2025 Texas Lonestar Reading List

Between two brothers

Allen, Crystal,


Isaiah "Ice" Abernathy has always worshiped his older brother, Seth. For years they've been not just brothers but best friends--and as Seth starts his senior year, Ice is eager to spend as much time with his brother as he can, making memories before Seth goes to college. But when Seth announces he's leaving much earlier than expected, and then he misses an important event-one he'd promised to attend--it causes a major fight. Filled with regret, Ice plans to apologize to Seth later the next day, but later never comes, as he finds out Seth was in an accident--one that leaves him in the hospital. And the doctors say he may never recover.
Date Published:2024

Isaiah "Ice" Abernathy has always worshiped his older brother, Seth. For years they've been not just brothers but best friends--and as Seth starts his senior year, Ice is eager to spend as much time with his brother as he can, making memories before Seth goes to college. But when Seth announces he's leaving much earlier than expected, and then he misses an important event-one he'd promised to attend--it causes a major fight. Filled with regret, Ice plans to apologize to Seth later the next day, but later never comes, as he finds out Seth was in an accident--one that leaves him in the hospital. And the doctors say he may never recover.

Date Published:2024

Boy 2.0

Baptiste, Tracey,


School Library Journal starred, August 2024. Booklist, September 2024. Kirkus Review, September 2024. Publishers Weekly Annex, September 2024. Win "Coal" Keegan has just landed in his latest foster home, with a big, noisy, slightly nosy family named the McKays. They seem eager to welcome Coal, but he's wary of trusting them. So, he doesn't tell them that he went for a walk with chalk in his pocket to cover a nearby street with his art. He doesn't tell them that a neighbor found Coal drawing, pulled a gun on him, and fired it. He doesn't tell them the police chased him. And he definitely doesn't tell them that when everything went down, Coal somehow turned invisible.
Date Published:2024

School Library Journal starred, August 2024. Booklist, September 2024. Kirkus Review, September 2024. Publishers Weekly Annex, September 2024. Win "Coal" Keegan has just landed in his latest foster home, with a big, noisy, slightly nosy family named the McKays. They seem eager to welcome Coal, but he's wary of trusting them. So, he doesn't tell them that he went for a walk with chalk in his pocket to cover a nearby street with his art. He doesn't tell them that a neighbor found Coal drawing, pulled a gun on him, and fired it. He doesn't tell them the police chased him. And he definitely doesn't tell them that when everything went down, Coal somehow turned invisible.

Date Published:2024

Deer run home

LeZotte, Ann Clare,


With a family who refuses to learn sign language, twelve-year-old Effie is mostly cut off from human communication at home, unable to speak of her abusive stepfather or violent father--only her interpreter understands, and Miss Kathy is willing to take Effie's case to court to provide her with a safe home. Told in verse.
Date Published:2024

The five impossible tasks of Eden Smith

Llewellyn, Tom (Thomas Richard), 1964-,


Booklist, December 2023. Bulletin (Center for Children's Books), January 2024. Kirkus Review, November 2023. When Eden Smith moves into the bizarre old mansion housing her grandfather, Vulcan Smith, she discovers a strange society of metalworkers whose mastery verges on the magical, and when her grandfather is punished for rebelling against the guild, Eden must complete a series of deadly feats to save him.
Date Published:2024

Booklist, December 2023. Bulletin (Center for Children's Books), January 2024. Kirkus Review, November 2023. When Eden Smith moves into the bizarre old mansion housing her grandfather, Vulcan Smith, she discovers a strange society of metalworkers whose mastery verges on the magical, and when her grandfather is punished for rebelling against the guild, Eden must complete a series of deadly feats to save him.

Date Published:2024

Free throws, friendship, and other things we fouled up

Bishop, Jenn,


Cincinnati, Ohio, lives and dies by college basketball, with two elite Division I rivals separated by a mere three miles. Rory's dad just secured a new coaching gig at the University of Cincinnati, so it means yet another school and move for her, only this time to her dad's hometown. Rory's life revolves around basketball; she's never had a close friend outside of it. Could this be a chance for a fresh start?
Date Published:2023

Cincinnati, Ohio, lives and dies by college basketball, with two elite Division I rivals separated by a mere three miles. Rory's dad just secured a new coaching gig at the University of Cincinnati, so it means yet another school and move for her, only this time to her dad's hometown. Rory's life revolves around basketball; she's never had a close friend outside of it. Could this be a chance for a fresh start?

