Teen Services

Welcome to Teen Services at the Olathe Public Library! We have many great resources for teens in grades 6th-12th.

Looking for a good book to read? Homework help? College information? Volunteer hours? Or just a space to hangout with friends? We have you covered.

Middle School Read

Middle School Book Review written by a Staff:

Summary: When her grandmother comes off the airplane in Houston from Pakistan, Mahnoor knows that having Dadi move in is going to disrupt everything about her life. She doesn't have time to be Dadi's unofficial babysitter-her journalism teacher has announced that their big assignment will be to film a documentary, which feels more like storytelling than what Maha would call "journalism." As Dadi starts to settle into life in Houston and Maha scrambles for a subject for her documentary, the two of them start talking. About Dadi's childhood in northern India-and about the Partition that forced her to leave her home and relocate to the newly created Pakistan. As details of Dadi's life are revealed, Dadi's personal story feels a lot more like the breaking news that Maha loves so much. And before she knows it, she has the subject of her documentary.

Review: The best part of this novel is the connection between Maha and her Dadi. I love seeing intergenerational relationships and the importance of passing down familial and cultural history not just through school and formalized learning, but through engaging storytelling, especially from a loved one. Maha hating fiction books is a fun twist as readers are more likely to enjoy the fictional stories she eschews, but seeing her warm to her grandmother and learn about her history, embracing the blend of storytelling and the journalism she loves is a fun story arc that also teachers an important part of recent world history. 

Read If You Like:  The Miss Marvel TV Show, Middle Eastern culture, and coming-of-age school focused middle grade

Read-alikes: The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh, American as Paneer Pie by Supriya Kelkar, and Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca

Three years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal, albeit with lasting fear and distrust for the people they'd pejoratively dubbed ghouls. Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are all ghouls living in Southern California. As a last hurrah before their graduation they decided to attend a musical festival in the desert. They have a cooler filled with hard seltzers and SynFlesh and are ready to party. But on the first night of the festival Val goes feral, and ends up killing and eating a boy. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and making them feral. And if they can't figure out how to stop it, and soon, no one at the festival is safe.

I really enjoyed reading this book! It has so many descriptive details and the plot was thrilling and exciting! I thought that the main theme of horror-romance and human flesh-eating people was very creative. The whole plot and the world that the author created in this book are very interesting and creative. I thought that the pace of the book was very steady and to my liking. I don't really think that it was slow at any part but it was written at a good pace. Something that I really really liked was the characters in this book. Firstly, I loved all of the representation in this book and the friendships/relationships. I also really liked how the author included all of the backstories for the characters as it showed me many details about their personality and character. Coming into this book, I didn't really know if I would enjoy it because horror isn't my favorite genre, but I did end up really liking this book, especially because of the mix of romance and mystery in this book. I also liked how this book wasn't bone-chilling scary but exciting and thrilling. Overall, I really liked this book. - Elizabeth P.