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2026 Morris Awards Winner
Award for a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens.
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All the Noise at Once
by Deandra Davis
Winner of the William C. Morris Debut YA Book Award Three starred reviews A Black, autistic teen tries to figure out what happened the night his older brother was unjustly arrested in this propulsive (Jas Hammonds, award-winning author of We Deserve Monuments), moving story about brotherhood, identity, and social justice. All Aiden has ever wanted to do was play football just like his star quarterback brother, Brandon. An overstimulation meltdown gets in the way of Aiden making the team during summer tryouts, but when the school year starts and a spot unexpectedly needs to be filled, he finally gets a chance to play the game he loves. However, not every player is happy about the new addition to the team, wary of how Aiden's autism will present itself on game day. Tensions rise. A fight breaks out. Cops are called. Brandon interferes on behalf of his brother, but is arrested by the very same cops who, just hours earlier, were chanting his name from the bleachers. When he's wrongly charged for felony assault on an officer, everything Brandon has worked for starts to slip away, and the brothers' relationship is tested. As Brandon's trial inches closer, Aiden is desperate to figure out what really happened that night. Can he clear his brother's name in time?
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First Love Language
by Stefany Valentine
Two teens discover that love defies the boundaries of any spoken language in this debut romantic dramedy about finding love and reconnecting with your culture in the most surprising ways. A WILLIAM C. MORRIS AWARD FINALIST Taiwanese American Catie Carlson has never fit in with her white family. As much as she loves her stepmom and stepsister, she yearns to understand more about her culture and find her biological mother. So Catie is shocked when an opportunity comes knocking on her door: Her summer spa coworker, Toby, says he'll teach her Mandarin. In exchange, she needs to teach him how to date so he can finally work up the courage to ask out his crush. The only problem is that Catie doesn't actually have any dating experience. But she can fake it. With her late father's copy of The Five Love Languages and all his annotated notes, Catie becomes the perfect dating coach. Or so she thinks. As she gets dangerously close to Toby and to finding out what really happened to her biological mom, she realizes that learning the language of love might be tougher than she thought. Stefany Valentine's debut novel is both a fresh, fun romance as well as a profound, luminous story about grief, family, transracial adoption, and what it means to truly follow your heart.
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Love, Misha: A Graphic Novel
by Askel Aden
Can this road trip get any worse? Yes, Mom (Audrey) wanted to spend time with Misha. And yes, she's never around and they don't even live together, so this is a rare opportunity. But Audrey still thinks of Misha as her daughter, despite Misha being non-binary and trying to talk to her openly about it. Misha even tries to write how they feel in a letter, but that isn't going well either. Then a wrong turn down a forest road leads the mother-child duo straight into the Realm of Spirits! Suddenly in peril and without a clue how to return to their world, Misha and Audrey will have to work together to find their way back home. But can they find a way back to each other?
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Red Flags and Butterflies
by Sheryl Azzam
Tenth-grader Lexie works overtime to help launch her father's new renovation business, hoping that, in exchange, she'll obtain his blessing to attend the art school of her dreams. But when she catches him in a compromising lie, Lexie must make an impossible choice between appeasing her father and staying true to herself.
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You and Me on Repeat
by Mary Shyne
Chris O'Brien has a genius plan: If he can share the perfect first kiss with his crush, Andy, then of course he'll break free from the time loop that has him repeating graduation day over and over...and over. Alicia Ochoa thinks Chris's plan is doomed. Valedictorian and a total nerd, she knows it'll take more than a kiss to escape the loop they're trapped in together. Besides, Chris may be a hopeless romantic, but Alicia doesn't think he has a real shot with Andy. Once close friends, Alicia and Chris have history--lots of it. As they got older, the pair fell out after Chris ditched her for the cool kids and left her in the dust. But when you're looping side by side, you never know if friendship might rekindle or what new feelings could spark along the way.--Provided by publisher.
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Bloomingdale Public Library
101 Fairfield Way, Bloomingdale, Illinois 60108
630-529-3120
https://www.mybpl.org |
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