Outstanding International Books for Teens

Updated November 25, 2024
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Amazona
Canizales
Paper Book
This socially conscious thriller from graphic novelist Canizales examines the injustices of his home country in a stark, distinctive style. Andrea, a young Indigenous Colombian woman, has returned to the land she calls home. Only nineteen years old, she comes to mourn her lost child,...
Freedom swimmer
Chim, Wai
Paper Book
A powerful story of friendship, bravery, and a desperate bid for freedom, inspired by true events. Ming survived the famine that killed his parents during China's "Great Leap Forward", and lives a hard but adequate life, working in the fields. When a group of city boys comes to the...
Words in deep blue
Crowley, Cath
Paper Book
"One of the loveliest, most exquisitely beautiful books I've read in a very long time. . . . I didn't just read the pages, I lived in them." --Jennifer Niven, New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places   A beautiful love story for fans of...
Blood moon
Cuthew, Lucy
Paper Book
This powerful, timely novel in verse exposes provocative truths about periods, sex, shame, and going viral for all the wrong reasons. After school one day, Frankie, a lover of physics and astronomy, has her first sexual experience with quiet and gorgeous Benjamin--and gets...
Unbecoming
Downham, Jenny
Paper Book
Three women. Three generations. Three secrets.A Stonewall Honor Book!Katie's life is falling apart: her best friend thinks she's a freak, her mother, Caroline, controls every aspect of her life, and her estranged grandmother, Mary, appears as if out of nowhere. Mary has...
Pardalita
Estrela, Joana
Paper Book
MILDRED L. BATCHELDER HONOR WINNER School Library Journal Best of the Year BCCB Best of the Year (Blue Ribbon Selection) A beautiful slice-of-life story that is This One Summer meets Ursula K. Le Guin's Very Far...
Deeplight
Hardinge, Frances
Paper Book
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea meets Frankenstein in Deeplight, an inventive YA fantasy from award-winning author Frances Hardinge. The gods are dead. Fifty years ago, they turned on one another and tore each other apart. Nobody...
The Lie Tree
Hardinge, Frances
Paper Book
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature and Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction. An ALA/ALSC Notable Children's Book and an ALA/YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Top Ten selection A teenage girl unravels lies...
A skinful of shadows
Hardinge, Frances
Paper Book
From the award-winning author of The Lie Tree, Frances Hardinge offers "a delicious combination of historical adventure, coming-of-age tale, and supernatural intrigue" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Sometimes, when a person dies, their spirit goes looking for...
Blue flag. 1
Kaito (Manga artist)
Paper Book
An unexpected love quadrangle with a dash of unrequited love as two classmates, a boy and a girl, begin to fall for each other when each of their best friends have already fallen for them. Love is already hard enough, but it becomes an unnavigable maze for unassuming high school...
When the world was ours
Kessler, Liz
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of the Emily Windsnap series, Liz Kessler, comes a "brutally honest and totally believable" (Booklist, starred review) story of three young friends whose fates are intertwined during the devastation of the Holocaust--based on a true story.<...
Walking in two worlds
Kinew, Wab
Paper Book
In the real world, Bugz is a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and reserve life. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a multiplayer video game universe. Feng is a teen boy who has been sent from China to live with...
Catfish rolling
Kumagai, Clara
Paper Book
"Excellent, evocative, and thoughtful with genuine depth" (New York Times bestselling author Nicola Yoon), Catfish Rolling is a wholly original and mind-bending debut YA novel by Clara Kumagai about memory, family, and an earthquake that breaks apart time. ...
War
Letria, José Jorge
Paper Book
A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book An award-winning, stunningly illustrated, sober depiction of war. A recipient of the prestigious Nami Concours prize, this remarkable book of striking, often surreal illustrations and sparse prose reveals the many sides of...
The big lie
Mayhew, Julie
Paper Book
In a gripping novel set in present-day England under a Nazi regime, a sheltered teen questions what it means to be "good" -- and how far she's willing to go to break the rules. Nazi England, 2014. Jessika Keller is a good girl -- a champion ice skater, model student of the Bund...
Shuna's journey
Miyazaki, Hayao
Paper Book
A New York Times BestsellerWinner of the Eisner for Best U.S. Edition of International Material--Asia From legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki comes Shuna's Journey, a new manga classic about a prince on a quest for a golden grain that would...

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