Date Published:2023

A game of Noctis

Fagan, Deva,


Booklist starred, February 15, 2024. Kirkus starred, February 15, 2024. School Library Journal, March 2024. Horn Book, March 2024. Publishers Weekly starred, January 15, 2024. In the opulent, sinking city of Dantessa, the Great Game rules all. Pia Paro believes that so long as you follow the rules, you always have a chance at winning. But after her beloved Gramps is sentenced to a life of servitude, Pia accepts a dangerous offer and joins a team of players seeking to win the most perilous game of Noctis. Pia begins to question all her long-held beliefs. Maybe the rules Pia once trusted to lift her up have only been keeping her—and thousands of others like her—down. As she struggles with these revelations, Pia must survive a gauntlet of clockwork soldiers, perilous underwater adventures, and even a game against Death herself. But with Pia’s grandfather’s life at stake, Pia must finally decide whether she’s brave enough to not just break the rules, but to change the very nature of the Game.
Date Published:2024

Booklist starred, February 15, 2024. Kirkus starred, February 15, 2024. School Library Journal, March 2024. Horn Book, March 2024. Publishers Weekly starred, January 15, 2024. In the opulent, sinking city of Dantessa, the Great Game rules all. Pia Paro believes that so long as you follow the rules, you always have a chance at winning. But after her beloved Gramps is sentenced to a life of servitude, Pia accepts a dangerous offer and joins a team of players seeking to win the most perilous game of Noctis. Pia begins to question all her long-held beliefs. Maybe the rules Pia once trusted to lift her up have only been keeping her—and thousands of others like her—down. As she struggles with these revelations, Pia must survive a gauntlet of clockwork soldiers, perilous underwater adventures, and even a game against Death herself. But with Pia’s grandfather’s life at stake, Pia must finally decide whether she’s brave enough to not just break the rules, but to change the very nature of the Game.

Date Published:2024

The no-brainer's guide to decomposition

Cuevas, Adrianna,


This spooky middle grade novel follows Frani as she fights to stop the undead from rising in her father's body-farm laboratory--that is, if she can embrace the true nature of her brain and its ADHD.
Date Published:2024

The partition project

Faruqi, Saadia,


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.
Date Published:2024

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.

Date Published:2024

Silent sister

Davidhizar, Megan,


School Library Journal, August 2024. Found injured after a school trip, with her sister Maddy's blood on her clothes, Grace must piece together what happened with the help of her sister's notebook and the classmates who know more than they're telling the police about that tragic night.
Date Published:2024

Tethered to other stars

Leahy, Elisa Stone,


Seventh grader Wendy Toledo knows that black holes and immigration police have one thing in common: they can both make things disappear without a trace. When her family moves to a new all-American neighborhood, Wendy knows the plan: keep her head down, build a telescope that will win the science fair, and stay on her family's safe orbit. But that's easier said than done when there's a woman hiding out from ICE agents in the church across the alley, and making Wendy's parents very nervous. As bullying at school threatens Wendy's friendships and her hopes for the science fair, and her family's secrets start to unravel, Wendy finds herself caught in the middle of far too many gravitational pulls. When someone she loves is detained by ICE, Wendy must find the courage to set her own orbit, and maybe shift the paths of everyone around her.
Date Published:2023

Seventh grader Wendy Toledo knows that black holes and immigration police have one thing in common: they can both make things disappear without a trace. When her family moves to a new all-American neighborhood, Wendy knows the plan: keep her head down, build a telescope that will win the science fair, and stay on her family's safe orbit. But that's easier said than done when there's a woman hiding out from ICE agents in the church across the alley, and making Wendy's parents very nervous. As bullying at school threatens Wendy's friendships and her hopes for the science fair, and her family's secrets start to unravel, Wendy finds herself caught in the middle of far too many gravitational pulls. When someone she loves is detained by ICE, Wendy must find the courage to set her own orbit, and maybe shift the paths of everyone around her.

Date Published:2023