The Teenage Book list is selected annually by librarians from the Schools Library Service and secondary schools, and is a list of recommended fiction to buy for your school library.
The teen list represents a selection of the best new fiction first published in paperback within the last 12 months, and covers a diverse range of subjects, genres, authors and interests.
Titles from the Teen and Primary lists will be chosen for the Tower Hamlets Book Award short list in July. Remember to let us know if you want to participate in this event!
Posters for the 2025 booklists will be delivered to subscribing schools!
Please contact the library for more information on the Teen List or to request additional posters (subscribing schools only – subject to availability).
See the full list of books
| Wild East | Ashley Hickson-Lovence | When fourteen-year-old Ronny’s life is struck by tragedy, his mum decides it’s finally time they move out of East London. In his new city, as a Black teenager in a mostly white school, Ronny feels like a complete outsider and struggles to balance keeping his head down with his ambition of becoming a rapper. But when a local poet comes into class, Ronny discovers a world he’s never considered before. Rap is like spoken word, bars equal poetry – and maybe the combination of both could be the key to achieving his dreams? |
| Wolf Siren | Beth O’Brien | Red is not allowed to go into the woods. Everyone knows that they are dangerous – because of their strange magic and the wolves that lurk there… But Red finds herself increasingly drawn to the woods and the place where her grandmother disappeared without a trace three years ago. When the woodcutter fails to return home one night and wolves are spotted close to the village boundary, fear drives a deep and dangerous divide between the villagers and the nature they live alongside. |
| Skipshock | Caroline O’Donoghue | Margo is a troubled schoolgirl. After the death of her father, she’s on her way to a new boarding school in a new city. Moon is a salesman. He makes his living traveling through a series of interconnected worlds on a network of barely used train lines. They never should have met. But when Margo suddenly appears one day on Moon’s train, their fates become inextricably linked. If Margo wants to survive, she has to pass as a traveling salesman, too—except it’s not that easy. |
| Catfish Rolling | Clara Kumagai | There’s a catfish under the islands of Japan and when it rolls the land rises and falls. Sora hates the catfish whose rolling caused an earthquake so powerful it cracked time itself. It destroyed her home and took her mother. |
| If My Words Had Wings | Danielle Jawando | When fifteen-year-old Tyrell Forrester gets caught up in a high-profile armed robbery, he’s sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ prison. Now he’s getting out, and he’s determined to turn his life around. But despite his release, systemic discrimination makes it difficult for Ty to truly be free. Inspired by a visiting poet while inside, Ty discovers a whole new world through spoken word and is finally finding his voice. But will society ever see him as anything other than a criminal? THEMES: Crime/Prison/Poetry |
| Work It, Lara Bloom | Dee Benson | A heart-warming story of friendship, crushes and learning to love yourself. |
| It all started with a lie | Denise Brown | When Pearl discovers a newspaper clipping showing a picture of her dad holding a baby he found abandoned outside a hospital years ago, it sets off a chain of events of betrayal, obsession, murder. And it all started with a lie. |
| Four Eids and a Funeral | Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé | Said Hossain hates Tiwa Olatunji. And Tiwa would happily never see Said again in her life. Growing up, the two were inseparable, but they have barely spoken since the incident many Eids ago and both of them would like to keep it that way. But when Said comes home for a funeral and the town’s Islamic Centre burns down on the same day, they have to face each other again and sparks fly. |
| Now, Conjurers | Freddie Kölsch | November 1999, North Dana, Massachusetts. The body of Bastion Attia – high school quarterback, secret witch, and Nesbit Nuñez’s even-more-secret boyfriend – is discovered at the edge of Stepwood Cemetery. As Nesbit and his coven of queer misfits investigate Bastion’s death they discover local folktales of Mr. Nous, a terrifying wish-granting creature, one whose gifts come at a terrible price. |
| Something More | Jackie Khalileh | Fifteen-year-old Jessie, is diagnosed as autistic just weeks before starting high school. Determined to make a fresh start and keep her diagnosis a secret, Jessie creates a list of goals that range from acquiring two distinct eyebrows, to getting a magical first kiss and landing a spot in the school play. Within the halls of Holy Trinity High, she finds a world where things are no longer black and white and quickly learns that living in colour is much more fun. But Jessie gets more than she bargained for when two very different boys steal her heart, forcing her to go off-script. |
