Here are 70 books that Not Here to Be Liked fans have personally recommended if you like
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Growing up, I always loved reading young adult romances where first love and growing up seemed like the perfect kind of summer story. As an adult, and especially as an educator, I have too often seen the likes and interests of my female students dismissed as silly or frivolous, romance being at the top of this list. I love cultivating a diverse classroom library, one that includes books for everyone’s interest and background. Writing stories for young readers and about what interests them has been the great privilege of my life.
Not only do we have a summer romance, but we’ve combined it with French pastry. Literally a recipe for success! Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau’s debut YA novel follows seventeen-year-old ballerina, Mia, as she travels to Paris for the summer for an elite ballet program. Of course, she meets the charming Louis, and together they explore all that Paris has to offer. Rife with beautiful descriptions of Paris and plenty of croissants, this is the perfect summer romance.
As sweet as a macaron from Laduree, this romantic novel set in Paris about an American ballerina and a charming French boy isparfaitfor fans ofAmerican Royalsand Netflix'sEmily in Paris.
Mia Jenrow has always known she's destined to be a professional ballerina. In fact, it’s in her blood—according to family legend, her too-many-greats-to-count-grandmother once danced for the Paris Opera and was painted by Degas himself! Her parents say it’s just a fantasy, but to Mia it’s so much more than that. It’s her fate.
Mia is planning to spend a magical summer in France pursuing her dream, but as she pirou-ettes…
Mal's older brother has disappeared into thin air. Laura's parents went away for the weekend and when she gives them a call, they have no idea who she is. In pursuit of answers, the teens become entangled with two others similarly targeted by a force they don't understand and now,…
I was an ambitious teen, and as I entered adulthood, my relationship with ambition has continually evolved. Those of us with marginalized genders sometimes have our ambition treated with suspicion or scorn—by peers, family, or would-be mentors. I wanted to share books that don’t necessarily come to the same conclusion about ambition’s role in our lives, but that all grapple with what it means to be ambitious in a culture where that is often seen as threatening or unladylike—or where any sign of ambition gets one automatically labeled as “unlikeable.” I love these books’ narrators, and I hope you will find something to love in them too.
Hayley is thrilled to be accepted to a prestigious summer program for aspiring teen animators. But then only boys are chosen to direct the participants’ short films, and that might only scratch the surface of the boys’ club culture within the program. The multiple forms of sexism Hayley experiences throughout are so real, they were painful to read (in the best, truest way), as I reflected on my own experiences with misogynistic gatekeeping—but the community and solidarity that develop throughout this fantastic novel are very satisfying.
“Packs a swoony punch along with its feminist rage.” —Maurene Goo, author of Somewhere Only We Know
Moxie meets the world of animation in this fresh, unputdownable novel about a teen girl determined to prove herself in the boys’ club of her dream industry no matter what it takes.
Hayley Saffitz is confident, ambitious, and intent on following in the footsteps of her hero, renowned animation director, Bryan Beckett. When she’s given a spot in his once-in-a-lifetime summer program, Hayley devises a plan: snag one of the internship’s coveted directing opportunities. Dazzle Bryan with her talent. Secure a job post-graduation.…
I’m a Chinese Vietnamese American author who writes about the Asian girls I never saw in books as a kid. Growing up in Southern California, I was part of an Asian community that was extremely diverse—a reality that was rarely reflected in American pop culture. For years, I longed to see messy, flawed, fully humanized Asian characters in all different kinds of stories, not just the typical child-of-immigrant narratives. As a result, I now spend a lot of time thinking about representation (whether I want to or not!), and I’m always looking for writers who pull it off with nuance and realism. I hope you’ll find these books are great examples of that.
The Other Side of Perfectis about a young ballet dancer, Alina, who suffers a life-changing injury and must learn to deal with her multilayered, sometimes unsympathetic, anger.
Even though its themes are heavy, I somehow couldn’t put this one down. The characters are so real (and often funny), and every conflict unfurls with realistic nuance, sometimes devastatingly so.
Mariko Turk’s refusal to simplify emotions—even when exploring painful topics like racism—earns this book a standing ovation from me.
For fans of Sarah Dessen and Mary H.K. Choi, this lyrical and emotionally driven novel follows Alina, a young aspiring dancer who suffers a devastating injury and must face a world without ballet—as well as the darker side of her former dream.
Alina Keeler was destined to dance, but then a terrifying fall shatters her leg—and her dreams of a professional ballet career along with it.
After a summer healing (translation: eating vast amounts of Cool Ranch Doritos and binging ballet videos on YouTube), she is forced to trade her pre-professional dance classes for normal high school, where she reluctantly…
Liveaboard sailor Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived when she blags her way into skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film. However, this means returning to the Shetland Islands, the place she fled as a teenager. When a corpse unexpectedly appears onboard the longship, she can…
I was an ambitious teen, and as I entered adulthood, my relationship with ambition has continually evolved. Those of us with marginalized genders sometimes have our ambition treated with suspicion or scorn—by peers, family, or would-be mentors. I wanted to share books that don’t necessarily come to the same conclusion about ambition’s role in our lives, but that all grapple with what it means to be ambitious in a culture where that is often seen as threatening or unladylike—or where any sign of ambition gets one automatically labeled as “unlikeable.” I love these books’ narrators, and I hope you will find something to love in them too.
