A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat

The One Thing You’d Save by Linda Sue Park and illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng

When a teacher asks her class what one thing they would save in an emergency, some students know the answer right away. Others come to their decisions more slowly. And some change their minds when they hear their classmates’ responses. A lively dialogue ignites as the students discover unexpected facets of one another—and themselves.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a brother from a heart condition
  • House fire

Tiger’s Quest by Colleen Houck

Tiger’s Quest by Colleen Houck

Back in Oregon, Kelsey tries to pick up the pieces of her life and push aside her feelings for Ren. Kelsey Hayes’s eighteenth summer was crazy. The kind of crazy nobody would ever believe. Aside From battling immortal sea monkeys and trekking the jungles of India, she fell in love with Ren, a 300-year-old prince. When danger suddenly forces Kelsey on another Indian quest, with Ren’s bad-boy brother, Kishan, the unlikely duo begins to question their true destiny. Ren’s life hangs in the balance–so does the truth within Kelsey’s heart.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood & injury depiction including bloodletting and broken bones
  • Gun, knife & arrow violence
  • Torture
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping
  • Animal attack

Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega

Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega

For Lucely Luna, ghosts are more than just the family business. Shortly before Halloween, Lucely and her best friend, Syd, cast a spell that accidentally awakens malicious spirits, wreaking havoc throughout St. Augustine. Together, they must join forces with Syd’s witch grandmother, Babette, and her tubby tabby, Chunk, to fight the haunting head-on and reverse the curse to save the town and Lucely’s firefly spirits before it’s too late.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Physical injury
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Bullying mentioned

The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat

The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat

As assistant to Mangkon’s most celebrated mapmaker, twelve-year-old Sai plays the part of a well-bred young lady with a glittering future. In reality, her father is a conman—and in a kingdom where the status of one’s ancestors dictates their social position, the truth could ruin her. Sai seizes the chance to join an expedition to chart the southern seas, but she isn’t the only one aboard with secrets. When Sai learns that the ship might be heading for the fabled Sunderlands—a land of dragons, dangers, and riches beyond imagining—she must weigh the cost of her dreams.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parent with alcohol abuse issues, implied
  • Blood & injury depiction including a broken leg and scars
  • Physical assault
  • Whipping
  • Animal injury
  • Whaling

Flawless by Elsie Silver

Flawless by Elsie Silver

The rules were simple. Keep my hands off his daughter and stay out of trouble. But now I’m stuck with her. There’s only one bed. And well, rules are made to be broken. I’m the face of professional bull riding—the golden boy. Or at least I was, until it all blew up in my face. Now my agent says I have to clean up my image, so I’m stuck with his ball-busting daughter for the rest of the season as my “full-time supervision.” But I don’t need a goddamn babysitter, especially one with skin-tight jeans, a sexy smirk, and a mouth she can’t stop running. A mouth I can’t stop thinking… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Parental infidelity recounted
  • Toxic relationship & grooming*
  • Child abuse
  • Divorce
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Congenital heart defect recovery including heart surgery mentioned
  • Heart attack of a parent
  • A bull-riding accident resulting in broken ribs and a severe concussion
  • Dieting & food shaming mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother in childbirth recounted
  • Stalking*

*Context : The heroine was in a secret relationship with her surgeon, at age eighteen, for two years until he became engaged to her sister. There were elements of grooming and manipulation that advance to stalkerish behaviour in the current plotline. The protagonist is also her love interest’s sports agent

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

If the night sky holds many secrets, it holds Sheetal Mistry’s secret the closest. A secret that explains why her hair is the silver of starlight, or why some nights the stars call Sheetal by name. Stars like her mother, who returned to her place in the constellation Pushya years ago. Since that day, Sheetal has been forced to hide. But as her seventeenth birthday draws near, the pull from the sky is growing stronger. So strong that Sheetal loses control, and a flare of starfire burns her human father—an injury only a full star’s blood can heal. Sheetal has no choice but to answer the… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Hospitalisation
  • Kidnaping & Captivity
  • Torture

Not Your Sidekick by CB Lee

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

Welcome to Andover, where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef-up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship—only it turns out to be for the town’s most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, who Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then there’s the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious “M,” who... Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Bimisia
  • Transmisia
  • Coming out recounted
  • Drugging
  • Forced breeding program, implied
  • Physical injury & scars
  • Nonconsensual medical experimentation
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Disappearance of parents
  • Bullying

Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

The islands of Lake Wranglestone are a safe haven in a world filled with the Restless Dead. But as the lake freezes over, there’s nothing to stop them from crossing the ice. Peter’s has never really felt at home in a place where practicality and grit are valued above all else. He’s nothing like rancher, Cooper, the boy he’s always watched from afar. But when he’s is ordered to join him out on the mainland to help herd the Dead from their shores, they find more than just each other. There they unearth a dark secret about Wranglestone’s past. One that forces the pair to question everything they’ve ever known.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Coming out themes
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Decapitation
  • Physical injuries, including eyeball trauma
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death recounted

Beneath the Wreckage by Catherine Cowles

Beneath the Wreckage by Catherine Cowles

It was supposed to be a summer we’d never forget.
Instead, everything was stolen from me. The best friend was more like a sister. The innocent way I looked at life. Leaving me with only unanswered questions. Returning to the island is the second chance I didn’t know I needed. And Hunter is the surprise that knocks me sideways. There’s a hurt in him that calls to my own.
A strength I find in sharing our scars. Igniting a spark that turns to flame. There’s a hurt in him that calls to my own. A strength I find in sharing our scars. Igniting a spark that turns to flame.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Panic attacks
  • Alzheimer’s Disease
  • Physical injury (gunshot wound)
  • Murder
  • Disappearance of a friend

A Shadow Bright and Burning by Jessica Cluess

A Shadow Bright and Burning by Jessica Cluess

Henrietta Howel can burst into flames. Forced to reveal her power to save a friend, she’s shocked when, instead of being executed, she’s invited to train as one of Her Majesty’s royal sorcerers. Thrust into the glamour of Victorian London, Henrietta is declared the chosen one, the girl who will defeat the Ancients, bloodthirsty demons terrorising humanity. She also meets her fellow sorcerer trainees, handsome young men eager to test her power and her heart. One will challenge her. One will fight for her. One will betray her. But Henrietta Howel is not the chosen one. As she plays… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Child abuse
  • Physical injury