6 Oct Apple (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth. Levine Querido. The author recounts his life as part of an Onondaga family living among Tuscaroras, and of Native people in America, including the damaging legacy of government boarding schools. 

6 Oct Becoming Muhammad Ali by Kwame Alexander and James Patterson, illus. by Dawud Anyabwile. Little, Brown/Patterson. Authorized by and written in cooperation with the Muhammad Ali estate, this biographical novel follows young Ali⁠—Cassius Clay⁠—before he became one of the greatest sports heroes of all time.

6 Oct Blazewrath Games by Amparo Ortiz. Page Street Kids. In an alternate contemporary world, people compete with dragons in an international sports tournament.

6 Oct The Boys in the Back Row by Mike Jung. Levine Querido. Best friends Matt and Eric hatch a plan for one big final adventure together before Eric moves away

6 Oct Class Act by Jerry Craft. Quill Tree. In this companion to Newbery-winning graphic novel New Kid, Jordan’s friend Drew has struggles of his own at Riverdale Academy Day School.

6 Oct Dragon Mountain by Katie and Kevin Tsang. Sterling Children’s Books. In this fantasy series debut, four new friends at a language and culture camp in China open a crack in an ancient mountain.

6 Oct Girl Giant and the Monkey King by Van Hoang. Roaring Brook Press. A girl who just wants to fit in makes a deal with the Monkey King, a deity and trickster.

6 Oct The Mirror: Broken Wish by Julie C. Dao. Disney Hyperion. Sixteen-year-old Elva has a secret. She has visions and strange powers that she will do anything to hide. She knows the warnings about what happens to witches in their small village of Hanau. She’s heard the terrible things people say about the Witch of the North Woods, and the malicious hunts that follow. But when Elva accidentally witnesses a devastating vision of the future, she decides she has to do everything she can to prevent it. Tapping into her powers for the first time, Elva discovers a magical mirror and its owner—none other than the Witch of the North Woods herself. As Elva learns more about her burgeoning magic, and the lines between hero and villain start to blur, she must find a way to right past wrongs before it’s too late.

6 Oct The Shadow Mission by Shamim Sarif. HarperTeen. In the sequel to The Athena Protocol, Jessie heads to Pakistan to take down the man whose actions spurred the founders of her female spy ring to create a secretive squad.

6 Oct A Thousand Questions by Saadia Faruqi. Quill Tree Books. Two girls navigate a summer of change and family upheaval in Karachi, Pakistan, as they become friends and begin to understand their cultural differences.

6 Oct Tristan Strong Destroys the World (Tristan Strong #2) by Kwame Mbalia. Disney/Riordan. Just back from a victorious but exhausting adventure in Alke, the land of African American folk heroes and African Gods, Tristan Strong must rescue his grandmother, who has been abducted by a mysterious villain bent on revenge.

6 Oct Twins by Varian Johnson, illus. by Shannon Wright. Graphix. When twins and best friends Maureen and Francine Carter start sixth grade, Francine becomes Fran and expresses interest in activities and clothes that will set her apart from her sister, who is content with how things are.

6 Oct The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel by Sheela Chari. Walker Books US. Kids are disappearing from a school in this tech-filled sci-fi adventure based on the podcast of the same name.

13 Oct All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat. Candlewick. Details the 2018 rescue of a boys’ soccer team that was trapped in a Thailand cave.

13 Oct The Bad Boy and the Tomboy by Nicole Nwosu. Wattpad Books. Romance is the last thing on Macy’s mind, until Cedric Cahill—the one boy she’s ever crushed on—asks her out on a date.

13 Oct Come On In by Adi Alsaid. Inkyard Press. The heartbreaks and triumphs of immigration are explored through stories by YA authors who are themselves immigrants and the children of immigrants. 

13 Oct Concrete Kids (Pocket Change Collective) by Amyra León. Penguin Workshop. This short collection of verse drawns from the life of a young Black woman who has been aware from an early age of the obstacles facing her growing up in foster care in New York City. She wrestles here with questions of self, family (chosen and birth), belonging, and hope.

13 OctDaughters of Jubilation by Kara Lee Corthron Simon Schuster.  A Black teen’s magical talents awaken as she tries to find her place among a family of similarly gifted women.

13 Oct The Fallen Hero (The Dragon Warrior) by Katie Zhao. Bloomsbury USA Kids. Faryn sets off on a daring quest to convince the Monkey King to join forces with her, one that will take her to new places–including Diyu, otherwise known as the Underworld–where she’ll run into new dangers and more than one familiar face. Can she complete her mission and save the brother she loves, no matter the cost?

13 Oct Fantastic Tales of Nothing by Alejandra Green and Fanny Rodriguez. Katherine Tegen Books. This is a graphic novel tale of Nathan, an ordinary human (or so he thinks) living an ordinary life (or so he wishes). Everything changes when he meets Haven, a mysterious creature who is neither human nor volken. Oh, and the two of them are being chased by volken mercenaries—a grumpy wolf named Bardou and a delightful crow named Sina.