This book is an absolutely to-die-for rivals-to-lovers tale, sparked when Natalie is forced to team up with her long-time enemy on a musical in order to secure funding for the arts at their high school. Natalie’s evolving relationships with her family and friends are complex and brilliant, and I felt allthe feelings about the interplay between art and ambition while reading.
A pair of fierce foes are forced to work together to save the arts at their school in this swoony YA enemies-to-lovers romance that fans of Jenny Han and Morgan Matson are sure to adore.
Lifelong rivals Natalie and Reid have never been on the same team. So when their school's art budget faces cutbacks, of course Natalie finds herself up against her nemesis once more. She's fighting to direct the school's first ever student-written play, but for her small production to get funding, the school's award-winning band will have to lose it. Reid's band. And he's got no intention…
I’m an actor as well as a writer. I’ve spent more hours than can be counted dissecting stories and characters in order to better understand and transmit them to an audience. While standing on a stage, an actor is never unaware that they are performing for others. We may lose ourselves in a moment, in a character, in emotion, but the applause and the gasps, and the laughter always bring us back. As a writer, I spend a lot of time tapping into that feeling of ignoring-while-being-totally-aware of the fourth wall. I love books that wink at readers the way actors can at audiences.
I wrote my undergrad thesis on the migration of visual tropes from traditional Japanese theatre (Noh, Bunraku, and Kabuki) into modern art forms (Manga, Anime, Supakabuki/Anime Musicals), which was a rigorous exercise because I couldn’t just compare the tropes—I had to spend hours explaining them to my advisor. It was a fascinating (sometimes exasperating) lesson in learning to read one visual vocabulary, only to have to explain it to someone else in terms that they understood using another.
This blurred-xerox-translation-of-a-translation exercise is the central theme of Mangaman, where a Shojou-esque protagonist falls from a fantastical manga world into a comic. Visual conventions clash, where he walks the wrong way across panels, and where his speed lines accidentally stab people in the school hallway.
East meets West in this innovative and very smart graphic novel by Barry Lyga, illustrated by Colleen Doran.Sci-fi adventure meets love story—and East meets West—in Mangaman, an original graphic novel for teens. Ryoko, a manga character from a manga world, falls through the Rip into the “real” world—the western world—and tries to survive as the ultimate outsider at a typical American high school. When Ryoko falls in love with Marissa Montaigne, the most beautiful girl in the school, his eyes turn to hearts and comic tension tightens as his way of being drawn and expressing himself clashes with this different…
I’ve been fascinated with the paranormal since I was a little girl and used to talk to the old lady on the edge of my bed. That old lady turned out to be my grandma, who had passed when I was in my mother’s womb. My entire family is touched by the curiosity and love that comes with the paranormal, so much so my mother is a working psychic medium. For years, I have spent every birthday attending haunted houses with a paranormal team to “investigate.” For some strange reason, I love to be terrified, and I fear I will never stop chasing the thrill.
Natasha Preston got me into reading and I am no stranger to her books or her crazy endings. As much as I have a love-hate relationship with the ending of this book….it has been a year since I picked this book up, and I still think about it to this day. Constantly.
It gives slasher/scream movie vibes set during Halloween and I could not for the life of me put it down when I read it.
I will, in fact, be doing a re-read this spooky season because it truly sets the tone for Halloween.
#1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Natasha Preston is back with another pulse-pounding, twisty read!
Haunted by the past . . . terrified of the present.
Penny knows she must forget about her ex, Nash. Ever since his father was revealed as the brutal serial killer who traumatized their small town last Halloween, Penny’s parents have forbidden her to have anything to do with Nash or his family. It’s hard not to think of him—but she’s trying.
That stops when she goes shopping with friends for a costume. What she finds instead is ripped from a horror…
"A haunting YA mystery. Touching on everything from police ineptitude and community solidarity to the endless frustration of being patronized as a young person, this paranormal thriller confidently combines timely and relatable themes within a page-turning storyline." - Self-Publishing Review
"Biel's writing is fast-paced and sharp!" - author Christy Wopat…
I never wanted to study mass murder or violence of any kind. I was doing my internship for my Ph.D. in counseling psychology at a psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents when the attack at Columbine High School occurred. Within ten days of that attack, a 16-year-old boy was admitted to the hospital because he was viewed as a Columbine-type risk. I was assigned to conduct a psychological evaluation of him. Then another potential school shooter was admitted. And another. Seeking insight into this population and learning how to recognize the warning signs and prevent impending attacks has become my life’s work.
John Van Dreal is a school psychologist with decades of experience developing the Salem-Keizer model of violence prevention in schools.
