she is unable to meet her family in Racine, Wisconsin, and ends up stranded in New York City.

Grimes, Nikki. Bronx Masquerade. 2002.
While studying the Harlem Renaissance, students at a Bronx high school read aloud poems they’ve written, revealing their innermost thoughts and fears to their formerly clueless classmates.
2003 Coretta Scott King Author Award
2003 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

Gruber, Ruth. Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America. 2000.
Gruber, a journalist during World War II, accompanied 1,000 refugees from Nazi-controlled Europe who came to Oswego, New York, as guests of the United States government.

Explore New York! Authors C-E

Carter, Graydon and David Friend (Eds.). Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair. 2014.
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter introduces these fabulous pieces written between 1913 and 1936, when the magazine published a murderers’ row of the world’s leading literary lights. Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers and Swells features great writers on great topics, including F. Scott Fitzgerald on what a magazine should be, Clarence Darrow on equality, D.H. Lawrence on women, e.e. cummings on Calvin Coolidge, John Maynard Keynes on the collapse in money value, Dorothy Parker on a host of topics ranging from why she hates actresses to why she hasn’t married … and more!

Cataneo, D.M. Eggplant Alley. 2013.
Living in the Bronx in 1970, thirteen-year-old Nicky must cope with personal and societal upheavals.

Carvell, Marlene. Who Will Tell My Brother? 2004.
During his lonely crusade to remove offensive mascots from his high school, a Native American teenager learns more about his heritage, his ancestors, and his place in the world.

Capo, Fran. It Happened in New York City: Remarkable Events that Shaped History. 2010.
This book contains accounts of notable people and events in the history of New York City, including Jenny Lind’s first concerts in 1850, the 1906 trial of Harry Thaw for the murder of architect Stanford White (called the Trial of the Century!), and the demolition of the Pennsylvania Station in 1963.

Castle, Jennifer. You Look Different in Real Life. 2013.
Five kids in upstate New York have been the subject of documentaries recording their lives every five years. Now as teens, they spend a weekend together to try and figure out their lives.

Chance, Megan. An Inconvenient Wife. 2005.
In this gripping account of historical fiction, the author exposes the horrors women faced during the late 19th century in New York when they dared to show passion of any kind or repudiate society’s norms. Lucy Carleton suffers from a common female disorder, “hysteria”: its symptoms are headaches, excitable reactions and feelings of claustrophobia. Her cold-hearted husband, William, determined to find her a cure, brings her to several specialists, who recommend everything from an ovariotomy to several months of confinement in a private asylum.

Chartrand, Rene. Ticonderoga 1758: Montcalms’ Victory Against All Odds. 2000.
In July 1758, the British launched an expedition against the French Fort of Carillon (Ticonderoga). Lord Howe, a popular British leader, was killed before the main battle began; the Black Watch regiments were decimated; the British retreated in near panic and the fort remained in the hands of the French.

Cloonan, Becky. East Coast Rising. Volume 1. 2006.
After a pirate attack leaves him drifting at sea, young Archer joins the notorious Cannonball Joe on the East Coast’s fastest ship and finds himself facing off against the feared pirate Captain Lee and other dangers from the deep.

Cofer, Judith Ortiz. Call Me María. 2004.
Fifteen-year-old María leaves her mother and Puerto Rico to live in New York City with her father. There, though, she feels torn between two cultures. Can she learn to embrace life in the barrio?

Cohn, Rachel and David Levithan. Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares. 2010.
Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a New York City bookstore shelf. Dash finds it and the two begin a correspondence through the book, sharing dares and dreams. Will they ever connect in person?

Cook, Kevin. Kitty Genovese: the murder, the bystanders, the crime that changed America. 2014.
Kevin Cook examines the truths and myths surrounding the life and death of Kitty Genovese, a native Brooklynite who was murdered in Kew Gardens in 1964.

Cooney, Caroline B. Code Orange. 2005.
While conducting research for a school paper on smallpox, Mitty finds an envelope containing 100-year-old smallpox scabs. Has he infected himself and all of New York City?

Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans.
This exciting adventure story is set during the Seven Year’s War fought between France and England in North America. Hawkeye and his American Indian companions become involved in the bloody war.

Cooper, James Fenimore. The Spy.
Written in 1821, this historical novel is Cooper’s paean to the Revolutionary War. Protagonist Harry Birch finds himself wrongly accused of selling vital information to the British.

