YRCA: Young Readers Choice Awards 2024

Check out the nominations for the 2024 YRCA Awards!

Voting for YRCA 2024 books is closed. Stay tuned for winner announcements in the coming weeks!

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The accidental apprentice

The accidental apprentice

Foody, Amanda, author
2021

Eleven-year-old Barclay Thorne yearns for the quiet life of a mushroom farmer, but after unwittingly bonding with a beast in the forbidden Woods, he must seek Lore Keepers to break the bond and return home.

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Ace of spades

Ace of spades

Àbíké-Íyímídé, Faridah, author
2021

At Niveus Private Academy, Devon and Chiamaka are the only students chosen to be Senior Prefects who are also Black, which makes them targets for a series of anonymous texts revealing their secrets to the entire student body. Both students were on track toward valedictorian and bright college futures, but this prank quickly turns into a very dangerous game and they are at more than one disadvantage as it looks like things could turn deadly.

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Better than the movies

Better than the movies

Painter, Lynn, author
2021

Michael, to whom Liz Buxbaum gave her heart long ago, has returned but to get his attention and, perhaps, a prom date she must scheme with her nemesis Wes, her next-door neighbor.

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Blackout

Blackout

2021

Six critically acclaimed, bestselling, and award-winning authors bring the glowing warmth and electricity of Black teen love to this interlinked novel of charming, hilarious, and heartwarming stories that shine a bright light through the dark.

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The bones of ruin

The bones of ruin

Raughley, Sarah, author
2021

An African tightrope dancer in Victorian London, Iris is a strange sight for leering audiences always eager for the spectacle of colonial curiosity. But Iris also has a secret: she cannot die. She meets the dark and alluring Adam Temple, a member of a mysterious order called the Enlightenment Committee. Adam shares with her a terrifying revelation: the world is ending, and the Committee will decide who lives. To help them choose a leader for the upcoming apocalypse, the Committee is holding the Tournament of Freaks, a competition of vicious fighters with fantastical abilities. Adam wants Iris to be his champion.

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Concrete rose

Concrete rose

Thomas, Angie, author
2021

Maverick feels strongly about family ties, making choices he feels necessary to help support his mom while his King father serves time, and leave him literally holding his son in a doctor's waiting room after he gets paternity test results back and his babymomma ghosts. Now the child he's raising is impacting the lives of his family and his girlfriend, and the gang life he led to support them all financially could leave them all bearing his responsibilities since it endangers his life. It looks like he may have been offered a chance to go straight, but leaving the King Lords won't be easy, and a "real" job has high demand for low return.

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Finding Junie Kim

Finding Junie Kim

Oh, Ellen, author
2021

A tale based on true events follows the coming-of-age of a girl who is motivated by an act of racism at school to learn about her ancestral heritage and her grandparents' experiences as lost children during the Korean War.

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Firekeeper's daughter

Firekeeper's daughter

Boulley, Angeline, author
2021

Daunis, who is part Ojibwe, defers attending the University of Michigan to care for her mother and reluctantly becomes involved in the investigation of a series of drug-related deaths.

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Iron widow

Iron widow

Zhao, Xiran Jay, author
2021

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall of China. It doesn't matter that the girls die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the pilot responsible for her sister's death. But when she gets her vengeance, it becomes clear that she is an Iron Widow, a rare kind of female pilot who can sacrifice males to power up Chrysalises instead. To tame her, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily.

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The last cuentista

The last cuentista

Higuera, Donna Barba, author
2021

A girl named Petra Pena, who wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller, like her abuelita. But Petra's world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children - among them Petra and her family - have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race. Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet - and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity's past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard - or purged them altogether. Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again?

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Last night at the Telegraph Club

Last night at the Telegraph Club

Lo, Malinda, author.
2021

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father--despite his hard-won citizenship--Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

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The lion of Mars

The lion of Mars

Holm, Jennifer L., author.
2021

"When a mysterious virus breaks out in the U.S. settlement on Mars, Bell and his friends must work together to save not just their home, but all the other international settlements on the planet."-- Provided by publisher.

