F Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
A wildly funny novel about the end of
the world and the happy-go-lucky days
that follow.
F Alexie, Sherman
The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian
Budding cartoonist junior leaves his
troubled school on the Spokeane Indian
Reservation to attend an all-white farm
town school where the only other native
American is the school mascot.
F Alvarez, Julia
Before We Were Free
In the early 1960s in the Dominican
Republic, twelve-year-old Anita learns
that her family is involved in an
underground movement to end of the
bloody rule of the dictator, General
Trujillo.
F Anderson, Laurie
Speak
A traumatic event near the end of the
summer has a devastating effect on
Melinda’s freshman year in high school.
F Anderson Laurie
Catalyst
18y/o Kate, who sometimes chafes at
being a preacher daughter, finds herself
losing control in her senior year as she
face diffcult neighbors, the possibility
that she may not be accepted by the
college of her choice, and unexpected
death.
F Anderson, M. T.
Feed
In a future where most people have
computer implants in their heads to
control their environment, a boy meets
an unusual girl who is in serious trouble.
F Anderson, M. T.
The Astonishing Life of Octavian
Nothing; Traitor to the Nation
Various diaries, letters, and other
manuscripts chronicle the experiences of
Octavian, a young African-American,
from birth to age sixteen, as he is
brought up as part of a science
experiment in the years leading up to
and during the Revolutionary War.
F Andrews, V. C.
Web of Dreams
Leigh prayed that her dreams and Luke’s
devotion would save her from tragedy
even though her foul secret seemed to
darken her life.
F Anonymous
Go Ask Alice
Based on the actual diary of a fifteenyear-old drug user chronicling her
struggle to escape the pull of the drug
world.
1
F Antieau, Kim
F Bauer, Joan
Broken Moon
When her little brother is kidnapped and
taken from Pakistan to race camels in the
desert, eighteen-year-old Nadira
overcomes her own past abuse and,
dressed as a boy and armed with
knowledge of the powerful storytelling
of the legendary Scheherazade, is
determined to find and rescue him.
Best Foot Forward
Between school and Al-Anon meetings,
Jenna helps Mrs. Gladstone cope with
escalating problems that result from the
merger of Gladstone Shoes with Shoe
Warehouse Corporation, while managing
a new employee with a shoplifting
record.
F Bennett, Jay
F Barkley, Brad
Scrambled Eggs at Midnight
Calliope and Eliot, two fifteen-year-olds
in Asheville, North Carolina, begin to
acknowledge some unpleasant truths
about their parents and form their own
ideas about love.
F Becker, Tom
Darkside
Jonathan Starling’s father is in an
asylum and his home has been attacked
when, while running away from
kidnappers, he stumbles upon Darkside,
a terrifying and hidden part of London
ruled by the descendants of Jack the
Ripper, where Jonathan is in mortal
danger is he cannot find the way out.
The Hooded Man
Cory is devastated when his best friend
is killed in a fraternity prank—especially
when a hooded figure in black begins to
follow him around campus.
F Bennett, Jay
Skinhead
A plea from a dying man he has never
seen before involves nineteen-year-old
Jonathan in a life-and-death struggle
with white-supremacist skinheads.
F Bernardo, Anilú
Loves Me, Loves Me Not
While trying to win the attention of a
high school basketball stay who already
has a girlfriend, Maggie, a Cuban
American, learns painful lessons about
romantic young love.
F Berry, Carmen R.
Girlfriends
A collection of stories about the
friendships that women have.
2
F Bertrand, Diane
Trino’s Choice
Frustrated by his poor financial situation
and hoping to impress a smart girl,
seventh grader Trino falls in with a bad
crowd led by an older teen with a vicious
streak.
F Bertrand, Diane
Trino’s Time
With the help of some friends and a
Tejano hero that he discovers in history
class, thirteen-year-old Trino copes with
his problems and his world.
F Bissinger, H.G.
Friday Night Lights
Examines the role of high school sports
in America as seen through the story of a
high school football season in Odessa,
Texas.
F Black, Holly
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale
Sixteen-year-old Kaye, who has been
visited by faeries since childhood,
discovers that she herself is a magical
faerie creature with a special destiny.
F Block, Francesca Lia
The Hanged Man
Having stopped eating after the death of
her father, seventeen-year-old Laurel
feels herself losing control of her life in
the hot, magical world of Los Angeles.
F Bloor, Edward
Tangerine
Fourteen-year-old Paul, who lives in the
shadow of his football hero brother Erik,
fights for the right to play soccer despite
his near blindness and slowly begins to
remember the incident that damaged his
eyesight.
F Bondoux, Anne-Laure
The Killer’s Tears
A young boy, Paolo, and the man who
murdered his parents, Angel, gradually
become like father and son as they live
and work together on the remote Chilean
farm where Paolo was born.
F Bone, Ian
Fat Boy Saves the World
When her older brother Neat, who hasn’t
spoken in eight years, turns to her one
day and says, “I want to save the world,”
sixteen-year-old Susan Bennett and a
young street actor named Todd try to
help him do it.
F Bowler, Tim
Storm Catchers
Filled with guilt over his younger sister’s
kidnapping, teenaged Fin tries to rescue
her and in the process learns about a
dark family secret.
3
F Blackman, Malorie
F Brashares, Ann
Knife Edge
Persephone Hadley, six-months pregnant
with a mixed-race baby, risks her own
life to save the brother of the man she
loves, who was hanged for terrorism
months earlier.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Quirky, irreverent, and written from the
heart, this is the story of four best friends
and the biggest summer of their lives.
F Booth, Goe
Being
After finding out he is a part machine,
sixteen-year-old Robert Smith runs from
the convert government agents who are
trying to pin a murder on him, and
together with Eddi, a nineteen-year-old
criminal tries to uncover his true identity
Tyrell
Fifteen-year-old Tyrell, who is living in
a Bronx homeless shelter with his
spaced-out mother and his younger
brother, tries to avoid temptation so he
does not end up in jail like his father.
F Brooks, Kevin
F Boyne, John
The Boy in Striped Pajamas
Bored and lonely after his family moves
from Berlin to a place called “Out-With”
in 1942, Bruno, the son of Nazi Officer,
befriends a boy in striped pajamas who
lives behind a wire fence.
F Brashares, Ann
Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of
the Sisterhood
As their loves take them in different
directions, Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and
Bridget discover many more things
about themselves and the importance of
their relationships with each other.
F Brashares, Ann
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
A sequel to “The Sisterhood of the
Traveling Pants” in which four girls,
now sixteen, embark on another summer
of travels and life lessons charmed by a
shared pair of seemingly magical thriftstore jeans.
F Brooks, Kevin
Candy
Joe falls for Candy, and he is drawn into
her world which is filled with drugs,
violence, and desperation.
F Brooks, Kevin
The Road of the Dead
Two brothers, the sons of an
incarcerated gypsy, leave London and
travel to an isolated and desolate village
to search for the brutal killer of their
sister.
4
F Brooks, Kevin
F Budhos, Marina
Kissing the Rain
Fifteen-year old Moo Nelson, shy,
overweight, and bullied by his
classmates, finds his life spinning out of
control after he witnesses a car chase
and a fight that results in murder.
Ask Me No Questions
Fourteen-year-old Nadira, her sister, and
their parents leave Bangladesh for New
York City, but the expiration of their
visas and the events of September 11,
2001, bring frustration, sorrow, and
terror for the whole family.
F Cabot, Meg
All-American Girl
A sophomore girl stops a presidential
assassination attempt, is appointed Teen
Ambassador to the United Nations, and
catches the eye of the very cute First
Son.
F Bruchac, Joseph
The Warriors
An Iroquois boy known on the
reservation for his talent at the sacred
game of lacrosse moves to Washington,
D.C., with his mother and grows
frustrated with the misleading statements
about Native Americans that his new
lacrosse team coach makes.
F Bruchac, Joseph
The Way
Cody LeBeau, the new kid, becomes the
new target for the bullies even though he
is Abenaki like most of the school, but
things begin to change when his uncle
comes to town for a martial arts
competition and he and Cody begin
training together.
F Cabot, Meg
Avalon High
Having moved to Annapolis, Maryland,
with her medievalist parents, high school
junior Ellie enrolls at Avalon High
School where several students may or
may to be reincarnations of King Arthur
and his court.
F Cadnum, Michael
The Book of the Lion
In twelfth-century England, after his
master, a maker of coins for the king, is
brutally punished for alleged cheating,
seventeen-year-old Edmund finds
himself traveling to the Holy Land as
squire to a knight crusader on his way to
join the forces if Richard Lionheart.
