High School Battle of the Books 2021-2022

"Gene understands stories - comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins. But Gene doesn't get sports. As a kid, his friends called him 'Stick' and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men's varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that's been decades in the making....

Seventeen-year-old Maverick "Mav" Carter begins dealing drugs for the King Lords as a way to help support his family while his father is in jail. When he learns that his girlfriend is pregnant, his focus shifts and he tries to make a clean break from drug dealing. However, a loved one's murder makes it difficult to forget his old ties, and he must figure out for himself the meaning of loyalty, manhood, and responsibility.

Seventeen-year-old Camila Hassan, a rising soccer star in Rosario, Argentina, dreams of playing professionally, in defiance of her fathers' wishes and at the risk of her budding romance with Diego.

Charlie Vega wants to be a strong and confident fat brown girl, but it's hard when her mother is constantly comparing her to her perfect best friend, Amelia, who is slim, popular, and athletic. When she starts dating Brian, Charlie thinks she has finally found her confidence. But everything comes crashing down when she finds out that Brian asked out Amelia before he asked out Charlie, and she must revaluate everything she believes about her relationship...

Popular teenage fanfiction writer Nick Bell is an ordinary teenager with ADHD and a huge crush on local Nova City superhero Shadow Star, the subject of most of his writing. After an encounter with Shadow Star, Nick is overcome with emotion and decides to win the superhero over by becoming an Extraordinary. In the process, he learns about true heroism and true love.

While writing letters to Innocence X, a justice-seeking project, asking them to help her father, an innocent black man on death row, teenaged Tracy takes on another case when her brother is accused of killing his white girlfriend.

Daunis, who is part Ojibwe, defers attending the University of Michigan to care for her mother and reluctantly becomes involved in the investigation of a series of drug-related deaths.