These five young adult novels implicitly or explicitly imagine future versions of our world, and might just give us new lenses through which to view the present. See also our Five Questions interview with E. K. Johnston about Titan of the Stars, the Reality Reimagined series from the May/June Horn Book Magazine Special Issue: Perception and Reality, and the Science fiction subject tag in the Guide/Reviews Database.

Sunrise on the Reaping
by Suzanne Collins
Middle School, High School    Scholastic    400 pp.
3/25    9781546171461    $27.99
e-book ed.  9781546171478    $27.99

“The upside of being born on reaping day is that you can sleep late on your birthday. It’s pretty much downhill from there.” This prequel to the original trilogy (The Hunger Games, rev. 9/08, and sequels) features Haymitch Abernathy, whom fans will recognize as the irascible mentor to later District Twelve tributes Katniss and Peeta. The reaping for the annual televised death game’s Quarter Quell — double the number of tributes this time — takes place on his sixteenth birthday. One of the selected tributes tries to escape and is shot dead; chaos ensues, and Haymitch’s efforts to protect his girlfriend, Leonore Dove, result in his being illegally reaped himself. Haymitch gets pulled into the familiar rituals of the Hunger Games, and while readers know quite a bit about the outcome of these Games, Collins successfully leverages that knowledge to surprise us with plot twists, unexpected revelations, and new background information. Haymitch has always been a tragic figure, and his character arc is handled particularly well here. Even more successful than earlier prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (rev. 9/20), this one rises to the level of the trilogy in terms of its examination of the political morality of both nations and individuals, particularly in relation to timely themes of autocracy and disinformation. This new installment should easily satisfy existing fans and bring new ones into the fold. JONATHAN HUNT

Sea Change
by Susan Fletcher
High School    Amulet/Abrams    352 pp.
6/25    9781419773921    $19.99
e-book ed.  9798887072982    $17.99

Turtle, fifteen, is a Mer; she has both lungs and gills from a not-quite-legal “gen-mod” experiment. Gen-modding to cure disease is par for the course in this near-future world, but “boutique” and “transhuman” mods are sometimes illegal and generally looked down upon. The Mer are outsiders in the coastal Texas community of Spoonbill Island (though their difference is useful given increasing flooding due to climate change) and live separately on a refurbished cruise ship. But Turtle, whose biological parents evaded orders at first to hand her over to authorities when she was a child, is drawn to the Normal world — especially after she meets a Normal hottie and learns that her sister still lives on the island. When doctors offer a chance to “reset” to a gill-less life, Turtle makes the Change. With it brings a chance at reconnection with family — including perhaps her father, rumored to have returned after his escape from jail — and a potential boyfriend (or two), as well as the challenges of ostracism from the Mer; letdowns in love; and the ethical considerations of genetic modification. Turtle has a strong, self-aware voice as she navigates her new normal. The romantic elements are as compelling as the philosophical and scientific questions throughout the text, and Turtle’s efforts to slow down and observe the world make for moments of beautiful prose. An author’s note shares the fairy-tale and scientific inspirations for the story and provides recommendations for further reading. MONICA DE LOS REYES

This Is the Year
by Gloria Muñoz
High School    Holiday    368 pp.
1/25    9780823458363    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780823462186    $11.99

In this evocative near-future science fiction novel, high school senior Juli is still reeling from the death of her twin sister, Ofe, a year earlier. After a recruitment officer for the Cometa Mission of the New American Space Program visits her school, Juli, a “New American” whose family emigrated from Colombia, sees the program as a potential ticket out of a sinking Florida — and out of this world. As she starts training, she can’t bear to tell her mom about her plan to leave, and moments of earthly beauty and reconnection with her and Ofe’s friends — including one who’s become something more — pull at her to stay. The novel is told in a lyrical blend of first-person narration and second-person addresses to Ofe, occasionally veering into verse as the protagonist explores her love of writing. Details such as the city’s de facto segregation by class and Juli’s volunteer beach cleanups create a frighteningly realistic vision of a state facing full-on climate disaster. Juli’s grief is deftly interwoven with this existential anxiety: each environmental setback, such as when manatees become extinct, is yet another loss of something the twins shared. At the same time, her more familiar high school experiences and fond memories of her sister’s snark (“I can see you doing the slowest eye roll in the world and saying, ¿J, en serio?”) offer a tinge of hope. MONICA DE LOS REYES

Best of All Worlds
by Kenneth Oppel
High School    Scholastic    256 pp.
6/25    9781546158202    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781546158219    $19.99

One morning, Xavier Oak and his family wake up to find that their weekend lakeside cottage has been moved, with them in it, to a farm without explanation. They eventually determine that they’re trapped within a dome and surmise that they’ve been abducted by aliens. Three years pass, and their wariness of the situation has slowly given way to acceptance. Then another family arrives, including a possible love interest for the now-sixteen-year-old Xavier as well as a volatile, reactionary government-conspiracy-theorist father whose plans for escape threaten to upset the precarious balance the Oaks have attained. Questions — some voiced by the characters, others likely to occur to readers — add to the suspense and uncertainty. Why are they there? Where are they? Who are the captors who seem willing to provide for them? Is their original home, which is experiencing an escalated climate emergency, a future version of the Earth we know? Or is there a reason the Oaks have started following the example of little Noah, born just after they arrived, and calling it “Erf”? The novel doesn’t offer many conclusive answers, but amid the slowly building tension there’s plenty of room for intriguing speculation beyond the limited perspective that Xavier’s first-person narration provides. SHOSHANA FLAX

The Legendary Scarlett & Browne
by Jonathan Stroud
Middle School, High School    Knopf    448 pp.
3/25    9780593707364    $17.99
e-book ed.  9780593707388    $10.99

Stroud has much to wrap up in this third (seemingly final) volume of the exploits of fearsome Scarlett McCain and disheveled, telepathically gifted Albert Browne. In the dystopic, hostile landscape of postapocalyptic Britain, they and their company now have a double mission: to liberate banks of their funds and to free enslaved people and those about to be sold into slavery. Scarlett and Albert pursue personal quests as well: Albert wants to find his former prison and learn its secrets; Scarlett searches for her younger brother, lost to slavers years ago — and all this in the context of a terrorizing force even greater than the pair’s former enemy, the repressive Faith Houses. Now, it’s a group arming itself with weapons unearthed from deep within the ravaged land, “weapons that destroy everything they touch.” Stroud offers much activity and incident; dangerous, malicious terrain; risky schemes with explosive outcomes — in short, there’s barely a moment to stop and ponder. But even within the pressure of action, description, and bringing many threads together, Stroud’s vivacity of phrasing has lost none of its verve. “Her pale face hung beneath her hat like a moon of vengeance in a blood-soaked sky,” he writes in one of many unforgettable descriptive moments. DEIRDRE F. BAKER

From the June 2025 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.