F Cahill, Tim
Jaguars Ripped My Flesh
None.
5
F Cappo, Nan Willard
F Childress, Alice
Cheating Lessons
When her team is announced as finalists
in the state Classics Bowl contest,
Bernadette suspects that cheating may
have been involved.
A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But A Sandwich
The life of a thirteen-year-old Harlem
youth on his way to becoming a
confirmed heroin addict is seen from his
viewpoint and from that of several
people around him.
F Carmi, Daniella
F Choldenko, Gennifer
Samir and Yonatan
Samir, a Palestinian boy, is sent for
surgery to an Israeli hospital where he
has two other worldly experiences,
making friends with an Israeli boy,
Yonatan, and traveling with him to Mars
where Samir finds peace about his
brother’s death in the war.
Al Capone Does My Shirts
A twelve-year-old boy named Moose
moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935 when
guards’ families were housed there, and
has to contend with his extraordinary
new environment in addition to life with
his autistic sister.
F Cassidy, Anne
F Coburn, Jake
Looking for JJ
Jennifer Jones, a young woman recently
released from prison for killing her best
friend six years earlier, attempts to start
a new life with a new identity, but soon
learns it is impossible to escape from the
past.
LoveSick
After an accident seems to end his
college and athletic dreams, Ted is
offered a second chance at school if he
agrees to spy on a classmate and help her
father monitor her bulimia.
F Coburn, Jake
Prep
A one-time artist, Nick tries to come to
terms with the death of a friend, to
protect the brother of his would-be
girlfriend, to escape the violence of
wealthy New York City prep-school
hoods, and to figure out who he really is.
F Cochran, Thomas
Roughnecks
Travis Cody prepares for the final
championship game of his high school
football career, a rematch with his
school’s chief rival.
6
F Colfer, Eoin
F Cooney, Caroline
The Artemis Fowl Files
Two original short stories, plus puzzles,
interviews with characters, and other
writings that unlock secrets of the
Artemis Fowl books, which feature a
twelve-year-old evil genius and his
dealings with fairies and other magical
beings.
Code Orange
While conducting research for a school
paper on smallpox, Mitty finds an
envelope containing one-hundred-yearold smallpox scabs and fears that he has
infected himself and all of New York
City.
F Cooney, Caroline
F Collier, James
My Brother Sam is Dead
Recounts the tragedy that strikes the
Meeker family during the Revolution
when one son joins the rebel forces
while the rest of the family tries to stay
neutral in a Tory town.
Diamonds In The Shadow
The Finches, a Conn family, sponsor an
African refugee family of four, all of
whom have been scarred by the horrors
of civil war, and who inadvertently put
their benefactors in harms way/
F Cooney, Caroline
F Collier, Kristi
Jericho Walls
In 1957, when her preacher father
accepts a post in Jericho, Alabama, Jo
wants to fit in but her growing friendship
with an African-American boy forces
her to confront the racism of the South
and to reconsider her own values.
F Coman, Carolyn
Many Stones
After her sister Laura is murdered in
South Africa, Berry and her estranged
father travel there to participate in the
dedication of a memorial in her name.
Flight #116 is Down
Teenager Heidi Landseth helps rescue
people from a plane crash on her
family’s property, and the experience
changes her life forever.
F Cooney, Caroline
The Voice on the Radio
Fifteen-year-old Janie feels devastated
when she discovers that her boyfriend
has betrayed her and her family through
his college radio program.
F Cooney, Caroline
Wanted!
Alice suspects something is wrong when
she gets a call from her father insisting
she drive his precious Corvette to meet
him, even though she does not have a
driver’s license, but she realizes
someone has set her up when she learns
that her father is dead and she is the
number one suspect.
7
F Creech, Sharon
F Cormier, Robert
Daring to Disturb the Universe
None.
F Cormier, Robert
Heroes
After joining the army at fifteen and
having his face blown away by a
grenade in a battle in France, Francis
returns home to Frenchtown hoping to
find—and kill—the former childhood he
feels betrayed him.
F Cormier, Robert
Tenderness
A runaway teenage girl develops a
compulsive fascination with a murderer
who has just been released from prison.
F Courtenay, Bryce
The Power of One
The story of Peekay, an English boy
living in South Africa during World War
II who learns about prejudice and
slavery through friendship.
F Coy, John
Crackback
Miles barely recalls when football was
fun after being sidelined by a new coach,
constantly criticized by his father, and
pressured by his best friend to take
performance-enhancing drugs.
Heartbeat
Twelve-year-old Annie ponders the
many rhythms of life the year her mother
becomes pregnant, her grandfather
becomes faltering, and her best friend
(and running partner) becomes distant.
F Crutcher, Chris
Ironman
While training for a triathlon, seventeenyear-old Bo attends an anger
management group at school which
leads him to examine his relationship
with his father.
F Crutcher, Chris
Running Loose
Louie, a high school senior in a small
Idaho town, learns about sportsmanship,
love, and death as he matures into
manhood.
F Crutcher, Chris
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
The daily class discussions about the
nature of man, the existence of God,
abortion, organized religion, suicide and
other contemporary issues serve as a
backdrop for a high school senior’s
attempt to answer a friend’s dramatic cry
for help.
F Crutcher, Chris
The Crazy Horse Electric Game
Willie, hurt in an accident and braindamaged, finds himself abandoned by all
of his friends and family. Frustrated by
the situation, he enrolls in a school for
the mentally and physically
handicapped.
8
F Crutcher, Chris
F Darrow, Sharon
The Sledding Hill
Billy, recently deceased, keeps an eye on
his best friend, fourteen-year-old Eddie,
who has added to his home and school
problems by becoming mute, and helps
him stand up to a conservative minister,
And, English teacher who is
orchestrating a censorship challenge.
Includes extras after the story.
Trash
Graffiti artists Sissy Lexie and younger
brother Boy try to maintain a sense of
family while living in a series of foster
homes and staying with their older sister,
until a tragic accident forces Sissy to
make decisions about her future.
F Dessen, Sarah
F Crutcher, Chris
Whale Talk
Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ,
a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns
organized sports and the gung-ho
athletes at his high school until he agrees
to form a swimming team and recruits
some of the school’s less popular
students.
Just Listen
Isolated from friends who believe the
worst because she has not been truthful
with them, sixteen-year-old Annabel
finds and ally in classmate Owen, whose
honesty and passion for music help her
to face and share what really happened
at the end-of-the-year party that changed
her life.
F Curtis, Christopher
Bucking the Sarge
Deeply involved in his cold and
manipulative mother’s shady business
dealings in Flint, Michigan, fourteenyear-old Luther keeps a sense of humor
while running the Happy Neighbor
Group Home For Men, all while
dreaming of going to college and
becoming a philosopher.
F Dessen, Sarah
Dreamland
After her old sister runs away, six-teen
y/o Caitlin decides that she needs to
make major changes in her life and
begins a abusive relationship with a boy
who is mysterious, brilliant, and
dangerous.
F Danziger, Paula
The Cat Ate My Gymsuit
When the unconventional English
teacher who helped her conquer her
feelings of insecurity is fired, a junior
high student uses her new-found courage
to campaign for her teacher’s
reinstatement.
F Dessen, Sarah
Someone Like You
Halley’s junior year of high school
includes the death of her best friend
Scarlett’s boyfriend, the discovery that
Scarlett is pregnant, and Halley’s own
first serious relationship.
9
F Dessen, Sarah
F Draper, Sharon
Lock and Key
When she is abandoned by her mother,
high school senior Ruby winds up living
with Cora, the sister she has not seen for
ten years, and learns about Cora’s new
life, what makes a family, how to allow
people to help her when she needs it, and
that she too has something to offer
others.
Copper Sun
Two fifteen-year-old-girls—one a slave
and the other an indentured servant—
escape their Carolina plantation and try
to make their way to Fort Moses,
Florida, a Spanish colony that gives
sanctuary to slaves.
F Dowd, Siobhan
Forged by Fire
Teenage Gerald, who has spent years
protecting his fragile half-sister from
their abusive father, faces the prospect of
one final confrontation before the
problem can be solved.
A Swift Pure Cry
Coolbar, Ireland, is a village of secrets
and Shell, caretaker to her younger
brother and sister after the death of their
mother and with the absence of their
father, is not about to reveal hers until
suspicion falls on the wrong person.
F Deuker, Carl
High Heat
When sophomore Shane Hunters father
is arrested for laundering money at his
Lexus Dealership, the star pitcher life of
affluence and private school begins to
fall apart.
