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  • General Recommendations
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SJPL Picks: Jewish Voices in YA Lit

For many years, Jewish representation in literature was often synonymous with reading about historical trauma. While these stories are vital and must be shared, the Jewish experience is vast, vibrant, and multifaceted. This book list celebrates that breadth, featuring contemporary Jewish authors and characters throughout history who reflect the full spectrum of Jewish life. From the magic of ancient folklore to the nerves of a first crush, these stories follow Jewish protagonists as they save the world, navigate family traditions, and find themselves. Join us in celebrating Jewish joy, resilience, and adventure, in all its forms. Teen/YA fiction authored by and including characters that identify as Jewish, in a range of genres. Selected and curated by SJPL Librarians.

User from San José Public Library

45 items

  • Seniors Sadie Katz and Cleo Chapman, who have been rivals since birth, are neck-and-neck for valedictorian, but when increasingly serious pranks take over their high school and all signs point to Sadie and Cleo as the perpetrators, they must team up…
    Book, 2025New York, NY : Bloomsbury YA, 2025. — YA FICTION Greenfie
  • Zoe takes a cross-country train over the fall break to sort out their falling out with friends, come to terms with their gender identity, and more while making new friends and connections.
    Book, 2025New York : Storytide, 2025. — YA FICTION Arlow
  • Amelia Applebaum thinks she is in love with Walter Holland, a moderately famous, chaotically bisexual YouTuber, so she drags her friends, including newly single, always-cynical, guitar-toting best friend Natalie, on a road trip to meet Walter.
    Book, 2025New York, NY : HarperCollins, 2025. — YA FICTION Albertal
  • Eugene Guterman's junior year in high school is off to a rocky start. He would just as soon spend the year playing small, but that’s hard to do when you’re the biggest kid in your class. Things change when he accidentally tackles the school’s star…
    Book, 2024New York : Holiday House, [2024] — YA FICTION Zadoff
  • On the night before her wedding, 17-year-old Sorel leaps from a window and runs away from her life. To keep from being discovered, she takes on the male identity of Isser Jacobs — but it soon becomes clear that there is a real Isser Jacobs, and…
    Book, 2024Montclair, NJ : Levine Querido, [2024] — YA FICTION Lamb
  • Told in alternating voices, teen actress Arden James heads home for the holidays to improve her reckless reputation, surprising her ex-best friend and aspiring journalist Caroline with a fake dating proposition.
    Book, 2024New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2024. — YA FICTION Lippinco
  • A smart and powerful story set in the Orthodox Jewish community about what it means to fit in, break out, and find your own way, by the award-winning author of The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen. This book is Gossip Girl + My Name Is Asher Lev + I…
    Book, 2024New York, New York : Philomel, 2024. — YA FICTION Blum
  • Owl-shifting female vampires from Jewish tradition, sisters Clara and Molly, who work their historic movie theater by day and feed on men in secret at night, must enter New York's monstrous underworld to save Molly's girlfriend, breaking all their…
    Book, 2024New York : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2024. — YA FICTION Vishny
  • When his parents stop talking to each other, Jesse tries to maintain his dream life in Pennsylvania away from the pressures of high school in NYC until COVID shuts the city down just days after his mother leaves his father, causing his two worlds to…
    Book, 2024New York : Scholastic Press, 2024. — YA FICTION Sonnenbl
  • Based on her own teenage diary, the author melds truth with fiction and art in this candid look at adolescence that is full of invaluable friends and heartbreaking crushes, awesome playlists and vintage outfits, drama nerds and art kids, old wounds…
    Book, 2023New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2023. — YA FICTION Wahl
  • In 1979 Texas, 13-year-old Joseph Nissan struggles to trust others and stay true to himself when the Iran hostage crisis, two neighborhood bullies and the local reverend's beautiful daughter put him in danger, until he discovers he's not alone.
    Book, 2023Ashland, OR : Blackstone Publishing, 2023. — YA FICTION Khubiar
  • Entering a contest to redesign late author Emrys Myrddin's estate, aspiring architect Effy Sayre arrives at Hiraeth Manor where she meets a stodgy young literature scholar who draws her into a battle against dark forces - both mortal and magical -…
    Book, 2023New York, NY : HarperTeen, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2023] — YA FICTION Reid
  • Told in alternating timelines, Jewish seventeen-year-old Natalya spends one summer in New York with her dad, trying to muster the courage to talk to her girl crush, and the other in Los Angeles with her estranged mom, going for a guy she never saw…
    Book, 2023New York : Wednesday Books, 2023. — YA FICTION Adler
  • Based on the author's grandmother's true experiences during the Holocaust in Romania, this harrowing story follows Rieke Teitler as she must decide whether holding on to her life might mean letting go of everything that has ever mattered to her.
    Book, 2023New York : Balzer + Bray, 2023. — YA FICTION Arnold
  • Swan maiden Hilde sacrifices her magical wings to seek freedom in the human world, but when her pact with an upstart baron takes her the court of Ludwig II, she struggles to fit in, and only Jewish artist Franz, who has the power to paint souls, can…
    Book, 2023Atlanta : Peachtree Teen, [2023] — YA FICTION Romero
  • Teens Hannah and Noah, who each have different ideas of how to spend Hanukkah, team up to save the last Jewish remnant in small-town Texas. New Yorker Hannah Levin is allergic to exactly two things, horses and tinsel. Unfortunately, she’s surrounded…
    Book, 2023New York : Underlined, [2023] — YA FICTION Aldredge
  • Margo Zimmerman is gay, but she didn't know until now. An overachiever at heart, Margo is determined to ace her newly discovered gayness. All she needs is the right tutor. Abbie Sokoloff has her own gayness down to a science. But a flunking grade in…
    Book, 2023Toronto, Ontario, Canada : Inkyard Press, [2023] — YA FICTION Shrum
  • In 1987 NYC, when Micah and C.J. start dating after meeting at a club, their relationship is tested, strained, pushed and pulled as their lives become more and more entangled in the AIDS epidemic laying waste to their community.
    Book, 2022New York : Scholastic Press, 2022. — YA FICTION Konigsbe
  • When sixteen-year-old Mateo and Chela discover each other and their powers during a political battle between neighborhood factions, they set aside their differences to unravel the mystery behind their sunken homeland and to stop a dangerous…
    Book, 2022Los Angeles : Hyperion, 2022. — YA FICTION Older
  • A moving YA debut about a girl who grapples with questions of her Jewish identity, mental health struggles, and sexuality while on a temple exchange trip through Israel. -- When high school senior Tally and her twin brother Max head off on an…
    Book, 2022New York : Bloomsbury Children's Books, 2022. — YA FICTION Neil