In honor of upcoming Transgender Awareness Week (November 13–19), here are four titles featuring trans and other gender expansive characters, recommended for middle- and/or high school readers. For more, see the Trans/gender nonconforming tag on hbook.com and the Transgender persons and Gender identity tags in the Guide/Reviews Database.

The Deep Dark
by Molly Knox Ostertag; illus. by the author
High School    Graphix/Scholastic    480 pp.
6/24    9781338840001    $27.99
Paper ed.  9781338839999    $16.99

Desert and rural landscapes from the U.S. Southwest serve as the backdrop to the coming-of-age stories of two childhood friends. High school senior Magdalena “Mags” Herrera, who lives with her abuela, is in a secret relationship with a girl at school. Mags is afflicted by grief, guilt, and uncertainty for a variety of reasons, and when her childhood friend Nessa, who is trans, comes back to their small town, it stirs up a rollercoaster of emotions. As the two friends spend time together, they uncover repressed memories, including a friend’s death. A mysterious creature that lives in Mags and Abuela’s basement brings mythical elements to the narrative and connects to family and personal secrets. The illustrations in this graphic novel effectively shift between black-and-white for the present story and color to represent childhood memories. Although Mags’s heritage isn’t specifically named, the incorporation of Spanish language (with occasional errors and, at times, an overly formal tone), settings, names, and motifs indicates a Latinx Catholic household. Strengths of the novel include the fully fleshed-out queer characters as well as the depiction of their internal and external battles as Mags and Nessa release their respective hurts and discover their real selves. An author’s note, with images, reflects on Ostertag’s process. SUJEI LUGO

Celestial Monsters
by Aiden Thomas
High School    Feiwel    416 pp.
9/24    9781250822086    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781250822093    $11.99

Thomas returns to Reino del Sol, the fantasy world introduced in The Sunbearer Trials (rev. 1/23). Teo’s refusal to sacrifice a fellow demigod at the end of that novel has caused the sun to vanish. Now a horde of monsters with immense destructive power has been released. It’s up to Teo — with his impulsive best friend and his broody crush — to steal back the Sol Stone so they can avert the apocalypse. They fight monsters, learn brutal truths about Reino del Sol’s history, and kiss a little along the way. To resurrect the sun, someone still needs to be sacrificed, but Teo is determined to find another course of action. As he and his companions visit cities with more communal structures than they’re used to, Thomas expands the first book’s exciting world-building to explore what a more just society might look like. Frequent fight scenes are broken up by considerable humor and thoughtful humanizing moments, as characters grapple with the immense pressures placed on them as the children of gods. Though the metaphors for transness are subtler in this installment, there are still some moments of gender exploration — and many of queer joy. BODIE SHANIS

Ash’s Cabin
by Jen Wang; illus. by the author
Middle School, High School    First Second    320 pp.
8/24    9781250754059    $25.99
Paper ed.  9781250754066    $17.99

Fifteen-year-old self-dubbed Ash is a passionate environmentalist who is contending with their gender identity. The last person Ash felt connected to was Grandpa Edwin, a recluse who spent his final years living in a secret cabin somewhere in the woods of his Northern California ranch. So when Ash learns that their family is selling the property, they beg to visit one more time, with the intention of locating the cabin and leaving civilization behind forever. Accompanied only by their dog, Ash uncovers the hidden site and quickly establishes a routine of journaling, foraging, fishing, and hiding from search helicopters. But like many survivalists, Ash discovers that there is no real escape from yourself. It takes a terrifying encounter with a bear and the threat of wildfires to bring Ash out of the forest to claim a new identity, one that includes joining a student environmentalist group in addition to newly adopted they/them pronouns. Wang (The Prince and the Dressmaker, rev. 3/18) has updated the classic survival story for today’s socially conscious and gender expansive teens with this thoughtfully wrought graphic novel that pays loving homage to treasured titles such as Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain. The soft earth-toned palette, along with the borderless page layouts, beautifully evoke both Ash’s inner and outer landscapes, while the meticulous illustrations of Ash’s tools and foraging practices will delight detail-oriented readers. JENNIFER HUBERT SWAN

 Compound Fracture
by Andrew Joseph White
High School    Peachtree Teen    416 pp.
9/24    9781682636121    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781682637395    $19.99

Miles Abernathy lives in a struggling West Virginia town in 2017. Power is monopolized by the Davieses, the family of the sheriff and the Abernathys’ mortal enemies in a blood feud that began with the murder of Miles’s great-great-grandfather, who dared to challenge the corrupt ruling class. Tired of the Davieses’ ruthless pursuit of dominance and control, Miles tries to undermine the sheriff but is wholly unprepared for the chain of events one small act of defiance sets off. White (The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, rev. 11/23) crafts a high-stakes thriller that is atmospheric and suspenseful — with a touch of the supernatural — while also nuanced and incisive in its exploration of violence (at times extreme and graphically depicted) and its impact on individual and collective psyches. The story raises and addresses questions of power, agency, and complicity through an intimate first-person narrative of a teen who feels the injustice of the world on a deep and personal level and must decide how far he is willing to go to change his situation. Miles also experiences the trials and tribulations of coming out as trans in a small town, realizing that he is autistic, and questioning his romantic orientation. These elements are well integrated into the story and coincide with developments in the thriller plotline, making for a multilayered, engrossing read. SHENWEI CHANG

From the October 2024 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.