| The List | Keith Gray | It’s the end of the summer and Denny is having to move away with his mum now that she’s found a good job. He’s made a list of scores to settle and wrongs to right before he goes. He asks his best friend, Jake, to help. Jake is absolutely gutted that Denny is leaving and worries what life will be like without him. Of course he’ll do anything to help, no matter how weird or unrealistic the items on Denny’s list might be. But the list is more powerful than either of them realise – it can make and break friendships. |
| Ghostlight | Kenneth Oppel | Rebecca Strand was just sixteen when she and her father fell to their deaths from the top of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse in 1839. Just how they fell—or were they pushed?—remains a mystery. And their ghosts haunt the lighthouse to this day. . . . Gabe tells this story every day when he gives the ghost tour on Toronto Island. He tries to make it scary enough to satisfy the tourists, but he doesn’t actually believe in ghosts—until he finds himself face to face with Rebecca Strand. |
| We Have Everything We Need To Start Again | Koleka Putuma | An empowering and uplifting collection of poems to help teenagers all the big questions, discoveries and transitions of young adulthood. |
| Black Star | Kwame Alexander | When Charley challenges a neighbourhood bully to a game at the church picnic, she knows she can win, even with her ragtag team. But when the picnic spills over onto their ball field, she makes a fateful decision. A child cannot protect herself if she does not know her history, and Charley’s choice brings consequences she never could have imagined. |
| The virtue season | L.M Nathan | Manon Pawlak has just turned eighteen, a debutant at the start of the Virtue Season: a process that will result in a match with a suitable genetic mate. Her best friend, Agatha, has been decommissioned, forbidden to partake in the season and unite with the boy who has had her heart since they were children. When Manon’s mother wades out into the waters of Penn Vale with stones sewn into the lining of her coat, Manon’s genetic purity is called into question and she’s forced to rely on the fisherman’s son, Wick, to keep her secret. But as they dance, the truth about their world starts to unravel, and Manon finds herself at the centre of it all. And the council is watching. |
| Lover birds | Leanne Egan | When Isabel Williams moves to Liverpool, she criticises seemingly everything in Eloise Byrne’s life. So, if she catches Isabel staring and Eloise feels her pulse race, it must be because they hate each other. Eloise needs to get her ADHD under control in time for A-Levels, but when she meets Isabel, school becomes the least of her concerns. What begins as outright contempt turns into an oddly satisfactory rivalry, but for their rivalry to shift further into romance, their relationship must withstand Isabel’s classism, Eloise’s distrust, and whatever secrets their friends are hiding from them. |
| Fallout | Lesley Parr | Marcus has one brother in a youth offender centre and the other is working with their dad on plans for their next theft. Everyone assumes Marcus will follow in their footsteps, but he has other ideas, different hopes. When a mysterious accident lands a man in hospital, it confirms what everyone in their community expects and Marcus gets the blame. He feels trapped. Only new girl Emma – with her peace protest banners and political badges – questions this story. Can they work together to clear his name – and help Marcus become the person he really wants to be? |
| Death at Morning House | Maureen Johnson | The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist. With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition. |
| Songlight | Moira Buffini | Elsa is used to hiding the most important parts of herself. She buries that secret deep inside. In Brightland, those with songlight are called Unhumans and are abhorred. Rye is the only other person Elsa has known with songlight, and their shared bond has brought them together. Elsa lives in a remote seaside village; Nightingale, her new friend, lives in a city hundreds of miles away with her father, a government official responsible for rooting out Unhumans. The two never expected to connect via songlight. But when they do, and when they realize the extent of their power, they’ll be thrust in the middle of a war that threatens their very existence. |
