CCRCE’s TRCA Committee has shortlisted ten books for the 2016 Teen Reader’s Choice Award. The award winner will be announced on May 31^st.

This year’s contending novels include a powerful novel about living with someone who has suffered through war; a graphic novel involving a young shape-shifter with a knack for villainy; and a smartly told story dealing with grief and other complex emotions.

Jennifer Niven author of All the Bright Places

Jennifer Niven grew up in Indiana and now lives with her fiancé and literary cats in Los Angeles.

As well as writing novels, Niven has also worked as a screenwriter, journalist and an associate producer at ABC Television.

Niven’s first young adult novel, All the Bright Places was released in 2015. The narrative follows two teenagers, Violet and Finch who are struggling with mental health issues.

Meg Wolitzer author of Belzhar

Meg Wolitzer was born in Brooklyn and raised in Syosset, New York. Wolitzer studied creative writing at Smith College and graduated from Brown University in 1981.

She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop, Skidmore College. Belzhar is her twelfth novel.

Kwame Alexander author of The Crossover

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and the New York Times Bestselling author who believes that poetry can change the world. His name Kwame comes from Ghana and it means born on a Saturday, but Alexander was born on a Wednesday. His second novel, The Crossover, is a New York Times bestseller and Newbery Medal Winner.

Nicola Yoon author of Everything Everything

Nicola Yoon grew up in Jamaica and in Brooklyn, New York. She majored in electrical engineering as an undergraduate at Cornell University but taking a creative writing class as an elective got her “hooked on writing”. After graduation, she attended the Master of Creative Writing program at Emerson College.

Yoon currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and their daughter. Everything Everything is her debut novel.

Kate Milford author of Greenglass House

Kate Milford is the New York Times bestselling author of the Edgar Award-winning, National Book Award nominee Greenglass House.

Kate has written for stage and screen, and as a contributing writer at nagspeake.com she has authored scholarly articles on subjects as varied as self-aware ironmongery and how to make saltwater taffy in a haunted kitchen. Kate grew up in Riva, Maryland, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, two children, and their dog.

Sharon Biggs Waller author of A Mad, Wicked Folly

Sharon Biggs Waller moved to England in 2000, where she worked as a riding instructor at the Royal Mews in Buckingham Palace and as a freelance magazine writer. These days she is a dressage rider and trainer and lives on a ten-acre sustainable farm in Northwest Indiana with her British husband, Mark.

Laurie Halse Anderson author of The Impossible Knife of Memory

Laurie Halse Anderson is an American writer, known for children’s and young adult novels.

She lives in Pennsylvania, where she likes to watch the snow fall as she writes. She and her husband, Scot, plus dogs Kezzie and Thor, and assorted chickens and other critters enjoy country living and time in the woods.

Noelle Stevenson author of Nimona

Noelle Stevenson is an American cartoonist and animation producer.

While attending MICA, Stevenson gained fame as a fan artist, under the name “gingerhaze”, for her “hipster Lord of the Rings” characters. In 2012, soon after posting the first few installments of Nimona online, Stevenson signed with a literary agent, who helped her sign with HarperCollins to publish Nimona as a graphic novel. For her work on Nimona, Stevenson won Slate Magazine’s 2012 Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Web Comic of the Year, and the 2016 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint.

Follow her online on Twitter.

Ali Benjamin author of The Thing About Jellyfish

Ali Benjamin is a National Book Award Finalist for The Thing About Jellyfish, and the co-writer for HIV-positive teen Paige Rawl’s coming-of-age memoir Positive. She is a member of New England Science Writers and has written for The Boston Globe Magazine, Martha Stewart’s Whole Living, and Sesame Street. She lives in Massachusetts.

Josh Sundquist author of We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a true story

Josh Sundquist is a Paralympic ski racer, cancer survivor, popular YouTube vlogger, motivational speaker, and Halloween enthusiast. Every Tuesday, Josh releases a new video to 200,000-plus subscribers on his YouTube channel.

As a motivational speaker, Josh has inspired audiences across the world. His speeches blend humor and heartfelt storytelling. He also performs standup comedy in an interactive one-man show on Friday nights in Los Angeles.