F Doyle, Brian
Pure Spring
This sequel to Boy O’Boy is humorous,
touching, and deeply serious. Terrible
pain and tragedy can be redeemed
through love of all kinds. The world is a
terrible place but it is also beautiful,
joyful, and often very funny.
F Draper, Sharon
F Draper, Sharon M.
Darkness Before Dawn
Recovering from the recent suicide of
her ex-boyfriend, senior class president
Keisha Montgomery finds herself
attracted to a dangerous, older man.
F Duane, Diane
A Wizard Alone
While Nita mourns her mother’s death,
teenage wizard Kit and his dog Ponch
set out to find a young autistic boy who
vanished in the middle of his Ordeal,
pursued by the Lone Power.
F Duncan, Lois
Ransom
Five teenage captives on a school bus—
young, desperate, and willing to try
anything.
10
F Duncan, Lois
F Farmer, Nancy
They Never Came Home
When Dan and Larry finish on a
camping trip, Larry’s sister and Dan’s
brother try to find them.
The House of the Scorpion
In a future where humans despise clones,
Matt enjoys special status as the young
clone of El Patron, the 142-year-old
leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled
between Mexico and the United States.
F DuPrau, Jeanne
The City of Ember
In the city of Ember, twelve-year-old
Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to
be a Messenger to run to new places in
her decaying but beloved city, perhaps
even to glimpse Unknown Regions.
F Durrant, Lynda
Turtle Clan Journey
As the captive white boy Echohawk and
his Mohican father and brother make a
perilous journey from the Hudson River
Valley to a settlement on the Ohio River,
Echohawk feels the conflicting pulls of
his dual heritage.
F Easton, Kelly
Hiroshima Dreams
Lin O’Neil, a talented but shy girl
growing up in Providence, Rhode Island,
develops a close relationship with her
Japanese Grandmother, who shares Lin’s
gift of precognition.
F Etchemendy, Nancy
The Power of Un
Gib Finney, given a device that will let
him erase mistakes from the past, is not
sure which event from the worst day of
his life he should change in order to keep
his sister from being hit by a truck.
F Ferris, Jean
Once Upon a Marigold
A young man with a mysterious past and
a penchant for inventing things leaves
the troll who raised him, meets and
unhappy princess he has loved from afar,
and discovers a plot against her and her
father.
F Flake, Sharon
Bang!
A teenage boy must face the harsh
realities of inner-city life, a
disintegrating family, and destructive
temptations as he struggles to find his
identity as a young man.
F Flake, Sharon
Who am I Without Him? : Short Stories
About Girls and the Boys in Their Lives
This book is a collection of stories
describing adolescents and their
struggles to make peace with themselves
in society.
F Fleischman, Paul
Breakout
Interweaves the seventeen- and twentyfive-year-old voices of a runaway who
comes to a life-changing realization in
an all-day Los Angeles traffic jam and
uses the experience eight years later as
material for a one-woman show.
11
F Fleischman, Paul
F Frank, E. R.
Seek
Assigned to write an autobiography,
high school senior Robert Radkovitz,
instead, creates a sound portrait of his
life as he remembers it.
America
Teenage-America, a not-white, notblack, not-anything boy who has spent
many years in institutions for disturbed,
antisocial behavior, tries to piece his life
together.
F Fleischman, Paul
F Frank, E.R.
Zap
Contain a juxtaposition of several
different plays that parody the works of
Tennessee Williams, Anton Chekhov,
Samuel Beckett, Neil Simon and others.
F Flinn, Alex
Breaking Point
Fifteen-year-old Paul enters an exclusive
private school and falls under the spell
of a charismatic boy who may be using
him.
F Flinn, Alex
Breathing Underwater
Sent to counseling for hitting his
girlfriend, Caitlin, and ordered to keep a
journal, sixteen-year-old Nick recounts
his relationship with Caitlin, examines
his controlling behavior and anger, and
describes living with his abusive father.
F Foster, Ellen
The Life all Around Me
Fifteen-year-old Ellen Foster is finally
settled into a permanent home with a
new mother and tries to prepare for her
future while still carrying the burden of
her mother’s death and father’s abuse.
Life is Funny
The lives of a number of young people
of different races, economic
backgrounds, and family situations
living in Brooklyn, New York, become
intertwined over a seven year period.
F Frank, E.R.
Wrecked
After a car accident seriously injures her
best friend and kills her brother’s
girlfriend, sixteen-year-old Anna tries to
cope with her guilt and grief, while
learning some truths about her own
family.
F Fredericks, Mariah
The True Meaning of Cleavage
When Jess and Sari, best friend since
seventh grade, begin their freshman year
of high school and Sari becomes
obsessed with a senior boy, Jess wonders
of their friendship with survive.
F French, Jackie
Hitler’s Daughter
After hearing a fictional tale about
Hitler’s daughter, Mark, and Australian
boy, wonders what it would be like is
someone he loved and trusted turned out
to be evil.
12
F Funke, Cornelia
Inkheart
Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her
father Mo, a bookbinder, can “read”
fictional characters to life when the evil
ruler named Capricorn, freed from the
novel “Inkheart” years earlier, tries to
force Mo to release an immortal monster
from the story.
F Gallo R., Donald
No Easy Answers
A collection of sixteen short stories, by
Louise Plummer, M.E. Kerr, Jack
Gantos, and others, about teenagers in
situations that test their character.
F Gallo R., Donald
Time Capsule
Ten stories by such notable authors as
Richard Peck, Chris Crutcher, and Chris
Lynch, each of witch presents the life of
a teenager in a different decade of the
twentieth century, accompanied by a
brief description of the historical and
cultural highlights of that decade.
F Gardner, Graham
Inventing Elliot
Elliot, a victim of bullying, invents a
calmer, cooler self when he changes
schools in the middle of freshman year,
but soon attracts the wrong kind of
attention from the Guardians who
“maintain order” at the new school.
searching for his missing mother, and
causes his friend to get involved with the
same dangerous drug dealer who deals to
his parents.
F Goodman, Alison
Singing the Dogstar Blues
In a future Australia, the saucy eighteenyear-old daughter of a famous
newscaster and a sperm donor teams up
with a hermaphrodite from the planet
Choria in a time travel adventure that
may significantly affect both their lives.
F Gratz, Alan
Samurai Shortstop
While obtaining a Western education at
a prestigious Japanese boarding school
in 1890, sixteen-year-old Toyo also
receives traditional samurai training
which has profound effects on both his
baseball game and his relationship with
his father.
F Gratz, Alan
Something Rotten
In a contemporary story based on
shakespeare’s play “hamlet” Horatio
Wilkes seeks to solve the murder of his
friend Hamilton Prince’s father in
Denmark Tennessee
F Going, K. L.
F Green, John
Saint Iggy
Iggy Corso, who lives in city public
housing, is caught physically and
spiritually between good and bad when
he is kick out of high school, goes
Looking for Alaska
Sixteen-year-old Miles’ first year at
Culver Creek Preparatory School in
Alabama includes good friends and great
13
pranks, but is defined by the search for
answers about life and death after a fatal
car crash.
F Griffin, Peni
The Music Thief
Living in San Antonio, Texas, elevenyear-old Alma tries to cope with the
drive-by shooting death of her favorite
Latina singer, as well as deal with the
struggles of her various family members,
and finds herself doing something she
knows is wrong.
F Haber, Melissa
The Pluto Project
As his home life spirals downward and
hopes for a romance sputters out,
thirteen-year-old Alan Green tries to
convince his friends that their spying
game has uncovered a real conspiracy to
assassinate the governor.
F Haddix, Margaret
Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs.
Dunphrey
In a journal she is keeping for English
class, sixteen-year-old Tish chronicles
the changes in her life when her abusive
father abandons her and her brother, and
her mother follows him.
F Haddon, Mark
F Grimes, Nikki
Bronx Masquerade
While studying the Harlem Renaissance,
students at a Bronx high school read
aloud poems they’ve written, revealing
their innermost thoughts and fears to
their formerly clueless classmates.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-time
Despite his overwhelming fear of
interacting with people, a
mathematically-gifted, autistic fifteenyear-old boy, decides to investigate the
murder of a neighbor’s dog and uncovers
secret information about his mother.
F Grisham, John
F Hamilton, Virginia
Skipping Christmas
Luther and Nora Krank decide to opt out
of Christmas, choosing instead to set sail
on a Caribbean cruise on December 25,
but they learn there are consequences to
pay for trying to ignore the holiday
frenzy.
