2024 Massachusetts Teen Choice Book Award Nominees

Created on March 20, 2024, 9:19 am

Last Updated March 20, 2024, 9:19 am

The Massachusetts Teen Choice Book Award is a cooperative project between the Massachusetts School Library Association (MSLA) and the Massachusetts Library Association (MLA) with support from Salem State University. The list of nominees has been curated by a committee of public librarians, school library media specialists and educators. Teens are invited to read the titles during spring and summer and vote for their favorite books. Statewide voting will be held in September. For more information visit https://www.mateenchoicebook.org/

1) Accountable: the true story of a racist social media account and the teenagers whose lives it changed

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Playaway Audiobook

Description

"When a high school student started a private Instagram account that used racist and sexist memes to make his friends laugh, he thought of it as "edgy" humor. Over time, the edge got sharper. Then a few other kids found out about the account. Pretty soon, everyone knew. Ultimately no one in the small town of Albany, California, was safe from the repercussions of the account's discovery. Not the girls targeted by the posts. Not the boy who created...

2) As long as the lemon trees grow

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Eighteen-year-old Salama Kassab, a pharmacy student volunteering at the hospital in Homs, is desperate to find passage on a refugee boat for herself and her pregnant best friend, but first she must learn to see the events around her for what they are--not a war, but a revolution.

3) ¡Ay, Mija!: my bilingual summer in Mexico

Author

Suggs, Christine

Description

"In this memoir, Christine Suggs explores a trip they took to Mexico to visit family, as Christine embraces and rebels against their heritage and finds a sense of belonging"-- "Sixteen-year-old Christine takes their first solo trip to Mexico to spend a few weeks with their grandparents and tía. At first, Christine struggles to connect with family they don't yet share a language with. Seeing the places their mom grew up--the school she went to, the...

4) Bianca Torre is afraid of everything

Author

Winans, Justine Pucella

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

"Nonbinary teen birder Bianca Torre must face their large list of fears to solve a murder they witnessed or they might be next"--

5) Bittersweet in the Hollow

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

When a girl goes missing in her secluded Appalachian town, seventeen-year-old Linden, who can taste other people's emotions, recovers haunting memories of her own disappearance and explores the legend of the Moth-Wigned Man, leading her to wonder if there are some secrets best left buried. Rural Caball Hollow, surrounded by the vast National Forest. Like her sisters, Linden James was born with an unusual ability: she can taste what others are feeling....

Author

Kaneshiro, Muneyuki

Series

Blue Lock volume 12

Description

"After a disastrous defeat at the World Cup, Japan's team struggles to regroup. But what's missing? An absolute ace striker. The Football Union is hell-bent on creating a striker who hungers for goals and thirsts for victory, so Blue Lock-- a rigorous training ground for 300 of Japan's best and brightest youth players-- is created. To survive this battle royale, the last striker standing will have to out-muscle and out-ego everyone who stands in his...

7) Breathe and count back from ten

Author

Sylvester, Natalia

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Playaway Audiobook

Description

"Verónica has always dreamed of being a mermaid. When she's in the water, the pain caused by her hip dysplasia fades, and people can't see the scars from her numerous surgeries. On land, things are less clear. First, there's her cute new neighbor, Alex, who she's falling hard for but is afraid to get close to. And then - amazingly - a spot opens up at Mermaid Cove, a local Florida attraction where professional mermaids perform underwater. But she...

8) Give me a sign

Author

Series

Thorndike Press youth large print young adult

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

"Lilah is stuck in the middle. At least, that's what having a hearing loss seems like sometimes -- when you don't feel "deaf enough" to identify as Deaf or hearing enough to meet the world's expectations. But this summer, Lilah is ready for a change. When Lilah becomes a counselor at a summer camp for the deaf and blind, her plan is to brush up on her ASL. Once there, she also finds a community. There are cute British lifeguards who break hearts but...

9) Just do this one thing for me: a novel

Author

Zimmermann, Laura

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Stuck at the lake in the middle of a Wisconsin winter, Drew and her younger sister and brother struggle to stay together after their manipulative, con artist mother dies, which they can only do if they can keep her death a secret. Heidi Hill has been juggling shady side hustles for all of Drew's life, and Drew knows that when she's asked to do "one thing" it really means all the necessary things her mother thinks are boring. Which includes taking...

