2022 TAYSHAS Reading List Announced
We’re excited to announce the new TAYSHAS Reading List! TAYSHAS takes its name from the Caddo Indian word meaning “friends or allies.” Written as texas, texios, tejas, teyas or tayshas, the word was applied to the Caddos by the Spanish in eastern Texas, who regarded them as friends and allies against the Apaches.
The goal of the TAYSHAS reading list is to motivate young adults to become lifelong readers and to participate in the community of readers in Texas. Students in grades 9 – 12 are encouraged to read books for pleasure from the list which includes fiction and nonfiction titles.
There are a wealth of wonderful titles on this list, including Neal Shusterman’s Game Changer, the story of a boy who travels between different dimensions where race and gender relations are different than our own; and Tess Sharpe’s The Girls I’ve Been, about the daughter of a con artist who is taken hostage in a bank heist and must use all the skills she’s learned to survive. Enjoy!
**Top Ten
| TITLE | AUTHOR |
| 10 Truths and a Dare | Elston, Ashley |
| A Breath Too Late | Callen, Rocky |
| A Complicated Love Story Set in Space | Hutchinson, Shaun David |
| A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea & Tomorrow | Namey, Laura |
| A Pho Love Story | Le, Loan |
| Admission | Buxbaum, Julie |
| All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto | Johnson, George M. |
| All Eyes On Her | Flynn, Laurie Elizabeth |
| Amelia Unabridged ** | Schumacher, Ashley |
| Blackout ** | Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, and Ashley Woodfolk |
| Blazewrath Games | Ortiz, Amparo |
| Burn | Ness, Patrick |
| Cast in Firelight | Swift, Dana |
| Charming as a Verb | Phillipe, Ben |
| Crownchasers ** | Rebecca Coffindaffer |
| Dear Universe | Gonsalves, Florence |
| Every Single Lie | Vincent, Rachel |
| Everything I Thought I Knew | Takaoka, Shannon |
| Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun | Villa, Jonny Garza |
| Find Layla | Elison, Meg |
| Firekeeper’s Daughter ** | Boulley, Angeline |
| Furia ** | Méndez, Yamile Saied |
| Game Changer | Neal Shusterman |
| Hard Wired | Vlahos, Len |
| Harrow Lake | Ellis, Kat |
| Heiress Apparently | Ma, Diana |
| House of Hollow | Sutherland, Krystal |
| I Hope You’re Listening | Ryan, Tom |
| In the Shadow of the Fallen Towers: The Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, and Years after the 9/11 Attacks | Brown, Don |
| In the Wild Light ** | Zentner, Jeff |
| Indivisible | Aleman, Daniel |
| Influence | Shepard, Sara and Lilia Buckingham |
| Instructions for Dancing | Yoon, Nicola |
| Just Our Luck | Walton, Julia |
| Legendborn ** | Deonn, Tracy |
| Living Beyond Borders | Longoria, Margarita (editor) |
| Lore | Bracken, Alexandra |
| Luck of the Titanic | Lee, Stacey |
| Malice | Dunn, Pintip |
| My Eyes Are Up Here | Zimmerman, Laura |
| Nameless Queen | McLaughlin, Rebecca |
| No True Believers | Lumbard, Rabiah York |
| Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir (Adapted for Young Adults) | Onwuachi, Kwame, Joshua David Stein |
| Off the Record | Garret, Camryn |
| Once Upon a Quinceanera | Gomez-Hira, Monica |
| Parachutes | Yang, Kelly |
| Poisoned | Donnelly, Jennifer |
| Prepped | Mangle, Bethany |
| Pudge & Prejudice | Pittman, A.K. |
| Punching The Air ** | Zoboi, Ibi and Salaam, Yusef |
| Roman and Jewel | Davis, Dana L. |
| Rules for Being a Girl | Bushnell, Candace & Cotugno, Katie |
| Rural voices : 15 authors challenge assumptions about small-town America | Carpenter, Nora Shalaway (editor) |
| Shine | Jung, Jessica |
| Sidelined | Bietz, Kara |
| Sixteen Scandals | Jordan, Sophie |
| Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet | Kemp, Laekan Zea |
| The Summer of Broken Rules | Walther, K. L. |
| Super Fake Love Song | Yoon, David |
| That Weekend | Thomas, Kara |
| The Assignment | Wiemer, Liza |
| The Black Kids | Hammonds Reed, Christina |
| The Cousins | McManus, Karen |
| The Crossroads at Midnight | Howard, Abby |
| The Girls I’ve Been ** | Sharpe, Tess |
| The Initial Insult | McGinnis, Mindy |
| The Ivies | Donne, Alexa |
| The Loop | Oliver, Ben |
| The New David Espinoza | Aceves, Fred |
| The Princess Will Save You | Henning, Sarah |
| The Project | Summers, Courtney |
| The Ravens | Kass, Morgan & Danielle Paige |
| The Seventh Raven | Elliott, David |
| The Truth Project | Medema, Dante |
| These Violent Delights | Gong, Chloe |
| They Went Left | Hesse, Monica |
| This is Not the Jess Show | Carey, Anna |
| Time Will Tell | Barry Lyga |
| Up All Night | Silverman, Laura (editor) |
| Version Zero | Yoon, David |
| Watch Over Me | LaCour, Nina |
| What I Carry ** | Longo, Jennifer |
| Where the Road Leads Us | Reul, Robin |
| White Smoke | Jackson, Tiffany D. |
| Yesterday is History | Jackson, Kosoko |
| You Have A Match | Lord, Emma |
| You Should See Me In A Crown | Johnson, Leah |