Bluish
Ten-year-old Dreenie feels both
intrigued and frightened when she thinks
about the girl nicknamed Bluish, whose
leukemia is making her pale and causing
her to use a wheelchair.
F Guest, Judith
F Hamilton, Virginia
Ordinary People
The story of a youth’s breakdown and
recovery and the effect it has on his
family.
Cousins
Concerned that her grandmother may
die, Cammy is unprepared for the
accidental death of another relative.
14
F Hartinger, Brent
involved in football and the theater, who
grew up together and share a bond that
nothing can sever.
Geeography Club
A group of gay and lesbian teenagers
finds mutral support when they form the
“Geography Club” at their high school.
F Hautman, Pete
F Hazzard, Shirley
All-in
Having won thousands of dollars playing
high-stakes poker in Las Vegas,
seventeen-year-old Denn Doyle hits
losing streak after falling in love with a
young casino card dealer names Cattie
Hart.
The Great Fire
In 1947 Japan, A thirty-two-year-old
British war veteran recording the effects
of the Hiroshima bombing is touched by
the inseparable son and daughter of an
Australian medical administrator—the
brother suffering from a rare
degenerative disease and the teenaged
sister devoted to him—and struggles
with his attraction to the young girl.
F Hautman, Pete
Godless
When sixteen-year-old Jason Bock and
his friends create their own religion to
worship the town’s water tower, what
started out as a joke begins to take on a
power of its own.
F Hautman, Pete
Rash
In a future society that has decided it
would “rather be safe than free,” sixteenyear-old Bo’s anger management
problems land him in a tundra jail where
he survives with the help of his running
skills and an artificial intelligence
program named Bork.
F Hinton, S. E.
The Outsiders
The struggle of three brothers to stay
together after their parent’s death and
their quest for identity among the
conflicting values of their adolescent
society.
F Hiaasen
Hoot
Roy who is new to his new Florida
community becomes involved in another
boys attempt to save colony of
burrowing owls from a proposed
construction site.
F Hautman, Pete
Invisible
Doug and Andy are unlikely best
friends. One a longer obsessed by his
model trains the other a popular student
15
In Darkness, Death
In eighteenth-century Japan, young
Seikei becomes involved with ninja as
he helps Judge Ooka, his father,
investigate the murder of a samurai.
F Hoffman, Alice
Green Angel
Haunted by grief and by her past after
losing her family in a fire, fifteen-yearold Green retreats into her ruined garden
as she struggles to survive emotionally
and physically on her own.
F Horowitz, Anthony
F Hinton, S. E.
Tex
The love between two teenage brothers
helps to alleviate the harshness of their
usually parentless life as they struggle to
grow up.
Ark Angel
After recovering from a near fatal
gunshot wound, teenage spy Alex Rider
embarks on a mission to stop a group of
eco-terrorists from sabotaging the launch
of the first outer space hotel.
F Hobbs, Will
F Jansen, Hanna
Down River
Jessie and other rebellious teenage
members of a wilderness survival school
team abandon their adult leader and try
to run the dangerous white water of the
Grand Canyon.
Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You
Jeanne, the only member of her family
not murdered in the Rwanda genocide,
struggles to start a new life without her
family while coping with the violent
memories that haunt her.
F Hobbs, Will
F Jenkins, A.M.
Leaving Protection
Sixteen-year-old Robbie Daniels, happy
to get a job aboard a trolley fishing for
King Salmon off Southeastern Alaska,
finds himself in danger when he
discovers his mysterious captain is
searching for long-buried Russian
plagues that lay claim to Alaska and the
Northwest.
Beating Heart
Following his parents’ divorce,
seventeen-year-old Evan moves with his
mother and sister into an old house
where the spirit pf the teenager who died
there awakens and mistakes him for her
long departed lover.
F Jenkins, A.M.
F Hobbler, Tomas, Dorothy
16
Out of Order
Sophomore Colt Trammel loves baseball
and his girlfriend Grace, but he hates the
rest of high school and maintains a tough
façade to hide his feelings of inferiority.
F Johnson, Angela
Bird
Devastated by the loss of a second
father, thirteen-year-old Bird follows her
stepfather from Cleveland to Alabama in
hopes of convincing him to come home,
and along the way helps two boys cope
with their difficulties.
F Johnson, Angela
Heaven
Fourteen-year-old Marley’s seemingly
perfect life in the small town of Heaven
is disrupted when she discovers that her
father and mother are not her real
parents.
F Johnson, Harriet
Accidents of Nature
Having always prided herself on
blending in with “normal” people
despite her cerebral palsy, seventeenyear-old Jean begins to question her role
in the world while attending a summer
camp for children with disabilities.
F Jonsberg, Barry
The Crimes and Punishments of Miss
Payne
Calma, who is smart and an excellent
writer, and her unlikely friend, Kiffo, a
seeming all-around failure, undertake a
dangerous project when they follow an
abusive teacher whom they suspect of
dealing drugs.
F Johnson, Angela
F Kadohata, Cynthia
The First Part Last
Sixteen-year-old Bobby finds out that he
is going to become a father and suddenly
all the things that seemed important to
him before are insignificant as we and
his girlfriend, Nia, try to sort out the
situation and decide what to do.
Kira-kira
Chronicles the close friendship between
two Japanese-American sisters growing
up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s
and early 1960s, and the despair when
one sister becomes terminally ill.
F Kantor, Melissa
F Johnson, Angela
Toning the Sweep
On a visit to her grandmother Ola, who
is dying of cancer in her house in the
desert, fourteen-year-old Emmie hears
many stories about the past and her
family history and comes to a better
understanding of relatives both dead and
living.
The Breakup Bible
After a breakup with her boyfriend,
school newspaper features editor Jen
Lewis receives a book from her
grandmother that provides basic
commandments for getting over an ex
and sets out to recover from the loss of
the romance.
F Kerr, M.E.
17
Your Eyes in Stars
Two teen-aged girls become friends in
their small New York town as they
attempt to make sense of their families
and neighbors on the years leading up to
World War II.
dangers as her hooks up with sinister Dr.
Mink.
F Ketchum, Liza
Twelve days in August
Twelve days in August change a six-teen
y/o soccer player’s perception of
himself, his family, girls and gays.
F Kidd, Sue Monk
The Secret Life of Bees
Fourteen-year-old Lily and her
companion, Rosaleen, an AfricanAmerican woman who has cared for Lily
since her mother’s death ten years
earlier, flee their home after Rosaleen is
victimized by rapist police officers, and
find a safe haven in Tiburon, South
Carolina at the home of three beekeeping
sisters, May, June, and August.
F Klause, Annette
Freaks
Abel Dandy, a normal teenager, runs
away from Faeryland, where his parents
perform with other “human oddities;”
but life in the real world presents its own
F Klein, Norma
No More Saturday Nights
A seventeen-year-old unmarried father
wins the rights to custody of his son in
court; goes off to college in New York
City, where he finds an apartment with
three girls as roommates; and improves
his relationship with his own father,
always knowing his baby is the most
important thing in his life.
F Kluger, Steve
Last Days of Summer
Joey Margolis, a young boy whose
father has deserted the family, begins
writing baseball player Charlie Banks
and forms a relationship with the third
18
baseman that changes both of their lives
for the better.
F Koja, Kathe
Talk
Hoping to escape from himself for
awhile, Kit auditions for a controversial
school play and discovers his talent for
acting, struggles with coming out, and
both he and his costar face crises in their
view of themselves and in their close
relationships. Told from two points of
view.
Black Juice
Provides glimpses of the dark side of
civilization and the beauty if the human
spirit through ten short stories that
explore significant moments in people’s
lives, events leading
to them, and their consequences.
F Lanagan, Margo
Red Spikes
A collection of ten short stories about
the supernatural and interpersonal
relationships written by Australian
author Margo Lanagan.
F Korman, Gordon
F Lawrence, Iain
No More Dead Dogs
Eighth grade football hero Wallace is
sentenced to detention attending
rehearsals of the school play, where, in
spite of himself, he becomes wrapped up
in the production and begins to suggest
changes that improve not only the play
but his life as well.
F Koss, Amy
Side Effects
Everything changes for Isabelle, not
quite fifteen, when she is diagnosed with
lymphoma—but eventually she survives
and even thrives.
F Kropp, Paul
The Rock
The bonds of friendship between Tony
La Roche and the group of misfits he
leads are tested when they are
confronted by a real gang, and it is not
long before they come to terms with
growing up and growing apart.
