Marvelyn Brown – The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
Marvelyn Brown was a straight, non-promiscuous, everyday girl with a steady boyfriend—but at the age of nineteen, she was she was informed that she was HIV positive. Rather than give up on herself, Brown found a reason to fight and a reason to live. Since her diagnosis, she has been telling her story to the world, appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Tyra Banks Show, MTV, and BET. "I wrote The Naked Truth because I wanted people to get the full story and [I wanted to] show people that I am just like them. This virus is real... and [being] uneducated about HIV does not make you immune," Brown says of her book, an inspirational memoir and a cautionary tale for every teen.

Reyna Grande – Across A Hundred Mountains
Thursday, November 5, 2009 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
A participant in the Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellowship, Mexican-American Reyna Grande writes compellingly about the struggles of a Mexican immigrant coming to the United States in Across a Hundred Mountains. When Juana's father leaves Mexico to find a better life in America, she must stay with her increasingly unstable mother. Finally unable to cope any longer, Juana decides to head north to look for her father. During her difficult journey, Juana is taken in by Adelina, another runaway who works as a prostitute in Tijuana. "Grande’s deft portraiture endows even the smallest characters with grace," praises Publisher's Weekly.

Carole Boston Weatherford – Becoming Billie Holiday
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
Through a collection of raw and poignant poems, Carole Boston Weatherford tells the story of how Eleanora Fagan rose from troubled beginnings to become one of the nation's greatest jazz singers, Billie Holiday. Living in poverty in Baltimore, Eleanora was neglected by her parents, sexually assaulted by a neighbor, and had run-ins with the law. But she had a unique voice, and by the time she was twenty-five she had fronted some of the most popular bands of the era. Becoming Billie Holiday received a Coretta Scott King Author Honor and was named a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year 2008. Weatherford is an award-winning poet and author of more than two dozen books, including Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom.

Jay Asher – Thirteen Reasons Why
Thursday, November 19, 2009 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
A stunning debut novel, Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why spent more than 40 weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list, won numerous awards, and is a book that readers will not soon forget. Clay Jenson comes home one day to find a box full of audio tapes addressed to him. Thinking it's a joke, he begins to listen—and finds that the tapes are a message to him from his former crush and classmate Hannah Baker, who recently committed suicide. There are 13 tapes in all, and each tape reveals another reason why Hannah felt she had to take her life; Clay is one of those reasons. Deeply moving, the novel carries a heavy message about how we treat one another. National Book Award winner Sherman Alexie calls the book "a mystery, eulogy, and ceremony," and continues, "I know, in the years to come, I will often return to this book."

Cory Doctorow – Little Brother
Friday, November 20, 2009 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist, and blogger. Called "the William Gibson of his generation" by Entertainment Weekly, Doctorow is the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of the New York Times bestseller Little Brother. An advocate for freedom in technology law, policy, standards, and treaties, he was named one of Forbes Magazine's Web Celebrities for 2007/8 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (2007). A scarily realistic techno-adventure set in near-future San Francisco, Little Brother has been nominated for Hugo, Nebula, Sunburst, and Locus awards. A reviewer for The Los Angeles Times writes, "Little Brother is generally awesome in the more vernacular sense: It's pretty freaking cool ... [Doctorow is] terrific at finding the human aura shimmering around technology."

Walter Dean Myers – Riot
Thursday, December 10, 2009 1:00 p.m.
One of the most popular authors of literature for young adults, Walter Dean Myers "grapples with complex moral questions that will definitely make readers stop and think," wrote one Booklist reviewer. The winner of two Newbery Honor awards, five Coretta Scott King Awards, and the Michael L. Printz Award, among many others, Myers's books include Fallen Angels, Harlem: A Poem, and Monster. His new book, Riot—written in the same groundbreaking screenplay style as Monster—tells the story of the 1863 race riots in New York City when Irish immigrants, enraged by the federal Civil War military draft, exploded into the streets, attacking blacks across the city until Union soldiers stepped in to restore order. Myers provides a sympathetic portrait of the time through the voices of characters of different races.