Diverse - High School (YA)

Multicultural Children’s Books – High School (YA)

Multicultural Children’s Books for ages 13 to 18, featuring children of diverse ethnicities

Lucky Few
by Kathryn Ormsbee

When diabetic activist Stevie Hart first meets Max Garza, a school drop-out with a tragic past, she thinks he is dead. Turns out, he is on a mission to fake his own death in 23 different ways. Stevie’s coding genius friend Sanger Sadler-Hamasaki is intrigued, and the two homeschooled girls strike up a friendship with Max. What starts off as fun soon spirals downward… With its delightfully weird and diverse protagonists, Lucky Few is a quirky debut novel that celebrates friendship, first love, and being different (“fitting in is overrated”).

Kids of Appetite
by David Arnold

From the acclaimed author of Mosquitoland comes this funny and touching bestseller about first love and devastating loss. Victor Benucci has a set of instructions for scattering his father’s ashes. He meets and falls in love with Madeline Falco, a girl with a troubled past, who belongs to the Kids of Appetite. As the gang helps Victor fulfil his father’s last wishes, they become entangled in a murder investigation. Kids of Appetite is an exciting read, one of the most talked about young adult novel of the year 2016.

All We Have Left
by Wendy Mills

2015: Sixteen-year-old Jesse’s older brother died in the 9/11 attacks, and her home has since been filled with anger and grief. A hate-fueled decision turns Jesse’s life upside down and forces her to face the past. 2001: Sixteen-year-old Muslim girl Alia decides to confront her father about not letting her attend a program for talented high school artists. When she visits him at his office, the planes collide into the Twin Towers, and Alia gets trapped. In the final hours, she meets a boy who changes everything for her. All We Have Left is a heartfelt novel about love and hope.

You in Five Acts
by Una LaMarche

Diego, Liv, Ethan, Dave, and Joy are students at a prestigious New York City performing arts school, all of them dreaming of stardom. In five chapters – each told from the perspective of a different student. You in Five Acts is a poignant multicultural young adult novel that tells of the heartbreaks, the betrayals, the inside jokes, and the remember-whens of friendship, and of a tragedy that changed everything.