F Lanagan, Margo
B for Buster
Sixteen-year-old Kak, who is desperate
to escape from his abusive parents, lies
about his age in the spring of 1943 to
enlist in the Canadian Air Force, and
soon finds himself based in England as
part of a crew flying bomb raids over
Germany.
F Lavender, William
Aftershocks
In San Francisco from 1903 to 1908,
teenager Jessie Wainwright determines
to reach her goal of becoming a doctor
while also trying to care for the
illegitimate child of liaison between her
father and their Chinese main.
F Lawrence, Iain
Ghost Boy
Unhappy in a home seemingly devoid of
love, a fourteen-year-old albino boy who
thinks of himself as Harold the Ghost,
runs away to join a circus, where he
works with the elephants and searches
for a sense of who he is.
19
F Limb, Sue
Girl, 15, Charming But Insane
Fifteen-year-old Jess, living with her
mum, separated from her father in
Cornwall, and with a best friend who
seems to do everything perfectly, finds
her own assets through humor. Includes
a discussion guide after the story.
F Limb, Sue
Girl, Nearly 16, Absolute Torture
Jess knows her summer plans are ruined
but little could she imagine the huge
surprise that awaits her when she visits
her dad’s home for the first time in ten
years.
When Dad Killed Mom
After their college psychologist father
kills their artist mother, young Jenna and
Jeremy struggle with the secret each of
them keeps.
F Levine, Gail
Ella Enchanted
In this novel based on the story of
Cinderella, Ella struggles against the
childhood curse that forces her to obey
any order given to her.
F Levithan, David
The Realm of Possibility
A variety of students at the same high
school describe their ideas, experiences,
and relationships in a series of
interconnected free verse stories.
F Lisle, Janet Taylor
F Lockhart, E.
Black Duck
Years afterward, Ruben Hart tells the
story of how, in 1929 Newport, Rhode
Island, his family and his best friend’s
family were caught up in the violent
competition among groups trying to
control the local rum-smuggling trade.
Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw
Everything
When Gretchen Yee, a student at the
Manhattan School for Art and Music,
wishes she were a fly on the wall of the
boys’ locker room, she never expects her
wish to come true in such a dramatic
way.
F Lekich, John
F Lockhhart, E.
The Losers’ Club
Alex Sherwood is a hero to a group of
so-called losers in his high school.
These kids form the Losers’ Club as a
way to deal with coming of age.
F Lester, Julius
The Boy Book: (A Study of Habits and
Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming
Them)
A high school junior continues her quest
for relevant data on the male species,
while enjoying her freedom as a newly
licensed driver and examining her
20
friendship with a clean-living vegetarian
classmate.
F Lockhart, E.
The Boyfriend List: (15 Guys, 11
Shrink Appointments, 4 ceramic frogs,
and Me, Ruby Oliver)
Ruby Oliver, a moderately popular
fifteen-year-old who has suddenly
become a social pariah, begins seeing a
psychiatrist and makes a list of all her
past boyfriends in an attempt to
understand where her life went wrong.
F Lundgren, Mary Beth
Love, Sara
In a series of journal entries and e-mails,
Sara, a high school junior with a history
of sexual abuse and foster home care,
reveals her feelings about herself and
two friends who are headed for
destruction.
F MacGregor, T. J.
Black Water
None.
F Lowry, Lois
F Mackler, Carolyn
Messenger
In this novel that unites characters from
“The Giver” and “Gathering Blue”,
Matty, a young member of a utopian
community that values honesty, conceals
an emerging healing power that he
cannot explain or understand.
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big,
Round Things
Feeling like she does not fit in with the
other members of her family, who are all
thin, brilliant, and good-looking, fifteenyear-old Virginia tries to deal with her
self-image, her first physical
relationship, and her disillusionment
with some of the people closest to her.
F Mackler, Carolyn
F Lynch, Chris
Slot Machine
When overweight thirteen-year-old
Elvin Bishop is sent to a camp at St.
Paul’s Seminary Retreat Center, he and
his two best friends are forced to try out
various sports in order to find out where
they belong.
Vegan Virgin Valentine
Mara’s niece, who is only one-year
younger, moves in bringing conflict
between the two teenagers because of
their opposite personalities.
F Lowry, Lois
Nothin’ But Net
When thirteen-year-old Tim Daniels gets
a chance to go to basketball camp, he is
faced with trying to be accepted by the
popular players and remaining true to his
friend who has become the butt of
practical jokes.
The Giver
Given his lifetime assignment at the
Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the
receiver of memories shared by only one
other in his community and discovers the
terrible truth about the society in which
he lives.
F Mantell, Paul
F Marsden, John
21
So Much To Tell You
Sent to a hospital by her mother, Marina,
a disfigured Australian girl who refuses
to speak, reveals her thoughts and
feelings in a diary.
Parrot in the Oven
Manny relates his coming of age
experiences as a member of a poor
Mexican-American family in which the
alcoholic father only adds to everyone’s
struggle.
F Marsden, John
F Martino, Alfred
Tomorrow, When the War Began
Seven Australian teenagers return from a
camping trip in the bush to discover that
their country has been invaded and they
must hide to stay alive.
F Marsden, John
Pinned
Dealing with family problems, girls, and
their own competitive natures, high
school seniors Ivan Korske and Bobby
Zane face each other in the final match
of the New Jersey State Wrestling
Championship.
Letters from the Inside
The Relationship between two teenage
girls who become acquainted through
letters intensities as their correspondence
reveals some of the terrible problems of
their lives.
F Martin, Ann
F Mass, Wendy
Ducky
Contains the fictional diary of Ducky
McCrae, a sixteen-year-old boy who is
trying to cope with the absence of his
world-traveling parents, and the changes
he sees in his best friends Jay and Alex.
Leap Day
On her fourth Leap birthday, when she
turns sixteen, Josie has a number of
momentous experiences, including
taking her driver’s test, auditioning for a
school play, and celebrating with her
family and friends.
F Mass, Wendy
F Mazer, Harry
Leap Day
On her fourth Leap birthday, when she
turns sixteen, Josie has a number of
momentous experiences, including
taking her driver’s test, auditioning for a
school play, and celebrating with her
family and friends.
The Wild Kid
Twelve-year-old Sammy, who is mildly
retarded, runs away from home and
becomes a prisoner of Kevin, a wild kid
living in the woods.
F McCaughrean, Geraldine
F Martinez, Victor
22
The White Darkness
Taken to Antarctica by the man she
thinks of as her uncle for what she
believes to be a vacation, Symone—a
troubled fourteen-year-old—discovers
that he is dangerously obsessed with
seeking Symme’s Hole, an opening that
supposedly leads into the center of a
hollow Earth.
F McDonell, Nick
Twelve
A young drug dealer chronicles a week
in the lives of several bored , rich
Manhattan teens who entertain them
self’s with drugs and sex while their
parents vacation oversea, which
culminates in a brutally violent new
years eve party.
A novel in vignettes, in which Lakshmi,
a thirteen-year-old girl from Nepal, is
sold into prostitution in India.
McDonald, Joyce
Swallowing Stones
Duel perspectives reveal the aftermath of
seventeen-year-old Michael
MacKenzie’s birthday celebration during
which he discharges an antique
Winchester rifle and unknowingly kills
the father of high school classmate Jenna
Ward.
F McKay, Hilary
Indigo’s Star
Spurred on by his youngest sister, Rose,
twelve-year-old Indigo sticks up for
himself and an American boy who has
replaced him as the primary target of the
school bullies.
F McClintock, Norah
Snitch
After his best friend snitched on him,
Josh must learn to control his anger.
F McCormick, Patricia
Cut
While confined to a mental hospital,
thirteen-year-old Callie slowly comes to
understand come of the reasons behind
her self-mutilation, and gradually starts
to get better.
F McCormick, Patricia
Sold
F McNamee, Graham
Acceleration
Stuck working in the lost and found
department of the Toronto Transit
Authority for the summer, seventeenyear-old Duncan finds the diary of a
serial killer and sets out to stop him.
F McWilliams, Kelly
Doormat
Fourteen-year-old Jamie has always
been a doormat, but her diary reveals
how getting the lead in a school play,
finding her first boyfriend, discovering
her dream, and helping her best friend
23
cope with being pregnant transform her
life.
and after trying to conceal her death,
Andy and his friends have to deal with
the consequences.
F Meyer, L. A.
F Moriarty, Jaclyn
In the Belly of the Bloodhound: Being
an Account of a Particularly Peculiar
Adventure in the Life of Jacky Faber
Jacky Faber and her classmates at the
Lawson Peabody School for Young
Girls in Boston are kidnapped while on a
school outing and transported in the hold
of a slave ship bound for the slave
markets of North Africa.