Crane, Stephen. Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, and Other Tales of New York.
This is a compilation of thirteen stories set in New York in the late 1800s, including the story of Maggie, a girl of the tenements, whose life turns downward when she becomes involved with a boy named Pete.

Cremer, Andrea R. The Inventor’s Secret. 2014.
In an alternate nineteenth-century America that is still a colony of Britain’s industrial empire, Charlotte and her fellow refugees’ struggle to survive is interrupted by a newcomer with no memory, bearing secrets about a terrible future.

Cremer, Andrea. Invisibility. 2013.
To break his curse of invisibility, a New York City boy is helped by a girl, newly arrived from the Midwest, who is the only one who can see him.

Dabel, Jane I. A Respectable Woman: The Public Roles of African American Women in 19th-Century New York. 2008.
In the nineteenth-century, New York’s free blacks were extremely politically active, lobbying for equal rights at home and an end to southern slavery. As their activism increased, so did discrimination against them. However, the struggle for civil rights did not extend to equal gender roles, and black male leaders encouraged women to remain in the domestic sphere, serving as caretakers, moral educators, and nurses to their families and community.

Davies, Jacqueline. Lost. 2009.
In 1911 New York City, sixteen-year-old Essie Rosenfeld must stop taking care of her irrepressible six-year-old sister when she goes to work at the Triangle Shirt Waist Company, where she befriends a missing heiress who is in hiding from her family and who seems to understand the feelings of heartache and grief that Essie is trying desperately to escape.

Demas, Corinne. Everything I Was. 2011.
When Irene’s father is “downsized,” her family must move from New York City’s Upper West Side to upstate New York. But what Irene is sure will be the most disastrous summer in her life becomes the start of a wonderful new life.

Donnelly, Jennifer. A Northern Light. 2004.
In 1906, sixteen-year-old Mattie, determined to attend college and be a writer against the wishes of her father and fiancé, takes a job at a summer inn where she discovers the truth about the death of a guest. This novel is based on a true story.
2004 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

Dorfman, Ariel and Joaquín. Burning City. 2005.
Sixteen-year-old Heller Highland, who is living with his grandparents while his parents are away, burns rubber across Manhattan delivering bad news by bicycle, and as a summer heat wave melts the city, he is struck by first love.

Duble, Kathleen Benner. Quest. 2008.
Relates the events of explorer Henry Hudson’s final voyage from four points of view: that of his seventeen-year-old son aboard the ship, a younger son left in London, a crew member, and a young English woman acting as a spy in Holland.

Edmonds, Walter. Drums Along the Mohawk. 1997.
This is the story of the forgotten pioneers of the Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War. Combating hardships almost too great to endure, they helped give America a legend which still stirs the heart. In the midst of love and hate, life and death, danger and disaster, they stuck to the acres which were theirs, and fought a war without ever quite understanding it. An American classic since its original publication in 1936.

Explore New York! Authors A-B

Anderson, Laurie Halse. The Impossible Knife of Memory. 2014.
After five years on the road, Hayley and her father, an ex-soldier suffering from PTSD, try to make a new life in an upstate New York town. But will the past get in the way of their future?
2014 School Library Journal Best Books: Young Adult

Asbury, Herbert. The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld. 1998.
True to the title, the book is a history of crime that permeated the underbelly of New York City and its boroughs in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of these gangs were so vicious they would post signs warning police to stay out of their neighborhoods – or else!

Aptowicz, Cristin O’Keefe. Words in Your Face: a guided tour through twenty years of the New York City poetry slam. 2008.
A history of the New York City Poetry Slam, a performance poetry competition where participants recite their own original work before a panel of five judges selected randomly from the audience.

Auchincloss, Louis. A Voice from Old New York: a memoir of my youth. 2010.
American novelist, historian, lawyer, and essayist Louis Auchincloss reflects on his life, discussing his family, privileged upbringing, relationships, work, and more.

Avi, and Brian Floca. City of Light, City of Dark: a comic book novel. 1995.
Asterel races against time to locate a token which will prevent the Kurbs from freezing New York City.

Barrett, Andrea. The Air We Breathe. 2007.
In the fall of 1916, as U.S. involvement in World War I looms, the Adirondack town of Tamarack Lake houses a public sanitarium and private cure cottages for Tuberculosis patients. Gossip about roommate changes, nurse visits, cliques and romantic connections dominate relations among the sick – mostly poor European immigrants. The timely theme focuses on how the tragedy, betrayal and heartbreak of war extend far beyond the battlefied.

