Youth

Youth Space

The library offers a variety of services and collections for youth, aged 12 to 25 including fiction, manga, magazines, and non fiction books available to borrow both in the library and online.
Help us make our collection great and reflect your reading tastes by suggesting items for us to purchase

The library has free Wi-Fi and computer access.

If you are under 18 we require parental permission to access the computers.

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Need school assignment or study help?

The Library offers a selection of books as well as online resources to support your study including Brittanica and databases

Assess your piece of information against the below criteria before using it in your assignment:

C - Currency: How old is it?
R - Reliability: Does the information answer your question?
A - Authority: Is the author qualified on the topic?
P - Purpose: Why does the information exist? Is there bias?

Other resources

Find Legal Answers is a free legal information service for the community of NSW.

Free information about drugs, alcohol and the law for the community of New South Wales.

Exam advice and resources for students from Education Standards Authority

Personal Interest Projects from Society and Culture studies students from across New South Wales and research guides from State Library of NSW

State Library NSW Schools and teachers - State Library of NSW

Young Adult collection highlights

Jughead, the hunger - volume one.

Jughead Jones has always had an insatiable appetite... but what if his hunger came from a sinister place?
When a murderous menace is on the prowl, taking the lives of some of the most well-known and esteemed inhabitants of Riverdale, Jughead and his family's dark legacy comes to light.

Join writer Frank Tieri (Wolverine) and artists Michael Walsh (Secret Avengers) and Pat nTim Kennedy (Death of Archie) for this horrifying new collection for TEEN+ readers.

Let's talk about love by Claire Kann

Alice had her whole summer planned. Nonstop all-you-can-eat buffets while marathoning her favorite TV shows (best friends totally included) with the smallest dash of adulting―working at the library to pay her share of the rent. The only thing missing from her perfect plan? Her girlfriend (who ended things when Alice confessed she's asexual).
Alice is done with dating―no thank you, do not pass go, stick a fork in her, done.

A charming novel with a lot of heart, Claire Kann’s debut is a welcome addition to the romance genre. It’s filled with sympathetic characters, from the upbeat and lovable Alice to her fiercely protective best friend Fennie, to the adorable Takumi.
Kann also explores the struggles and reality of being asexual in an often hyper-sexualized society.

Subjects: LGBTQI+, Romance

Jaya and Rasa: a love story by Sonia Patel

Seventeen-year-old Jaya Mehta detests wealth, secrets, and privilege, though he has them all.

His family is Indian, originally from Gujarat. Rasa Santos, like many in Hawaii, is of mixed ethnicity.
All she has are siblings, three of them, plus a mother who controls men like a black widow spider and leaves her children whenever she wants to.
Neither Jaya nor Rasa have ever known real love or close family―not until their chance meeting one sunny day on a mountain in Hau’ula.

The unlikely love that blooms between them must survive the stranglehold their respective pasts have on them.
Each of their present identities has been shaped by years of extreme family struggles.

By the time they cross paths, Jaya is a transgender outsider with depressive tendencies and the stunningly beautiful Rasa thinks sex is her only power until a violent pimp takes over her life. Will their love transcend and pull them forward, or will they remain stuck and separate in the chaos of their pasts?

Sonia (pictured right) includes a Spotify playlist

Subjects: LGBTQI+, Diversity, Violence, Love, Depression, Mental health

The hate you give by Angie Thomas - also available as eBook

Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs.
The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer.

Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl's struggle for justice.

“The Hate U Give” takes its title and central philosophy from a concept espoused by Tupac Shakur: To the rapper, who had “THUG LIFE” tattooed in capital letters on his torso, that phrase was an acronym for a vicious cycle of societal violence, released as a movie adaptation early 2019.

Subjects: Race, Racial tension

One by Sarah Crossan - also available as eBook

16-year old Grace and Tippi, talk, joke and feel very much like other US teenagers.
Yet they still attract ignorant or unkind comments, finding a note stuck to their school locker reading, "Why don't you go back to the zoo?" This is in addition to being openly filmed by others when on public transport and having to field frequently agonising personal questions.

Grace and Tippi have two heads, four arms but are joined at the hip. The girls learn that they will have to go to school for the first time, as their family can no longer afford to pay for them to have home education.

It is set in the US where there is no National Health Service.
The girls eventually agree to become the subject of a documentary in order to help the family finances.

Told with beautiful language, makes you think deeply about what it must be like to be so different that people are bound to notice you.

"Normal is the Holy Grail and only those without it know its value"

Subjects: Disability, Health service, Bullying, Finance

Collection code guide