Speak, published in 1999, is a young adult novel by Laurie Halse Anderson that tells the story of high school freshman Melinda Sordino. After Melinda is raped at an end of summer party, she calls the police, who break up the party. Melinda is then ostracized by her peers because she will not say why she called the police. Unable to verbalize what happened, Melinda nearly stops speaking altogether, expressing her voice through the art she produces for Mr. Freeman's class. This expression slowly helps Melinda acknowledge what happened, face her problems, and recreate her identity.
Li-Young Lee is an American poet. He was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese parents. His maternal great-grandfather was Yuan Shikai, China's first Republican President, who attempted to make himself emperor. Lee's father, who was a personal physician to Mao Zedong while in China, relocated his family to Indonesia, where he helped found Gamaliel University. In 1959 the Lee family fled Indonesia to escape widespread anti-Chinese sentiment and after a five-year trek through Hong Kong and Japan, they settled in the United States in 1964. Li-Young Lee attended the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Arizona, and the State University of New York Brockport.
Marie Myung-Ok Lee is a Korean-American author, novelist and essayist. She is a cofounder of the Asian American Writers' Workshop (AAWW). This organisation was formed in 1991 to support New York City writers of color.
Cut is a 2000 novel by Patricia McCormick, targeted at young adults. In 2002 it was named one of the ALA's "Best Books for Young Adults" for that year.
Firoozeh Dumas is an Iranian-American writer who writes in English. She is the author of the memoirs Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America (2003) and Laughing without an Accent: Adventures of a Global Citizen (2008), and the semi-autobiographical novel It Ain't so Awful, Falafel (2016).
John Roberts Tunis, "the 'inventor' of the modern sports story", was an American writer and broadcaster. Known for his juvenile sports novels, Tunis also wrote short stories and non-fiction, including a weekly sports column for the New Yorker magazine. As a commentator Tunis was part of the first trans-Atlantic sports cast and the first broadcast of the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament to the United States.
Mari Mancusi, sometimes credited as Marianne Mancusi, is an American author of middle grade young adult and new adult novels and former Emmy Award winning television news producer.
Young adult romance literature is a genre of books written for teenagers. As defined by Romance Writers of America, a romance novel consists of a central love story and an emotionally satisfying ending. Early young adult romances feature a teenage protagonist, who is typically female, white, and middle-class, while books in the twenty-first century include a wider variety of protagonist.
Smile is an autobiographical graphic novel written by Raina Telgemeier. It was published in February of 2010 by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. The novel provides an account of the author's life, characterized by dental procedures and struggles with fitting in, from sixth grade to high school. The book originated as a webcomic, which was serialized on Girlamatic. It is most appropriate for readers between fourth and sixth grade. Smile has had a pedagogical impact, and reviews have been written on this novel.
Greg Neri is an American author and is known for his work in young adult fiction. He has written books in free verse and novelistic prose, as well as graphic novels and non-fiction. He has written 14 books for young people. Neri is the winner of the Michael L. Printz award and a Coretta Scott King honor and has received awards from the American Library Association, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the International Reading Association.
The Bluford Series is a widely read collection of contemporary American young adult novels set in the fictional inner-city high school of Bluford High in Southern California. Bluford is named for Guion "Guy" Bluford, the first African-American astronaut. The series was created and published by Townsend Press and was co-distributed by Scholastic. As part of an effort to promote reading in underfunded school districts, Townsend Press originally made the Bluford Series available to schools for a dollar each. As of 2018, over 11 million Bluford Series novels were in print.
The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old African-American girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting.
Angie Thomas is an American young adult author, best known for writing The Hate U Give (2017). Her second young adult novel, On the Come Up, was released on February 25, 2019.
Samira Ahmed is an American author of young adult fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, best known for her New York Times best selling novels Love, Hate & Other Filters and Internment.
Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican-American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.
Anna-Marie McLemore is a Mexican-American author of young adult fiction magical realism, best known for their Stonewall Honor-winning novel When the Moon Was Ours, Wild Beauty, and The Weight of Feathers.
Andrea Nicole Livingstone, known as Nic Stone, is an American author of young adult fiction and middle grade fiction, best known for her debut novel Dear Martin and her middle grade debut, Clean Getaway. Her novels have been translated into six languages.
The Marrow Thieves is a young adult dystopian novel by Métis Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline, published on September 1, 2017, by Cormorant Books through its Dancing Cat Books imprint.
Brandy Colbert is an American author of young adult fiction and nonfiction.
The Good Braider is a young adult novel in verse by Terry Farish, published May 1, 2012 by Marshall Cavendish.