Bat-Ami, Miriam. Two Suns in the Sky. 2001.
In 1944, in Oswego, a teenager named Christine meets and falls in love with Adam, a Yugoslavian Jew living in a refugee camp, despite their parents’ conviction that they do not belong together.
2000 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction
2000 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

Bauer, Joan. Backwater. 2005.
When Ivy begins to study her family’s history, her discoveries rattle the other members of her New York State clan.

Bauer, Joan. Peeled. 2008.
In an upstate New York farming community, high school reporter Hildy Biddle investigates a series of strange occurrences at a house rumored to be hautned.

Benway, Robin. Going Rogue. 2014.
When Maggie Silver’s parents are falsely accused of stealing priceless gold coins, she must use her safe cracking skills to try to clear their names, with help from the “team” she has formed as an undercover operative in a New York City high school.

Bitton-Jackson, Livia. Hello, America: A Refugee’s Journey from Auschwitz to the New World. 2005.
In the final book of the acclaimed trilogy that includes I Have Lived a Thousand Years and My Bridges of Hope, Elli and her mother leave war-ravaged Europe behind. Arriving in New York in 1951, they seek to preserve their Jewish heritage while embracing the freedom of the new city.

Blackman, Dorothy. New York Patriots. 2007.
In New York Patriots, fifteen patriots are featured in historically true events in New York State during the Revolutionary War. Across the state, each of these courageous actions brought the country closer to the freedom its citizens so earnestly sought.

Blundell, Judy. Strings Attached. 2011.
When she drops out of school and struggles to start a career on Broadway in the fall of 1950, seventeen-year-old Kit Corrigan accepts help from an old family friend, a lawyer said to have ties with the mob, who then asks her to do some favors for him.
2015 YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

Bogaert, Harmen Meyndertsz van den et al. Journey into Mohawk Country. 2006.
This book is an illustrated version of the journal a young Dutch trader, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, who journeyd into the land of the Iroquois Indians in 1634, seeking to bolster the Dutch trade in what is now New York State.

Brashares, Ann. The Here and Now. 2014.
Prenna arrives in New York from 80 years in the future, where a mosquito-borne illness has left the world in ruins. She and her fellow time travelers must follow strict rules to survive in the present day.

Bray, Libba. The Diviners. 2012.
Evie O’Neill is sent from her small town in Ohio to live with her uncle in New York City. But there, the 17-year-old and her uncle get thrust into the investigation of numerous murders. *The sequel, Lair of Dreams is due out in August 2015.

Brezenoff, Steve. Brooklyn, Burning. 2011.
Sixteen-year-old Kid, who lives on the streets of Brooklyn, loves Felix, a guitarist and junkie who disappears, leaving Kid the prime suspect in an arson investigation, but a year later Scout arrives, giving Kid a second chance to be in a band and find true love.

Bronski, Peter. At the Mercy of the Mountains: True Stories of Survival and Tragedy in New York’s Adirondacks. 2008.
Recounts true stories of danger, survival, and tragedy in New York’s Adirondacks Mountains.

Brown, Teri. Born of Illusion. 2013.
Set in 1920s New York City, this is the story of budding magician Anna Van Housen, who may or may not be the daughter of Harry Houdini. She has spent her whole life playing sidekick to her faux-medium mother and trying to hide the fact she actually possesses the very abilities her mother lacks.
2015 YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

Bruchac, Joseph. Bowman’s Store: A Journey to Myself. 2001.
Bruchac, now a well-known children’s author and storyteller, relates his childhood and high school years living with his grandparents near Saratoga, NY, and his discovers of his Abenaki heritage, which he learns to honor.

Budhos, Marina Tamar. Ask Me No Questions. 2006. Fourteen-year-old Nadira, her sister, and their parents leave Bangladesh for New York City, but the expiration of their visas and the events of September 11, 2001, bring frustration, sorrow, and terror for the whole family.
2007 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

Buckhanon, Kalisha. Upstate. 2006.
Antonio, initially a teen arrested for murder, and his sweetheart, Natasha, exchange a decade of correspondence. Both from tiny, dark apartments in Harlem, they are passionately in love, but destined to walk very different roads.