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

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

The tenth mistake of Hank Hooperman

Choldenko, Gennifer, 1957-,


When eleven-year-old Hank's mother does not come home after a week, he and his toddler sister, Boo, seek out the stranger listed as their emergency contact, even though it means social workers, a new school, and having to answer questions about his mom that he has been trying to keep secret.
Date Published:2024