A breath of fresh verse-laden air, Friend edited by Kate Clanchy is a collection of poetry by schoolchildren from a multicultural secondary school in Oxford. At once everyday and exceptional, the poems run the gamut of childhood experience, and as Clanchy notes, gives our families ‘a long cool stare’. Incredibly, the youngest poet is only 11 years old, tentatively dipping a toe into secondary school life, the eldest is of university age. Already so wise, their accumulated stories and love of language will bring a lump to your throat.

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Ant Stevenson is finding life complicated. As a 15-year-old boy who likes boys, the questions are piling up and there don’t seem to be any answers. We join him in Year 11 as he navigates changing friendships and the thorny topics of masculinity, sexuality, and internalised homophobia. With warmth, relatability and personal insight, Different for Boys by Patrick Ness helps Ant (and us) unpick the issues.

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We’re big fans of Enchanted Lion Books, publishers of gloriously unusual children’s literature. You Can’t Kill Snow White by Beatrice Alemagna is a stunning offering from their imprint, Unruly, on a mission to bring rich and innovative picture books to teenagers, because ‘we never age out of pictures’. In this revisiting of the Brothers Grimm fairytale classic, Alemagna shifts perspective to the jealous queen, asking the reader to focus on her dark heart, and the suffering behind it. Stripped of Disneyfication and much closer to the Brothers’ original, it’s a  beautiful and brutal affair.

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Practical, empathic and relatable, Failosophy for Teens by Elizabeth Day takes its lead from Albert Einstein’s assertion that failure is, in fact, success in progress. Hard enough to accept as an adult, for teenagers grappling with the challenges of life in our 21st century Insta-perfect world, learning to be at peace with failure is a big ask. Day’s toolkit includes practical exercises and advice ranging from zen philosophy to the scientific. ‘Failure just is,’ and this empowering guide aims to both defuse and soothe.

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Her foster mother, Annie, favours yoga as a de-stressing activity, but for Charlene it’s knitting, the rhythmic clickety click of the needles calming her troubled mind. An angry soul, she’s been knitting an awful lot lately, in a bid to deal with the death of her mother and life in the care system. When Annie’s antagonistic son destroys a very special blanket she’s making, Charlene’s rage leads to her stabbing his hand with her knitting needle. In Needle by Patrice Lawrence, we accompany an unrepentant Charlene on her journey to a police cell, and learn why sorry really is the hardest word.

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Congratulations to Danica Novgorodoff, worthy winner of the Yoto Kate Greenaway Medal 2022, for her stunning illustrative interpretation of Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. Reynolds’ blistering American verse novel tells the story of Will, witness to his brother Shawn’s death in a turf war shooting. Schooled in the ways of gang life, Will believes his only option is bloody revenge. In an elevator ride encompassing a mere sixty seconds and seven floors, he will be forced to confront some long overdue truths.

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Teenage girls today have a freedom and power that their foremothers could only imagine, and yet with it has come an unprecedented level of pressure and expectation. In You Don’t Understand Me by Dr Tara Porter, we look at a 21st century society that sometimes seems ‘awash with emotion.’ Navigating the perennially thorny issues of teenhood, Porter provides a refreshingly free-thinking perspective on maintaining emotional stability in a world in which all the game rules have changed. Using case studies and observations gleaned from many years of clinical practice, she lights the way for young women (and their often flummoxed parents).

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A contender for the Yoto Carnegie Medal 2022, Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock, springs from the longlist with its eye-catching title. Set in the American West, it’s a series of interlocking teen stories that roam from Alaska to Colorado. Characters and events intersect throughout, often oblivious of their roles in each other’s tales. Only the reader sees the big picture, and the motifs of wildfire, tainted priesthood, and a missing child. Likely the first time you’ve ever encountered amnesiac shellfish poisoning as a plot device, it’s an inventive portrayal of young small town life.

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The English Channel has long been a scene of triumph for long-distance swimmers keen to front crawl the 21 miles between England and France. But this often tumultuous seaway is also notorious for being a watery graveyard of migrants and refugees. In The Crossing by Manjeet Mann, the lives of Nat, a young English Channel swimmer, and Sammy, an Eritrean refugee collide. Winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award 2021, this quietly devastating verse novel explores the perspective of two teenagers from very different worlds.

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Medusa by Jessie Burton gives us a compelling spin on the legend of the snake-haired girl whose gaze turns onlookers to stone. Mythology buffs will know her as a monstrous character, ultimately beheaded by one of the most famous heroes of Ancient Greek folklore. Here, however, she is a young woman with her own take on events. This gloriously illustrated book brings us Medusa’s story, a heady tale of love, betrayal, tyranny, and ultimately, the path to self-acceptance.

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