Welcome to Texas Reads YA! As a teen who loves to read YA, I sometimes have a hard time finding quality YA novels. 

Both of these novels have a different take on the connections of generations and time. One showcases a twisting mystery and the other shows the way that relationships can be like home. 

Under the Same Stars

It was said that if you write to the Bridegroom’s Oak, the love of your life will answer back. Now, the tree is giving up its secrets at last.

In 1940s Germany, Sophie is excited to discover a message waiting for her in the Bridegroom's Oak from a mysterious suitor. Meanwhile, her best friend, Hanna, is sending messages too—but not to find love. As World War II unfolds in their small town of Kleinwald, the oak may hold the key to resistance against the Nazis.

In 1980s West Germany, American teen transplant Jenny feels suffocated by her strict parents and is struggling to fit in. Until she finds herself falling for Lena, a punk-rock girl hell-bent on tearing down the wall separating West Germany from East Germany, and meeting Frau Hermann, a kind old lady with secrets of her own.

In Spring 2020, New York City, best friends Miles and Chloe are slogging through the last few months of senior year when an unexpected package from Chloe’s grandmother leads them to investigate a cold case about two unidentified teenagers who went missing under the Bridegroom’s Oak eighty years ago.

Under the Same Stars beautifully blends mystery with history. The different story lines within the novel are woven together into a complex web that keeps you reading. The novel also takes on the challenge of accurately writing in three different eras. 

Libba Bray is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Gemma Doyle trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet Far Thing); the Michael L. Printz Award-winning Going Bovine; Beauty Queens, an L.A. Times Book Prize finalist; The Diviners series, and Under the Same Stars. She has written numerous short stories, essays, and plays. Originally from Texas, Libba makes her home in New York City and Paris.
 

Abuela, Don’t Forget Me

In his memoir Free Lunch, Rex Ogle’s abuela features as a source of love and support. In this companion memoir-in-verse, Rex captures and celebrates the powerful presence a woman he could always count on—to give him warm hugs and ear kisses, to teach him precious words in Spanish, to bring him to the library where he could take out as many books as he wanted, and to offer safety when darkness closed in. Throughout a coming of age marked by violence and dysfunction, Abuela’s red-brick house in Abilene, Texas, offered Rex the possibility of home, and Abuela herself the possibility for a better life.

Abuela, Don’t Forget Me details the beautiful relationship between Rex and his grandmother who was one of his only supporters growing up. It is written in verse and is incredibly resonant with many readers. This novel is a wonderful tribute to the people who accept and love you told through Rex’s own experiences. 

Rex Ogle is an award-winning author and the writer of nearly a hundred children’s books, comics, graphic novels, and memoirs—most notably Free Lunch, which won the ALA/YALSA award for Excellence in Non-Fiction.