Time Magazine's 100 Best YA Books of All Time


Showing 1 - 20 of 92  There are a total of 92 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The 57 bus"
Star rating for The 57 bus
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
This riveting nonfiction book for teens about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment tells the true story of a teen who was set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California.
Book cover for "Akata witch"
Star rating for Akata witch
Series:
Akata series volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
Twelve-year-old Sunny Nwazue, an American-born albino child of Nigerian parents, moves with her family back to Nigeria, where she learns that she has latent magical powers which she and three similarly gifted friends use to catch a serial killer.
Book cover for "Allegedly"
Star rating for Allegedly
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
When Mary, a teenager living in a group home, becomes pregnant, authorities take another look at the crime for which Mary was convicted when she was nine years old.
Book cover for "American born Chinese"
Star rating for American born Chinese
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.
Book cover for "American street"
Star rating for American street
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
When Fabiola's mother is detained upon their arrival to the United States, Fabiola must navigate her loud American cousins, the grittiness of Detroit's west side, a new school, and a surprising romance all on her own.
Book cover for "Anne of Green Gables"
Star rating for Anne of Green Gables
Series:
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.
Book cover for "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret"
Star rating for Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Author:
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
The iconic coming-of-age novel from the beloved author, Judy Blume, whose “name has long been synonymous with young adult fiction” (Los Angeles Times). Now a major motion picture starring Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates!

Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret is very special.” Amy Poehler (Vulture)

“Generations of teenage girls have...
Book cover for "Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe"
Star rating for Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe
Series:
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.
Book cover for "The astonishing color of after"
Star rating for The astonishing color of after
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
After her mother's suicide, grief-stricken Leigh Sanders travels to Taiwan to stay with grandparents she's never met, determined to find her mother--who she believes turned into a bird.
Book cover for "The Black Flamingo"
Star rating for The Black Flamingo
Author:
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"Michael is a mixed-race gay teen growing up in London. All his life, he's navigated what it means to be Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican--but never quite feeling Greek or Black enough. As he gets older, Michael's coming out is only the start of learning who he is and where he fits in. When he discovers the Drag Society, he finally finds where he belongs--and the Black Flamingo is born. Told with raw honesty, insight, and lyricism, this debut explores the...
Book cover for "The book thief"
Star rating for The book thief
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.
Book cover for "Brown girl dreaming"
Star rating for Brown girl dreaming
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Notes:
IN JBIO @ WCPL, NOT YABIO
Description:
In vivid poems that reflect the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, an award-winning author shares what it was like to grow up in the 1960s and 1970s in both the North and the South. Writer Jacqueline Woodson tells the story of her childhood in free verse.
Book cover for "The catcher in the rye"
Star rating for The catcher in the rye
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
In an effort to escape the hypocrisies of life at his boarding school, sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield seeks refuge in New York City Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school.
Book cover for "Children of blood and bone"
Star rating for Children of blood and bone
Series:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy.
Book cover for "Code name Verity"
Star rating for Code name Verity
Series:
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.
Book cover for "Code talker"
Star rating for Code talker
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become code talkers, sending messages in their native tongue during World War II.
Book cover for "Copper sun"
Star rating for Copper sun
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Two fifteen-year-old girls--one a slave and the other an indentured servant- escape their Carolina plantation and try to make their way to Fort Moses, Florida, a Spanish colony that gives sanctuary to slaves.
Book cover for "The crossover"
Star rating for The crossover
Series:
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.
Book cover for "Darius the Great is not okay"
Star rating for Darius the Great is not okay
Series:
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Clinically-depressed Darius Kellner, a high school sophomore, travels to Iran to meet his grandparents, but it is their next-door neighbor, Sohrab, who changes his life.
Book cover for "Daughter of smoke & bone"
Star rating for Daughter of smoke & bone
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters--the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known. Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague,...