| King of Nothing | Nathanael Lessore | ANTON AND HIS FRIENDS ARE THE KINGS OF YEAR 9. The other kids run away when he’s about but that’s the way he wants it – he’s got a reputation to live up to after all. So when he gets into serious trouble at school, he doesn’t really care, but his mum most definitely does. She decides it’s time for Anton to make some new friends and join the Happy Campers, a local activity group. Anton would quite literally rather do anything else, especially when he finds out Matthew, the biggest loser in school, is also a member. But after Matthew unexpectedly saves Anton’s life, Anton figures maybe this kid is worth a shot. Teaching him some game is the least Anton can do to repay the debt. As the boys strike up an unlikely friendship, Anton finds himself questioning everything he thought was important. Does he want ruling the school to be his crowning glory or should he set his sights on better things? |
| Apocalypse Cow | O.R. Sorrel | Mel is just about coping with being the only ‘out’ lesbian in school and all the sniping that Janis and Ella aim her way, as well as her dreary Saturday job with the stupidly posh Dorian… But when domestic animals suddenly lethally turn on the human race, and Mel finds herself stuck in a mansion with Dorian and Ella, her love-life suddenly turns on its head in the most extraordinary way. |
| Silver | Olivia Levez | Silver has been trained to collect data on the humans to test if Earth is viable for her home ship, Charybdis, to colonise. The only rules are that she must feed back the data she collects to the ship, and at all times follow the Mantra: To touch is agony. To feel is pain. So when Silver inhabits the body of a young woman and infiltrates the house she is staying in, she must learn to pass as a human without revealing her true identity. But she isn’t prepared for how the humans will get under her skin. And she definitely isn’t prepared for Finch, the boy she starts to fall for. Especially when he touches her – and it doesn’t hurt. |
| The Mercury in me | Rachael Fernandes | Maya Pritik is seventeen, an aspiring doctor and wants to get through Sixth Form in one piece. This is not made easy by school bully Candice Riley, who has a target on Maya’s back and is the owner of the not-so-anonymous Hot-Or-Not Instagram account. Luckily Maya has her best friend, Lucie Perry, and older brother, Tamir, to keep her together. Maya’s passion is music, so when she hears musical theatre heartthrob Harry Wu singing an original song, she has to go investigate. |
| Splinters | Rachel Delahaye | Jean Sylvester thinks life isn’t fair and wishes hers was different. When she witnesses a traumatic accident, she can’t help but blame herself for the events leading up to it. To be free of the nightmare she has a choice: she can spiral into despair or reconcile herself with the fact that terrible things happen, and some can’t be changed. |
| Yours from the tower | Sally Nicholls | The year is 1896, and Polly is teaching in an orphanage, Sophia is scouting for a rich husband at the London Season, and Tirzah is stuck acting as an unpaid companion to her grandmother. Can this trio of very different young women find happiness and love near the dawn of the Edwardian era? |
| Brielle and Bear: Once Upon a Time | Salomey Doku | First-year student Brielle, a daydreamy book lover, knows everything there is to know about fairytales. Returning to the city of Rosebridge four years after moving away, she attends Once Upon a Time University, with the intention of living her fairytale dream. And when she meets Bear, shy vice-captain of the Princes rugby team, at the bookshop where she works, Brielle’s dream is off to a good start. |
| Where the Heart Should Be | Sarah Crossan | Ireland, 1846. Nell is working as a scullery maid in the kitchen of the Big House. Once she loved school and books and dreaming. But there’s not much choice of work when the land grows food that rots in the earth. Now she is scrubbing, peeling, washing, sweeping for Sir Philip Wicken, the man who owns her home, her family’s land, their crops, everything. His dogs are always well fed, even as famine sets in. |
| The Murder Hypothesis | Sarah Wishart | How do you catch a murderer without knowing who the victim is? Science-obsessed Grace’s fresh start with her dad in Devon is derailed when the smart speaker in their new house comes alive at midnight and says: I’m going to murder you.And after Grace begins to investigate, she uncovers four mysterious deaths – all supposedly accidents – that are linked to the device. |
| All The Things They Said We Couldn’t Have: Stories of Trans Joy | T.C. Oakes-Monger | Now, more than ever, trans people deserve to hear stories of joy and hope, where being trans doesn’t have to be defined by fear and dysphoria, but can be experienced through courage, freedom, and the love and acceptance of their chosen families. THEMES: LGBTQ+/Well-being |
| The Boy I Love | William Hussey | At just nineteen, Stephen has already survived a year of WW1. Now he is returning to the trenches to lead a platoon, despite his wounds. Broken-hearted from the loss of his first love, Stephen wonders what he’s fighting for. Then he meets Private Danny McCormick, a smart, talented young recruit… |
