This week, I’m excited to share a guest piece from rising YA literary talent Carolina Ixta. Ixta’s sophomore novel, Few Blue Skies, published earlier this month, and it’s one that I’ve been thinking about since I finished reading it. It’s a novel about second chances, about community activism and engagement, and about the impacts of corporate greed on neighborhoods–particularly those inhabited by marginalized people. Even with some heavy themes, the writing is gorgeous and immersive from start to finish.
Where last month Ryan Douglass shared his thoughts and recommendations on YA adaptations from the classics, this month, Carolina is here to talk about teen activism and share several novels, adult, YA, and middle grade, that center not only teen political engagement but the hope that such action provides readers.
Without further ado, here’s Carolina.
Author image courtesy of Noemi TshinangaFighting Apathy With Action and Hope in YA Literature and Beyond
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When ICE agents are unjustly deporting thousands of immigrants, innocent protestors are being murdered in Minnesota, Palestinian people are still facing persecution, and AI is poisoning the environment for Black and brown communities, how is a young person to feel hopeful? It’s easy to fall into a state of apathy when the world, in some ways, is literally on fire. The antidote feels simple: dopamine surges full scrolling, buying, distracting. Each can be more comfortable than facing the reality of the world around us. However, James Baldwin reminds us that we cannot change what we do not face.
The true antidote to apathy is action, and young people have spearheaded movements for political action for decades. Carmelita Torres was just 17 when she refused to be bathed in a kerosene bath required for Mexican migrants on the US-Mexico border. Claudette Colvin was only 15 when she refused to give up her seat to a white person on a bus. Autumn Peltier was only nine when she advocated for clean drinking water on her indigenous reservation.
Despite shouldering a world that often feels irreparable, young people have shown us where to find the beacons of hope through our dismal landscape. Leonard Cohen writes, “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” The following books help young people find the light amid our broken world.
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, published in 1963
While not YA, this book was written with a young person in mind. Baldwin wrote the first essay in this book as a letter to his 14-year-old nephew, detailing racial tensions present during this time period, many of which, unfortunately, carry over today.
Ain’t Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin, published in 2022
This young adult picture-book-meets-novel-in-verse tells the story of a young Black man living through the harsh realities of the COVID pandemic and the civil unrest after the murder of George Floyd. Divided into breaths, this lush story reminds young people everywhere of their resiliency in times of peril.
Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan, published in 2000
This classic middle-grade novel tells the rags-to-riches story of Esperanza, a girl who loses everything in her home in Mexico and must migrate to the United States to become a farmworker. Caught between the tensions of a strike, the Great Depression, Mexican Revolution, and the Dust Bowl, Esperanza seeks to find hope and find herself.
Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay, published in 2024
This novel tells the story of four generations of Filipino men, scanning from the 1930’s to the COVID pandemic in 2020. The novel balances the nuances of masculinity, generational trauma, and immigration while displaying the history of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, published in 2017
Though this YA novel needs no introduction, it was inspired by the unjust murder of Oscar Grant. It tells the story of Starr, who divides her time between her home and a wealthy private school. As though that is not challenging enough, Starr is the key witness to the murder of her friend, Khalil, who is murdered at the hands of a white police officer.
Few Blue Skies by Carolina Ixta (me!), published in 2026
This story follows Paloma Vistamontes, a senior in high school whose town is being overtaken by warehouses, which are polluting the air so heavily that some residents are dying. After reconnecting with her ex-boyfriend, Julio, the two work on a research project detailing the harm the warehouses are causing in their community. Environmental racism, romance, and a fight for justice are central themes of this novel.
Carolina Ixta is a writer from Oakland, California. A daughter of Mexican immigrants, she received her BA in creative writing and Spanish language and literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and obtained her master’s degree in education at the University of California, Berkeley. Her debut novel, Shut Up, This Is Serious, was a Morris Award finalist, an LA Times Book Prize finalist, and the winner of the Pura Belpré Award. Few Blue Skies is her sophomore novel.
English (US) · 