13 Oct Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel by Jason Reynolds, illus. by Danica Novgorodoff. Atheneum/Dlouhy. Reynolds’s Newbery Honor, Printz Honor, and Coretta Scott King Honor–winning novel has been adapted in graphic novel format with artwork by Navgorodoff.

13 Oct The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen. Random House Graphic. Korean American Tien tries to find a way to tell his parents, who struggle with their English, that he is gay. 

13 Oct This Is All Your Fault by Aminah Mae Safi. Feiwel and Friends. When Rinn, Daniella, and Imogen clock into work at Wild Nights Bookstore on the first day of summer, they’re expecting the hours to drift by the way they always do. Instead, they have to deal with the news that the bookstore is closing. Before the day is out, there’ll be shaved heads, a diva author, and a very large shipment of Air Jordans to contend with.

13 Oct Yara’s Spring by Jamal Saeed and Sharon McKay. Annick Press. Amid the violence of the Arab Spring in Aleppo, Yara embarks on a journey to safety and freedom.

15 Oct The Deep Blue Between by Ayesha Harruna Attah. Pushkin Children’s Books. Twin sisters Hassana and Husseina’s home is in ruins after a brutal raid. But this is not the end but the beginning of their story, one that will take them to unfamiliar cities and cultures, where they will forge new families, ward off dangers and truly begin to know themselves. As the twins pursue separate paths in Brazil and the Gold Coast of West Africa, they remain connected through shared dreams of water. But will their fates ever draw them back together?

20 Oct Cane Warriors by Alex Wheatle. Anderson Press. Two teenage slaves in 1760 Jamaica join other enslaved people in the rebellion that is now known as Tacky’s War.

20 Oct Flying Over Water by N.H. Senzai and Shannon Hitchcock. Scholastic Press. Two girls—one a Muslim fleeing civil war, the other an American—must examine their beliefs and the true meaning of friendship in the midst of the president’s 2017 Muslim ban.

20 Oct Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading and Writing YA by Nova Ren Suma and Emily X.R. Pan. Algonquin Young Readers. The thirteen stories anthologized here were originally released via the buzzed-about online platform Foreshadow. Ranging from contemporary romance to mind-bending fantasy, the Foreshadow stories showcase underrepresented voices and highlight the beauty and power of YA fiction. Each piece is selected and introduced by a YA luminary, among them Gayle Forman, Laurie Halse Anderson, Jason Reynolds, and Sabaa Tahir.

20 Oct The Last Mirror on the Left by Lamar Giles, illus. by Dapo Adeola. Versify. In this sequel to The Last Last-Day-of-Summer, the Legendary Alston Boys bring a fugitive to justice in a world that mirrors their own but has its own rules to play by.

20 Oct My Heart Underwater by Laurel Flores Fantauzzo. Quill Tree Books. After Corazon’s mother catches her kissing her female teacher, she’s sent to the Philippines to live with a half-brother she barely knows.

20 Oct Rebel Sisters (War Girls #2) by Tochi Onyebuchi. Razorbill. The battles are over, but the fight for justice has just begun in this sequel to War Girls, in which Ify is now 19 and living in the Space Colonies as a high-ranking medical officer, when a mysterious virus breaks out among the children of the colonies.

20 Oct When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert. Simon Schuster. Beth and her close-knit group of friends make a pact to protect one of their own when Beth witnesses an act of violence in his home.

25 Oct Off Track by Tamika Gibson Blouse Skirt Books. Runners Kayla and Joel hope to represent their home of Trinidad and Tobago at the regional games, where they could compete against the Caribbean’s finest for life-changing opportunities, including a shot at the Olympics.

27 Oct Kingston and the Magician’s Lost and Found by Rucker Moses, illus. by Theo Gangi. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. A young magician must find his missing father, who took all of Echo City, Brooklyn’s magic with him when he disappeared. When Kingston finds a magic box his father left behind as a clue, he knows there’s more to his father’s disappearance than meets the eye.

27 Oct Measuring Up by Lily Lamotte, illus. by Ann Xu. HarperAlley. Newly arrived in Seattle, Cici enters a cooking contest hoping to use the prize money to bring her Taiwanese grandmother to the U.S. for a birthday celebration.

27 Oct One Real American: The Life of Ely S. Parker, Seneca Sachem and Civil War General by Joseph Bruchac. Abrams. Biography of Ely S. Parker who became President Grant’s Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

27 Oct Peacemaker by Joseph Bruchac. Dial Books. An Iroquois boy rethinks his calling after witnessing the arrival of a mystical figure with a message of peace, in this novel based on the creation of the Iroquois Confederacy. 

27 Oct Small History of a Disagreement by Claudio Fuentes, trans. by Elisa Arnado, illus. by Gabriela Lyon. Greystone Kids. On the first day back at school after the holidays, a group of classmates notice a construction crane parked next to the old monkey puzzle tree. The school principal says the tree will be cut down to make room for new science classrooms and computer labs. The classmates are divided, with some in favor of innovation, and others calling for the protection of the thousand-year-old tree. As they protest, march, fight, and strike, one teacher offers a solution: Why not hold a debate? The principal agrees, and at the end of the debate, a student vote will end the disagreement, once and for all—or will it?