F Meyer, Stephenie
Twilight
When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves
Phoenix to live with her father in Forks,
Washington, she meets an exquisitely
handsome boy at school for whom she
feels an overwhelming attraction and
who she comes to realize is not fully
human.
F Mikaelsen, Ben
Tree Girl
When, protected by the branches of one
of the trees she loves to climb, Gabriela
witnesses the destruction of her Mayan
village and the murder of nearly all its
inhabitants, she vows never to climb it
again until, after she and her traumatized
sister find safety in a Mexican refugee
camp, she realizes that only by climbing
and facing their fears can she and her
sister hope to have a future.
The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie
Class brain Bindy Mackenzie has
alienated her entire high school but when
she realizes someone is trying to kill her,
she has to make friends in order to get
help.
F Mowry, Jess
Babylon Boyz
Inner-city teenagers find a suitcase full
of cocaine and must decide whether to
sell it and take the opportunities the
money would provide, or destroy it to
keep the drug from poisoning their
community.
F Meyer, L.A.
Mississippi Jack
Ship’s “boy” Mary “Jacky” Faber sets
out on another round of adventures, this
time in New Orleans, tricking Mike Fink
out of his flatboat and turning it into a
casino-showboat.
F Mowry, Jess
Way Past Cool
Describes the lives of young gang
members on the edge in Oakland as they
cope with a rival gang, drug dealers, and
other problems.
F Miller, Mary Beth
F Murdock, Catherine Gilbert
On The Head of a Pin
Andy, a teenage boy accidentally shoots
and kills another student while drinking
at a party at his father’s isolated cabin,
The Off Season
High school junior D.J. staggers under
the weight of caring for her badly
injured brother, her responsibilities on
24
the dairy farm, a changing relationship
with her friend, and her own athletic
aspirations.
three troubled teenagers ends in a tragic
school shooting.
F Myers, Walter Dean
F Murphy, Rita
Harmony
Found as a baby by an old farm couple
in the mountains of Tennessee, Harmony
has always been different, but when she
begins developing special powers, she
wants nothing more than to be ordinary.
F Myers, Walter Dean
Autobiography of My Dead Brother
Jess pours his heart and soul into his
sketchbook to make sense of his troubled
life in Harlem neighborhood and loss of
a close friend.
F Myers, Walter Dean
Fallen Angels
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just
out of high school, enlists in the Army in
the summer of 1967 and spends a
devastating year on active duty in
Vietnam.
Slam!
Sixteen-year-old Greg “Slam” Harris can
do it all on the basketball court. He
never doubted himself until he found
himself going one on one with his future.
F Myers, Walter Dean
Somewhere in the Darkness
A teenage boy accompanies his father,
who has recently escaped from prison,
on a trip that turns out to be an, often
painful, time of discovery for them both.
F Myers, Walter Dean
The Beast
A visit to his Harlem neighborhood and
the discovery that the girl he loves is
using drugs gives sixteen-year-old
Anthony Witherspoon a new perspective
both on his home and on his life at a
Connecticut prep school.
F Myers, Walter Dean
F Myers, Walter Dean
Monster
While on trial as an accomplice to a
murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon
records his experiences in prison and in
the courtroom in a form of a film script
as he tries to come to terms with the
course life has taken him.
What they found, love on 145th street
Fifteen interrelated stories explore
different aspects of love, including a
dying fathers’s determination to help
start a family business (a beauty salon)
and the relationship of two teens who
plan to remain celibate until they marry.
F Myers, Walter Dean
F Myracle, Lauren
Shooter
Written in the form of interviews,
reports, and journal entries, the story of
Kissing Kate
Sixteen-year-old Lissa’s relationship
with her best friend changes after they
25
kiss at a party and Lissa does not know
what to do, until she gets help from an
unexpected new friend.
F Na, An
California until she meets the very
popular Kristi; however, the deeper she
becomes immersed in her new crowd,
the more she realizes Kristi is not to be
messed with.
Wait For Me
As her senior year in high school
approaches, Mina yearns to find her own
path in life, but working at the family
business, taking care of her litter sister,
and dealing with her mother’s
impossible expectations are as stifling as
the southern California heat, until she
falls in love with a man who offers a
way out.
F Nicholson, William
F Naidoo, Beverley
F Nix, Garth
Out of Bounds: Seven Stories of Conflict
and Hope
Seven stories, spanning the time period
from 1948 to 2000, chronicle the
experiences of young people from
different races and ethnic groups as they
try to cope with the restrictions placed
on their lived by South Africa’s
apartheid laws.
Abhorsen
Lirael, the young Second Assistant
Librarian of the Clayr, is abruptly
transformed into the Abhorsen-inWaiting—a future guardian of the border
between light and death—and
immediately finds the fate of all life in
her hands.
Seeker
Having been rejected by the Nomana—
the revered warrior-monk order they
long to join—sixteen-year-olds Seeker
and Morning Star, along with a curious
pirate named Wildman, attempt to prove
they are worthy of joining the
community after all.
F Oates, Joyce Carol
F Naylor, Phyllis
Sang Spell
When his mother is killed in an
automobile accident, high-schooler Josh
decides to hitchhike across the country,
and finds himself trapped in a
mysterious village somewhere in the
Appalachian Mountains, among a group
of people who call themselves the
Melungeons.
F Noel, Alyson
Art Geeks and Prom Queens
Seventeen-year-old Alex struggles to fit
in at her new private school in Southern
Big Mouth & Ugly Girl
When sixteen-year-old Matt is falsely
accused of threatening to bomb his high
school and his friends turn against him,
an unlikely classmate comes to his aid.
F Oppel, Kenneth
Airborn
Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an
airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl
traveling with her chaperone, team up to
search for the existence of mysterious
winged creatures reportedly living
hundreds of feet above the Earth’s
surface.
26
F Pagani, Dalia
F Parkinson, Siobhan
Mercy Road
Earl and Darlene Summer, along with
their three children, struggle to find hope
and love on a rocky, windswept
mountain ridge in rural Vermont, but
they reach crisis when Darlene flees to
New York for the winter, leaving the rest
of them to make choices that will impact
the rest of their lives.
Something Invisible
With a new baby sister and a stepfather,
the life of eleven-year-old Jake is full of
change, but nothing prepares him for his
relationship with an enigmatic girl, her
large family, and the tragedy that strikes
them all.
F Paulsen, Gary
Maximum Ride; School’s Out Forever
After a short stay with an FBI agent who
gives them a chance to attend school and
live a normal life, the six geneticallyaltered , winged youths head toward
Florida and Max’s ultimate destiny—to
save the world, whether she wants to or
not.
Brian’s Return
After his experiences surviving alone in
the Canadian wilderness, sixteen-yearold Brian finds it increasingly difficult to
live as a normal high school student and
begins planning to return to the place
where he feels he really belongs.
F Patterson, James
F Patterson, James
F Nolan, Han
A Summer of Kings
Over the course of the summer of 1963,
fourteen-year-old Esther Young
discovers the passion within her when
eighteen-year-old King Roy Johnson,
accused of murdering a white man in
Alabama, comes to live with her family.
Maximum Ride; The Angel Experiment
After the mutant Erasers abduct the
youngest member of their group, the
“birdkids,” who are the result of genetic
experimentation, take off in pursuit and
find themselves struggling to understand
their own origins and purpose.
F Patterson, James
F Nolan, Han
Dancing on the edge
A young girl from a dysfunctional
family creates herself a alternative world
which nearly results in her death but
which ultimately leads her reality.
Maximum Ride; Saving The World and
The Other Extreme Sports
The time has come for Max, Fang, Iggy,
Nudge, Gasman, and Angel to face their
ultimate enemy and, despite many
obstacles, try to save the world from a
sinister plan to re-engineer a select
27
population into scientifically superior
master race.
F Paulsen, Gary
F Paulsen, Gary
Brian’s Winter
Instead of being rescued from a plane
crash, as in the author’s book Hatchet,
this story portrays what would have
happened to Brian had he been forced
for survive a winter in the wilderness
with only his survival pack and hatchet.
The Glass Café, or, the Stripper and the
State: How My Mother Started a War
with the System that Made Us Kind of
Rich and a Little Bit Famous
When twelve-year-old Tony, a talented
artist, begins sketching the dancers at the
Kitty Kat Club where his mother is an
exotic dancer, it sparks the attention of
social services.
