Isinglass
The Isinglass Award promotes teen reading by inviting teens to help select great literature.
Each year, 7th and 8th graders across NH nominate their favorite books and vote on the top 10 in April.
Previous Books
2024-2025
2025 Selection
By A. S. King
When sixth-grader Mac discovers several words of his classroom copy of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic are blacked out he is outraged, so he, his friends, and his eccentric family set out to do something about the censorship imposed by one teacher and the school board.
by Deke Moulton
Adam and Victor are brothers who have the usual fights over the remote, which movie to watch and whether or not it’s morally acceptable to eat people. Well, not so much eat
. . . just drink a little blood. They’re vampires, hiding in plain sight with their eclectic yet loving family.
By Adiba Jaigirdar
Competing on a televised baking competition in the hope of bringing much-needed attention to her parents' beloved donut shop, Shireen Malik finds things heating up when her fellow contestants include her ex-girlfriend and her new crush, as well as a saboteur.
by Steve Shenkin
Told in tandem, these gripping true stories follow Rudolph, who escaped Auschwitz, becoming the first survivors to expose Nazi concentration camps to the world, and Gerta, his high school friend who began to cave under pressure from German Nazis in Hungary.
by Charles Waters
In Rye, Virginia, an eighth- grade English teacher creates an assignment for her class to debate whether Rye's mascot should stay or change. Now six middle schoolers get involved in the contentious issue.
by Elizabeth Wein
Stella North is one of twelve young pilots competing in a 1937 air race meant to promote peace in Europe, but when one of her competitors is sabotaged, Stella races to determine who is capable of murder, and who might be the next victim.
by Aiden Thomas
Transgender demigod Teo is unexpectedly selected for the Sunbearer Trials, a fierce competition among demigod heroes where the winner sacrifices the loser to Sol, their blood fueling the Sun Stones that protect Reino del Sol.
by Jarrett Krosoczka
When Jarrett was in high school, he was a counselor at a camp for ill kids and their families. Going into it, Jarrett was worried. But instead of the shadow of death, Jarrett found something else: the hope and determination that gets people through the most troubled of times.
by S. Jae-Jones
Forbidden from practicing magic and burdened by her responsibilities, Jin Zhara's life takes an unexpected turn when she becomes involved with the Guardians of Dawn, a group dedicated to fighting a demonic plague that is corrupting magicians.
2025-2026
2026 Selection
By Byron Graves
When the varsity basketball team members take him under their wing, Tre Brun, representing his Ojibwe reservation, steps into his late brother's shoes as star player but soon learns he can't mess up--not on the court, not in school and not in love.
By Neal Shusterman
Taking readers into the darkest time of human history -- the Holocaust -- this graphic novel, woven from Jewish folklore and cultural history, shows what it means to face the extinction of everything and everyone you hold dear while exploring one common thread: the tradition of resistance and uplift.
By Sherri Smith and Christine Norrie
Amy is a Japanese-American girl from Hawaii. When her great-grandmother falls ill, Amy travels to visit family in Hiroshima. But when the Japanese navy attacks Pearl Harbor, it becomes impossible for Amy to return to Hawaii. Torn between two countries at war, Amy must figure out where her loyalties lie and, in the face of unthinkable tragedy, find hope in the rubble of a changed world.
By Sharron Cameron
Isa de Smit grew up in her parents' art gallery in Amsterdam, but in the middle of the war she survives by selling fake paintings to the Nazis while trying to help her friend, Truus, smuggle Jewish babies to safety--but in 1943 it is hard to know who to trust.
By Andrea Rogers
In 2052, Stevie, a Cherokee girl working at a museum in Texas, with the world in a constant cycle of drought and superstorm, ice and fire, discovers it's about to get a whole lot worse when a mysterious boy from the future arrives and tells her what's to come.
By Kalynn Bayron
Able to conjure weapons from nature, Princess Eve, who has been raised to destroy the Knight, an evil sorcerer, as she approaches her 17th birthday, learns a shocking truth about her past and must find the courage to fight, hoping it's enough to save her family and her queendom.
By Madeline Clair Franklin
After being placed in foster care, Rhi wants a fresh start and begins working at the Happy Valley Wildlife Preserve. While in the woods, she stumbles upon a surreal sight: wolves guarding four feral and majestic girls. They reveal that they're princesses from another land and they're convinced Rhi is their lost fifth sister.
By Kristy Boyce
When Riley takes her mom’s car without permission, she's grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad’s game shop. Riley can't waste her time working when she has a musical to save, so she convinces Nathan—a nerdy teen employee—to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she’ll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous. But Riley didn’t realize that meant joining Nathan's Dungeons & Dragons game…
By Diana Urban
On their way to a mystery boy's exclusive party in the Paris catacombs, Ruby and her friends get lost in the endless maze of bones and uncover dark secrets about the catacombs--and each other--as something sinister chases them, determined to stop them from seeing another day.
By Rocky Callen
Dreaming of becoming a famous street racer, 17- year-old Leti Rivera vows to give up driving after tragedy strikes following a race, until she realizes it could be the very thing that saves her--and the boy she's come to love.