10) Money out loud: all the financial stuff no one taught us

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

"So no one taught you about money, either? Let's figure this me$$ out together. In this illustrated, deeply unserious guide to money, Berna Anat--aka the Financial Hype Woman--freaks out her immigrant parents by doing the unthinkable: Talking about money. Loudly. Because we're done staying silent, anxious, and ashamed about our money. It's time to join the party and finally learn about all the financial stuff that always felt too confusing." --...

11) Promise boys

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

J.B., Ramón, and Trey, students of the Urban Promise Prep School, must follow the school's strict rules, but when their principal is murdered, the three boys must band together to track down the real killer before they are arrested. The Urban Promise Prep School vows to turn boys into men. As students, J.B., Ramón, and Trey are forced to follow the prestigious program's strict rules. Extreme discipline, they've been told, is what it takes to be...

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

"These days, Tre Brun is happiest when he is playing basketball on the Red Lake Reservation high school team--even though he can't help but be constantly gut-punched with memories of his big brother, Jaxon, who died in an accident. When Jaxon's former teammates on the varsity team offer to take Tre under their wing, he sees this as his shot to represent his Ojibwe rez all the way to their first state championship. This is the first step toward his...

13) The search for us: a novel

Author

Boyer, Susan Azim

Description

Samira Murphy is caring for her widowed grandmother, and trying to get her older brother into recovery for alcohol addiction. With attendance at her dream college on the line, she takes a long shot DNA test to find the support she so desperately needs from a father she hasn't seen since she was a baby. Henry Owen is torn between his unreliable bio-mom and an overly strick aunt and uncle who stepped in to raise him. He takes a DNA test to find the...

14) This is our place

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

The house at Number 8 Sunflower Street tells the stories of three teenagers who have lived within its walls in the 21st century--Ana, a lesbian forced to leave her home, Greg sent to live with his aunt when his parents divorce, and Beto, a would-be photographer living during the COVID pandemic.

15) Threads that bind

Author

Hatzopoulou, Kika

Series

Threads That Bind

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

In a world where the children of the gods inherit their powers, Io, a descendant of the Greek Fates, must solve a series of impossible murders to save her sisters, her soulmate, and her city. Descendants of the Fates are always born in threes: one to weave, one to draw, and one to cut the threads that connect people to the things they love and to life itself. The Ora sisters are no exception. Io, the youngest, uses her Fate-born abilities as a private...

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

"Priscilla is first-generation Korean American, a former high school cheerleader who expects Sam to want the same all- American nightmare. Meanwhile, Sam is a girl of the times who has no energy for clichéd high school aspirations. After a huge blowup, Sam is desperate to get away from Priscilla, but instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back. To her shock, Sam lands in the '90s . . . alongside a 17-year-old Priscilla. Now, Sam has to deal with...

17) Warrior girl unearthed

Author

Boulley, Angeline

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Playaway Audiobook, Spoken CD

Description

With the rising number of missing Indigenous women, her family's involvement in a murder investigation, and grave robbers profiting off her Anishinaabe tribe, Perry takes matters into her own hands to solve the mystery and reclaim her people's inheritance.

18) Well, that was unexpected

Author

Sutanto, Jesse Q

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Sharlot Citra is whisked from Los Angeles to her mother's native Indonesia, where she finds herself fake dating the son of one of the wealthiest families in Indonesia, and she is surprised when she actually starts to fall in love with the boy, the country, and the big family she never knew before.

19) Where you see yourself

Author

Forrest, Claire

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Playaway Audiobook

Description

Effie Galanos' goals for her senior year include her navigating her way through her high school that is not really wheelchair-friendly, getting into the perfect college, and getting her crush Wilder to accompany her to the prom--but by spring she is beginning to see herself entirely differently. "If Effie's being honest with herself, she knows just what she wants. She wants to enjoy all the firsts and lasts of senior year with her two best friends....

20) The wicked bargain

Author

Novoa, Gabe Cole

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Sixteen-year-old Mar, a transmasculine Latinx pirate hiding magical abilities, must learn to use their magia to save their papá and newfound pirate familia from losing their souls to el Diablo. On Mar León de la Rosa's sixteenth birthday, el Diablo comes calling. Mar is a transmasculine nonbinary teen pirate hiding a magical ability to manipulate fire and ice. But their magic isn't enough to reverse a wicked bargain made by their father, and now...