F Paulsen, Gary
Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet
and the Brian Books
The author relates incidents in his life
and how the inspired parts of his books
about the character, Brian Robeson.
F Paulsen, Gary
How Angel Peterson Got His Name:
And Other Outrageous Tales About
Extreme Sports
Author Gary Paulsen relates tales from
his youth in a small town in
northwestern Minnesota in the late
1940s and early 1950s, such as skiing
behind a souped-up car and imitating
daredevil Evel Knievel.
F Paulsen, Gary
The Car
A teenager left on his own travels west
in a kit car he built himself, and along
the way he picks up two Vietnam
veterans, who take him on an eyeopening journey.
F Paulsen, Gary
The Tent: A Parable in One Sitting
Although dismayed and embarrassed
when his father takes him on the road to
get rich preaching the word of God,
fourteen-year-old Steven finds himself
caught up in the money and the things it
can buy.
F Paulsen, Gary
The Time Hackers
When someone uses futuristic
technology to play pranks on twelveyear-old Dorso Clayman, he and his best
friend set off on a supposedly impossible
journey through space and time trying to
stop the gamesters who are endangering
the universe.
F Paulsen, Gary
The Transall Saga
None.
F Peck, Richard
28
The Last Safe Place on Earth
Fifteen-year-old Todd sees his suburban
world start to unravel when his sister has
her mind poisoned by a member of a
fundamentalist sect and he notices signs
of censorship in his community.
F Peet, Mal
Tracy, her brother, and the new animal
care volunteer at the Jefferson Science
Center travel by boat to feed a dog
stranded by flooding, and end up having
a full day of dangerous adventures,
which give them new perspectives about
themselves and each other.
F Petrucha, Stefan
Tamar
In England in 1995, fifteen-year-old
Tamar, grief-stricken by the puzzling
death of her beloved grandfather, slowly
begins to uncover the secrets of his life
in the Dutch resistance during the last
year of the Nazi occupation of the
Netherlands, and the climactic events
that forever cast a shadow on his life and
that of his family.
Teen, INC.
Fourteen-year-old Jaiden has been raised
by NECorp. Since his parents were
killed when he was a baby, so when he
discovers that the corporation has been
lying about producing illegal levels of
mercury emissions, he and his two
friends decided to try to do something
about it.
F Pelzer, David
F Pfeffer, Susan Beth
A Child Called ‘It’: An Abused Child’s
Journey From Victim to Victor
One child’s courage to survive.
Life As We Knew It
Through the journal entries sixteen-yearold Miranda describes her family’s
struggle to survive after a meteor hits the
moon, causing worldwide tsunamis,
earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.
F Perkins, Lynne
Criss Cross
Teenagers in a small town in the 1960’s
experience new thoughts and feelings,
question their identities, connect, and
disconnect as they search for the
meaning of life and love.
F Perrotta, Tom
Joe College
Danny, a junior at Yale, uses his spring
break to work at his dad’s lunch truck in
New York and sort out his complicated
love life.
F Petersen, P. J.
Rising Water
F Philbrick, Rodman
The Last Book in the Universe
After an earthquake has destroyed much
of the planet, an epileptic teenager
nicknamed Spaz begins the heroic fight
to bring human intelligence back to the
Earth of a distant future.
F Philbrick, W. R.
Freak the Mighty
At the beginning of eighth grade, Max,
who has a learning disability, and his
new friend Freak, whose birth defect has
affected his body but not his brilliant
mind, find that when they combine
forces they make a powerful team.
29
F Picoult, Jodi
My Sister’s Keeper
Anna Fitzgerald, whose whole life has
been to be a medical donor to help her
older sister, Kate, survive leukemia,
decides she has had enough and sues her
parents for medical freedom of choice
after they insist she donate a kidney to
her sister.
and he is caught in a web of mystery
more frightening than his own books.
F Pike, Christopher
Monster
Angela decides to investigate when her
best friend Mary, jailed for gunning
down two people at a party, claims her
victims were not human and that the
plague of horror is spreading.
F Pike, Christopher
F Pike, Christopher
Bury Me Dead
Jean’s Hawaii vacation gets off to a bad
start when the boy in the seat next to her
on the airplane chokes and dies, and her
efforts to put the incident out of her
mind are hindered by the reappearance
of Mike’s body in her dreams—and on
the beach.
Slumber Party
When a ski weekend reunited a group of
teenage girls eight years after a fire at a
slumber party disfigured one of them
and killed her sister, new fire-related
accidents suggest that one of them may
have been responsible.
F Pike, Christopher
F Pike, Christopher
Die Softly
None.
The Cold One
After receiving an anonymous phone
call, journalist Peter Jacobs becomes
involved in two murder cases that are
under investigation by the LAPD.
F Pike, Christopher
Final Friends Book 1: The Party
None.
F Pike, Christopher
Master of Murder
Marvin, an eighteen-year-old high
school senior, is also bestselling author
of a teenage fiction. No one knows his
true identity until someone in his
hometown discovers who he really is
F Pike, Christopher
Whisper of Death
Five teenagers involved indirectly in the
suicide of Betty Sure find they are the
only ones alive in a dead world. What is
going on?
F Plum, Carol
What Happened to Lani Garver
30
Sixteen-year-old Claire is unable to face
her fears about a recurrence of her
leukemia, her eating disorder, her need
to fir in with the popular crowd on
Hackett Island, and her mother’s
alcoholism until the enigmatic Lani
Garver helps her get control of her life as
the risk of his own.
F Reiss, Johanna
The Upstairs Room
A Dutch Jewish girl describes the twoand-one-half years she spent in hiding in
the upstairs bedroom of a farmer’s house
during World War II.
F Powell, Randy
F Rennison, Louise
Three Clams and an Oyster
During their humorous search to find a
fourth player for their flag football team,
three high school juniors are forced to
examine their long friendship, their
individual flaws, and their inability to try
new experiences.
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal
Snogging: Confessions of Georgia
Nicolson
This book presents the humorous journal
of a year in the life of a fourteen-yearold British girl who tries to reduce the
size of her nose, stop her mad cat from
terrorizing the neighbors’ animals, and
win the love of handsome hunk Robbie.
F Prose, Francine
After
In the aftermath of a nearby school
shooting, a grief and crisis counselor
takes over Central High School and
enacts increasingly harsh measures to
control students, while those who do not
comply disappear.
F Qualey, Marsha
Too Big a Storm
When serious worrier Brady Callahan
meets vivacious Sally Cooper, daughter
of a wealthy Minnesota family, they
develop a close friendship that helps
them both grow and survive during the
turbulent Vietnam War era.
F Rennison, Louise
Away Laughing on a Fast Camel
The saga of teenager Gloria Nicolson
continues in diary entries about her life
after her boyfriend goes off to Kiwiagogoland, leaving her to make do
without him.
F Rennison, Louise
Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants
The further confessions of teenaged
Gloria Nicolson continue as, among
other things, she begins to wonder if
Robbie is really the right boy for her.
31
F Rennison, Louise
Knocked Out by the Nunga-Nungas:
Further, Further Confessions of Georgia
Nicolson
The saga of fourteen-year-old Georgia
Nicolson continues as she travels to
Scotland on a nightmarish family
vacation, confesses her anxiety of being
the girlfriend of a sex god, and tests the
limits of true friendship.
system after being removed from her
mother at the age of three, and
explaining how her life changed after
she was adopted.
F Rinaldi, Ann
Brooklyn Rose
On St. Helena Island, South Carolina,
fifteen-year-old Rose meets and marries
Rene, a Yankee from Brooklyn, New
York, who takes her north to his home
where she encounters many differences
in attitudes and lifestyles.
F Rennison, Louise
F Rinaldi, Ann
On the Bright Side, I’m Now the
Girlfriend of a Sex God: Further
Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
Fourteen-year-old Georgia continues her
diary in which she records her
misadventures trying to reclaim the
attention of seventeen-year-old Robbie,
while coping with her friends, family,
and dog-like cat Angus at the same time.
Mutiny’s Daughter
This is the story of a half-Tahitian
teenager Mary Christian, who is sent to
the British Isles to be raised by the
family of her father, the British ship
Bounty’s second in command and
mutineer, Fletcher Christian.
F Rennison, Louise
Numbering All the Bones
Thirteen-year-old Eulinda, a slave who
is caught between the white and black
world on a southern plantation during
the Civil War, must reconcile with her
duo consciousness.
Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers
After trying to take Hamburger-a-gogo
land, also known as the United States, by
storm when her family vacations in
Memphis, Tennessee, a British teen
returns home to deal with the attentions
of too many boys, weird parents, and
mad cats.