In addition to providing comprehensive threat assessment guidelines, the book also discusses other safety issues including dating violence, workplace violence, domestic violence, and stalking. Whereas some works related to school safety focus solely on students as potential perpetrators, this book also discusses dangers posed by adults.
Assessing Student Threats: Implementing the Salem-Keizer System, 2nd Edition is a manual for the application of a threat assessment system that follows the recommendations of the Safe Schools Initiative and the prescriptive outline provided by the FBI. Written from an educator's perspective with contributing authors from Law Enforcement, Public Mental Health, and the District Attorney's office, it contains an introduction to the basic concepts of threat assessment, a review of the research, and an outlined process for the application of a comprehensive, yet expeditious multi-disciplinary system. The book also includes the forms and protocols needed to assess threats, document concerns…
I was once a little girl who loved reading, and now I'm a mother who shares that passion with my kid. Over the past few years, I've been revisiting my own childhood favorites with him (it's been a serendipitous mix of work and pleasure as I was also researching a book on one of the all-time great children's book authors, Judy Blume). The novels I've recommended here are ones that seemed to spark pleasure in the most discerning—and honest—of audiences: an 8-year-old. And unlike some old books that will go unnamed, they didn't make me cringe as a 21st-century parent.
The Ramona books are super sweet without being saccharine. I love that Ramona is different and a little bit difficult, but her family never discourages her from being herself.
This novel features one of my favorite scenes in the entire series when third-grader Ramona tries to get in on a classroom trend by cracking a hard-boiled egg on her forehead. She asks her mom to put an egg in her lunch, and her mother misunderstands and gives her a raw egg instead. The result is funny but also a memorable lesson in what happens when you mindlessly follow the pack.
In this edition of the Newbery Honor Book Ramona Quimby, Age 8, the timeless classic features a special foreword written by actress, producer, and author Amy Poehler, as well as an exclusive interview with Beverly Cleary herself.
Ramona likes that she’s old enough to be counted on, but must everything depend on her? Mrs. Quimby has gone back to work so that Mr. Quimby can return to school, and Ramona is expected to be good for Mrs. Kemp while her parents are away, to be brave enough to ride the school bus by herself, and to put up with being…
Caroline and Katherine Brickley are twin sisters, award-winning children’s book authors, and content creators who specialize in producing literature and media that inspire children to believe in themselves and their ability to make the world a kinder, more inclusive place for everyone. Inspired by their mother, who made up stories for them each night, the sisters spent their childhood coming up with stories of their own and bringing them to life. The sisters made storytelling their full-time job in 2017 by founding Blossom Children’s Media Group from their shared college dorm room. Blossom continues to bring children, families, and educators from around the world together through wholesome stories and inclusive community experiences.
A familiar favorite, The Dot by author-illustrator Paul Reynolds tells the story of a young girl named Vashti who believes she cannot draw. Her art teacher, seeing Vashti struggle, helps her develop confidence in herself by telling her to try drawing just a single dot and to sign her name at the bottom. The next day, Vashti finds that her dot had been hung up above her teacher’s desk, inspiring her to try painting another dot, and then another, and then another. Soon she has created an entire collection of many different dots. And in a moving twist, Vashti’s artwork inspires children who also think they cannot draw to give it a try.
The Dot by Paul Reynolds is one of our favorite books to teach the SEL themes of self-confidence and growth mindset; showcasing all that can happen when we choose to believe in ourselves and persist in the…
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One little dot marks the beginning of Vashti's journey of surprise and self-discovery in Peter H. Reynolds' multiple award-winning modern classic.
In this inspiring, award-winning story of self-expression and creativity from Peter H. Reynolds, illustrator of Ish and the Judy Moody series, Vashti thinks she can't draw. But her teacher is sure that she can. She knows that there's creative spirit in everyone, and encourages Vashti to sign the angry dot she makes in frustration on a piece of paper. This act makes Vashti look at herself a little differently, and helps her discover that where there's a dot there's…
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to…
Middle school was a particularly difficult time for me, a lonely outsider often buried in a book. I didn’t expect to become a comic writer but I fell in love with them in college when my roommate came home with piles of indie books every Wednesday. Now I write comics and adapt stories for Scholastic, including Lauren Tarshis's popular disaster series I Survived.
I used to love going to the Texas Renaissance Fair with my family every year and often imagined what it would be like to work the booths. I also used to tutor homeschooled kids when I was in high school and this graphic novel is a fascinating cross-section of those two worlds. Imogene struggles to fit in with the standards of a new school, something that happens to many kids who aren’t even part-time knights.
Calling all Raina Telgemeier fans! The Newbery Honor-winning author of Roller Girl is back with a heartwarming graphic novel about starting middle school, surviving your embarrassing family, and the Renaissance Faire.
Eleven-year-old Imogene (Impy) has grown up with two parents working at the Renaissance Faire, and she's eager to begin her own training as a squire. First, though, she'll need to prove her bravery. Luckily Impy has just the quest in mind—she'll go to public school after a life of being homeschooled! But it's not easy to act like a noble knight-in-training in middle school. Impy falls in with a…