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Me (Moth)

Me (Moth)

McBride, Amber, author
2021

"Moth has lost her family in an accident. Though she lives with her aunt, she feels alone and uprooted--until she meets Sani, a boy who is also searching for his roots. If he knows more about where he comes from, maybe he'll be able to understand his ongoing depression. And if Moth can help him feel grounded, then perhaps she too will discover the history she carries in her bones."-- From publisher's description.

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Pony

Pony

Palacio, R. J., author
2021

Twelve-year-old Silas is awoken in the dead of night by three menacing horsemen who take his father away. Silas is left shaken, scared, and alone, except for the presence of his companion, Mittenwool...who happens to be a ghost. When a pony shows up at his door, Silas makes the courageous decision to leave his home and embark on a perilous journey to find his father. Along the way, he will face his fears to unlock the secrets of his past and explore the unfathomable mysteries of the world around him.

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The prison healer

The prison healer

Noni, Lynette, author
2021

Seventeen-year-old Kiva Meridan has spent the last ten years fighting for survival in the notorious death prison, Zalindov, working as the prison healer. When the Rebel Queen is captured, Kiva is charged with keeping the terminally ill woman alive long enough for her to undergo the Trial by Ordeal: a series of elemental challenges against the torments of air, fire, water, and earth, assigned to only the most dangerous of criminals. Then a coded message from Kiva's family arrives, containing a single order: "Don't let her die. We are coming." Aware that the Trials will kill the sickly queen, Kiva risks her own life to volunteer in her place. If she succeeds, both she and the queen will be granted their freedom. But no one has ever survived. With an incurable plague sweeping Zalindov, a mysterious new inmate fighting for Kiva's heart, and a prison rebellion brewing, Kiva can't escape the terrible feeling that her trials have only just begun.

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Rez dogs

Rez dogs

Bruchac, Joseph, 1942- author
2021

Twelve-year-old Malian lives with her grandparents on a Wabanaki reservation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Six crimson cranes

Six crimson cranes

Lim, Elizabeth, author
2021

The exiled Princess Shiori must unravel the curse that turned her six brothers into cranes, and she is assisted by her spurned betrothed, a capricious dragon, and a paper bird brought to life by her own magic.

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Starfish

Starfish

Fipps, Lisa, author
2021

Bullied and shamed her whole life for being fat, twelve-year-old Ellie finally gains the confidence to stand up for herself, with the help of some wonderful new allies.

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Tokyo ever after

Tokyo ever after

Jean, Emiko, author
2021

After learning that her father is the Crown Prince of Japan, Izumi travels to Tokyo, where she discovers that Japanese imperial life--complete with designer clothes, court intrigue, paparazzi scandals, and a forbidden romance with her handsome but stoic bodyguard--is a tough fit for the outspoken and irreverent eighteen-year-old from northern California.

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Too bright to see

Too bright to see

Lukoff, Kyle, author
2021

In the summer before middle school, eleven-year-old Bug must contend with best friend Moira suddenly caring about clothes, makeup, and boys; a ghost haunting; and the truth about Bug's gender identity.

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Unplugged

Unplugged

Korman, Gordon, author
2021

Relates, in multiple voices, the adventures of a group of youngsters at an electronics-free wellness camp where wealthy, spoiled Jett, leads other campers in trying to stop a criminal.

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You'll be the death of me

You'll be the death of me

McManus, Karen M., author
2021

Estranged friends Ivy, Mateo, and Cal witness a murder while skipping school, and the only way they can solve it is by revealing what they have been hiding from one another--and themselves.

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Zara Hossain is here

Zara Hossain is here

Khan, Sabina, 1968- author
2021

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant Zara Hossain has been leading a fairly typical life in Corpus Christi, Texas, since her family moved there for her father to work as a pediatrician. While dealing with the Islamophobia that she faces at school, Zara has to lay low, trying not to stir up any trouble and jeopardize their family's dependent visa status while they await their green card approval, which has been in process for almost nine years. But one day her tormentor, star football player Tyler Benson, takes things too far--[defacing her locker with a racist message]--and gets suspended.

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