Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri is a story based on the challenges experienced by refugees while escaping civil war in their countries. The book was inspired by the author’s interaction with refugees while working as a volunteer in...
Daniel Jose Older’s Shadowshaper is a fantasy novel based on the story of Sierra Santiago. Several characters in the book possess supernatural abilities capable of infusing spirits into artwork. Sierra is a young girl in her teens who loves...
At first glance, some readers might assume that the title of this book is a typo and that it is actually some sort of modern updating or possibly a feminist reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy about that guy who goes around...
Rules of Civility is the first novel published by author Amor Towles. The novel was accepted for publication but without excessive expectations for its success. After all, he had enjoyed a successful career in the banking industry since 1991 upon...
Red, White and Royal Blue is a romantic novel by American author Casey McQuiston. The cover art was designed by American illustrator Colleen Reinhart. Published in 2019 by St. Martin's Griffin and Macmillan, the novel explores the romantic...
Laurence Yep published his children’s historical novel Dragonwings in 1975. In light of subsequent sequels published over the next few decades, it would come to be known as the volume which commenced the author’s wildly popular Golden Mountain...
Venus and Adonis is a long narrative poem by William Shakespeare. It is historically important because it is believed to be Shakespeare's first ever published poem. When it was published in 1593, few had heard of the young man who would become one...
The Nickel Boys, published in 2019, is a novel by Colson Whitehead about the fictional Nickel Academy and its students (the "Nickel Boys"), based on the real-life Dozier school. The Dozier School, like its fictional counterpart, was a reform...
"Gimpel the Fool" is a short story written by Polish American writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. It was the work that made Singer a notable author in the English literary canon. Having previously written predominantly in Yiddish, this story was...
Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro's "A Family Supper" is a short story, first published in 1982, about a young man reuniting with his estranged family only to learn that his mother has died from eating poisonous fugu fish.
Likely set in...
Best known for plays like Ruined and Sweat, both of which earned her Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, American playwright Lynn Nottage has written a number of plays to great success. Her work typically deals with the difficulties of the lives of...
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher is a heartfelt young adult novel that delves into the complexities of love, identity, and self acceptance. The story is centered around Logan Witherspoon, a high school senior student who struggles to move on after...
More Happy Than Not is Adam Silvera’s young adult novel highlighting the challenges experienced by the queer group. The book reflects Silvera’s own experiences as a gay boy. The protagonist is a young boy called Aaron Soto living in a small...
Published in 2007, Nineteen Minutes was written by American author Jodi Picoult, and is her fourteenth novel. Upon its release, Nineteen Minutes instantly reached the New York Times Bestseller list, as Picoult's following of loyal readers...
Published in 2014 in the United States, I Am Jazz focuses on American Jazz Jennings, a transgender woman who gained national attention for being part of the LGBTQ+ community. Co-written by Jennings and Jessica Herthel, the book is geared towards...
Initially published in 2015, George is a children's novel featuring a main character who is a transgender girl. In 2021, the author of the novel, Alex Gino, announced that it would be published under the new title Melissa beginning in April of...
Originally published in 2010 by American author Emily Jenkins, who uses the pen name E. Lockhart, Real Live Boyfriends is a young adult fiction novel in which the main character Ruby Oliver deals with the problems life throws at her when it comes...
The Vincent Boys is a young-adult romantic novel by American author Abbi Glines. Published in 2011 by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, the novel is the first book in The Vincent Boys series.
Sawyer Vincent is a handsome young man who is...
Two Boys Kissing is a gay romance novel by David Levithan involving the lives of eight young boys in the late 20th century at the peak of HIV/AIDS. The novel explores the difficulties of living as a homosexual during the 1980s when the world was...
Published in 2019, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive is a memoir by Stephanie Land which documents her economic difficulties in trying to stake out a decent lifestyle for herself during her twenties. Somewhat surprisingly—...
West with Giraffes by Lynda Routledge is a novel based on one those strange and idiosyncratic true stories that came out of the desperation for uplifting stories during the Great Depression which wreaked havoc around the world in the 1930’s. The...
"I started Early – Took my Dog" is a poem by Emily Dickinson written in 1862 and published in 1891, as part of her second posthumous collection, Poems: Second Series. Dickinson's poems were rescued from obscurity, following her death, by her...
Published in 1921, W. Somerset Maugham's "Rain" is a short story about a fanatical Christian missionary who commits suicide after trying to save the soul of a defiant sex worker.
Set in Pago Pago Harbor in American Samoa, the story is told from...
Imagine wanting to write an auto-biography but being reluctant to let strangers into your world. It was from this precise spot, between a rock and a hard place, that Maia Kobabe decided to write Gender Queer, an auto-biographical graphic novel,...
