If it’s not obvious from my posts, I eat, sleep, and breathe books. With a week and a half left of winter break, I have hours upon hours to spend leisurely reading incredible middle grade and YA books. Lots of folks are sharing their end of year and end of decade “best of” lists, but I’m still sticking with what I have read recently. In the last month, I’ve read some pretty amazing books, and I’d like to share them with you.What are you reading? Share them in the comments section.

You’re Welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner 

My rating = 4 stars; for 7th grade and up

When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful (albeit illegal) graffiti mural.

Her supposed best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her two mothers set Julia up with a one-way ticket to a “mainstream” school in the suburbs, where she’s treated like an outcast as the only deaf student. The last thing she has left is her art, and not even Banksy himself could convince her to give that up.

Out in the ’burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone is adding to her tags, making them better, showing off—and showing Julia up in the process. She expected her art might get painted over by cops. But she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Legacy of Orisha #2) by Tomi Adeyemi

My rating = 5 stars; for 7th grade and up

After battling the impossible, Zélie and Amari have finally succeeded in bringing magic back to the land of Orïsha. But the ritual was more powerful than they could’ve imagined, reigniting the powers of not only the maji, but of nobles with magic ancestry, too.Now, Zélie struggles to unite the maji in an Orïsha where the enemy is just as powerful as they are. But when the monarchy and military unite to keep control of Orïsha, Zélie must fight to secure Amari’s right to the throne and protect the new maji from the monarchy’s wrath.

With civil war looming on the horizon, Zélie finds herself at a breaking point: she must discover a way to bring the kingdom together or watch as Orïsha tears itself apart.

Get Up or Give Up: How I Almost Gave Up on Teaching by Michael Bonner 

My rating = 4 stars; for any adult interested in education

As he watched poverty wreak havoc throughout his classroom and nearly break him too, Michael Bonner knew something would have to change—so he changed himself, before he quit being a teacher.

Michael Bonner knew he wanted to be a teacher after his favorite college professor, Dr. Poulson, inspired him. The professor’s passion and love for teaching prompted Michael to change his major and his life’s direction. But nothing prepared Michael for the reality of a Title One school.

Teaching is fun until a 7-year-old is assaulting you or you’re dodging furniture being thrown at you. When you mix the craziness of a classroom with a marriage that was about to implode, anyone might want to quit. Smiling on the outside while feeling dead on the inside took this dedicated teacher to the breaking point. Michael knew he must change what was inside him, in his approach to life, or nothing would change anywhere else.

So Michael took matters into his own hands to make four key paradigm shifts that helped him create a world of successful learning for his students and love within both the classroom and beyond. The result has been a transformation that’s taken Michael far beyond the classroom as he inspires thousands across the country.

Many agree teaching is an amazing profession but there’s little discussion why so many teachers are leaving the profession. Get Up or Give Up: How I Almost Gave Up on Teaching shines a light into the internal battles and decisions educators face daily, and how we must make a conscious decision either to give in—or push through.

Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams

My rating = 5 stars; for 6th grade and up

There are ninety-six things Genesis hates about herself. She knows the exact number because she keeps a list. Like #95: Because her skin is so dark, people call her charcoal and eggplant—even her own family. And #61: Because her family is always being put out of their house, belongings laid out on the sidewalk for the world to see. When your dad is a gambling addict and loses the rent money every month, eviction is a regular occurrence.

What’s not so regular is that this time they all don’t have a place to crash, so Genesis and her mom have to stay with her grandma. It’s not that Genesis doesn’t like her grandma, but she and Mom always fight—Grandma haranguing Mom to leave Dad, that she should have gone back to school, that if she’d married a lighter skinned man none of this would be happening, and on and on and on. But things aren’t all bad. Genesis actually likes her new school; she’s made a couple friends, her choir teacher says she has real talent, and she even encourages Genesis to join the talent show.

The War Outside by Monica Hesse 

My rating = 5 stars; for 8th grade and up

It’s 1944, and World War II is raging across Europe and the Pacific. The war seemed far away from Margot in Iowa and Haruko in Colorado–until they were uprooted to dusty Texas, all because of the places their parents once called home: Germany and Japan.

Haruko and Margot meet at the high school in Crystal City, a “family internment camp” for those accused of colluding with the enemy. The teens discover that they are polar opposites in so many ways, except for one that seems to override all the others: the camp is changing them, day by day, and piece by piece. Haruko finds herself consumed by fear for her soldier brother and distrust of her father, who she knows is keeping something from her. And Margot is doing everything she can to keep her family whole as her mother’s health deteriorates and her rational, patriotic father becomes a man who distrusts America and fraternizes with Nazis.

With everything around them falling apart, Margot and Haruko find solace in their growing, secret friendship. But in a prison the government has deemed full of spies, can they trust anyone–even each other?