F Rhodes-Courter, Ashley
Three Little Words
Ashley Rhodes-Courter provides an
account of her life, focusing on the nine
years she spent in Florida’s foster care
F Rinaldi, Ann
F Rinaldi, Ann
Or Give Me Death: A Novel of Patrick
Henry’s Family
With their father away most of the time
advocating independence for the
American colonies, the children of
Patrick Henry try to raise themselves,
manage the family plantation, and care
for their mentally ill mother.
32
F Rosoff, Meg
F Rinaldi, Ann
Sarah’s Ground
In 1861, eighteen-year-old Sarah Tracy
comes to work at Mount Vernon, the
historic Virginia home of George
Washington, where she tries to protect
the safety and neutrality of the site
during the Civil War.
How I Live Now
To get away from her pregnant
stepmother in New York City, fifteenyear-old Daisy goes to England to stay
with her aunt and cousins, with whom
she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks
out and rips apart the family while
devastating the land.
F Rinaldi, Ann
F Rosoff, Meg
The Color of Fire
In 1741, Phoebe watches New York City
erupt into mass hysteria when the whites
accuse the blacks of planning an
uprising.
Just In Case
Convinced that fate is out to get him,
fifteen-year-old David Case assumes a
new identity in the hope of avoiding
what he believes is certain doom.
F Roth, Matthue
F Rinaldi, Ann
The Staircase
In 1878, after her mother’s death on the
way West, thirteen-year-old Lizzie
Enders is left by her father at a convent
school in Santa Fe, where he must deal
with being the only non-Catholic student
and where she plays a part in what some
consider a miracle.
F Roberts, Willo Davis
Twisted Summer
Fourteen-year-old Cici hopes for a
romantic summer at the beach but
instead finds herself trying to solve a
murder which has occurred there the
previous year.
Never Mind the Goldbergs
A seventeen-year-old Orthodox Jewish
girl leaves her home in New York for a
summer to film a television show in
California.
F Sachar, Louis
Holes
As further evidence of his family’s bad
fortune, which they attribute to a curse
on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is
sent to a hellish correctional camp in the
Texas desert where he finds his first real
friend, a treasure, and a new sense of
himself.
F Sachar, Louis
33
Small Steps
Three years after being released from
Camp Green Lake, Armpit is trying hard
to keep his life on track, but then his old
pal X-Ray shows up with a tempting
plan to make some easy money scalping
concert tickets, Armpit reluctantly goes
along.
F Saldaña, René
film he makes for a class project sends
him to in-school suspension.
F Shange, Ntozake
Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter
Story of memories, dreams, and
expectations of a young African
American artist living in Mississippi and
New York.
Finding Our Way
A collection of eleven short fiction
stories about teens who are trying to find
their own paths to adulthood.
F Schmidt, C.A.
F Shaw, Tucker
Useful Fools
A fifteen-year-old Peruvian boy, whose
mother runs a clinic for poor village
children, becomes caught up in war after
Senderistas bomb the clinic, killing his
mother and throwing his family into
turmoil.
Flavor of the Week
Cyril, and overweight boy who is good
friends with Rose but wishes he could be
more, helps his best friend Nick woo her
with culinary masterpieces which Cyril
himself secretly creates. Includes recipes
from the story.
F Schmidt, Gary
F Shreve, Susan
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
In 1911, Turner Buckminster hates his
new home of Phippsburg, Maine, but
things improve when he meets Lizzie
Bright Griffin, a girl from a poor, nearby
island community founded by former
slaves that the town fathers—and
Turner’s—want to change into a tourist
spot.
Kiss Me Tomorrow
Confused by all of the males in her life,
thirteen-year-old Alyssa “Blister” Reed
wants to help when her best friend
Jonah’s quest for popularity lands him in
deep trouble, but his desire to make her
his girlfriend gets in the way.
F Shusterman, Neal
F Selzer, Adam
How To Get Suspended and Influence
People
Gifted eighth-grader Leon Harris
becomes and instant celebrity when the
Full Tilt
When sixteen-year-old Blake goes to a
mysterious, by-invitation-only carnival
he somehow knows that it could save his
comatose brother, but soon learns that
much more is at stake if he fails to meet
34
the challenge presented there by the
beautiful Cassandra.
F Simmons, Michael
Finding Lubchenko
When his father is framed for murder
and bioterrorism, high-school junior
Evan, using clues from a stolen laptop,
travels from Seattle to Paris with two
friends to find the real culprit.
F Smith, Greg
Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo
Honoria, Shohei, and Elias, who are
“united together against That Which Is
The Peshtigo School,” face conflict over
their budding romantic interest and
science project gone awry.
F Sleator, William
F Smith, Sherri
Parasite Pig
Sixteen-year-old Barney, infected by an
alien parasite, and his friend Katie are
taken to the planet J’koot by
extraterrestrials intent on playing the
dangerous game known as Interstellar
Pig.
Lucy the Giant
Fifteen-year-old Lucy, the largest girl in
her school, leaves her small Alaskan
town and her alcoholic father and
discovers hardship—and friendship—
posing as an adult aboard a commercial
fishing boat.
F Sleator, William
F Sones, Sonya
The Boy Who Reversed Himself
When Laura discovers that the
unpopular boy living next door to her
had the ability to go into the fourth
dimension, she makes the dangerous
decision to accompany him on his
journeys there.
What My Mother Doesn’t Know
Sophie describes her relationships with a
series of boys as she searches for Mr.
Right.
F Sleator, William
The Duplicate
Sixteen-year-old David, finding a
strange machine that creates replicas of
living organisms, duplicates himself and
suffer the horrible consequences when
the duplicate turns against him.
F Soto, Gary
Baseball in April and Other Stories
A collection of eleven short stories
focusing on the every day adventures of
Hispanic young people growing up in
Fresno, California.
F Soto, Gary
Taking Sides
35
Fourteen-year-old Lincoln Mendoza, an
aspiring basketball player, must come to
terms with his divided loyalties when he
moves from the Hispanic inner city to a
white suburban neighborhood.
nonconformity, and the thrill of first
love, an eccentric student named Stargirl
changes Mica High School forever.
F Staples, Suzanne Fisher
Haveli
Having relented to the ways of her
people in Pakistan and married the rich
old man to whom she was pledged
against her will, Shabanu is now the
victim of his family’s blood feud and the
malice of his other wives.
F Soto, Gary
F Stine, R. L.
The Afterlife
Chuy, a senior at East Frenso High
School, lives on as a ghost after his
brutal murder in the restroom of a club
where he had gone to dance. Chuy
discovers what life is all about. He
finally sees that people love him, finally
has to deal with the consequences of his
casual actions, and finally finds himself
compassion, and bravery as well as
stumbles upon true love.
Beach House
The water is cold, the sun is hot, and the
kids are cool at the exclusive
Dunehampton beach where they spend
their summer days. Then one of the
teenagers disappears and another is
found murdered.
F Soto, Gary
Buried Onions
When nineteen-year-old Eddie drops
out of college, he struggles to find a
place for himself as a Mexican American
living in a violence-infested
neighborhood of Fresno, California.
F Spinelli, Jerry
Stargirl
In this story about the perils of
popularity, the courage of
F Stine, R. L.
Dangerous Girls
After sixteen-year-old Destiny and her
twin sister Livvy are turned into partial
vampires at a summer camp, they try to
find the “Restorer”, someone who can
return them to normal.
F Stine, R. L.
Hit and Run
Eddie, Scott, Winks, and Cassie go out
for a car ride one night, hitting and
injuring someone, and the four friends
share a terrible secret.
36
F Stine, R. L.
F Strasser, Todd
The Boyfriend
Joanne is beautiful and popular but uses
her friends and her boyfriends. Her new
boyfriend Dex falls in love with her.
When he dies, Joanne realizes that she
has gone too far, for now Dex has come
back from the dead…for her.
Give a Boy a Gun
Events that lead up to a night of terror at
a high school dance are told from the
point of view of various people
involved.
F Stine, R. L.
Chanda’s Secrets
Everyone is afraid to say why people are
dying, but Chanda Kabelo knows that
people around her are dying because of
AIDS.
The Girlfriend
Scotty meets a new girl while his
girlfriend is out of town, but his one wild
night becomes a nightmare when she
decides she loves him to death!
F Stine, R. L.
F Stratton, Allan
F Stratton, Allan
The Taste of Night
Livvy Weller wants her twin sister,
Destiny, to join her on the darker side as
a vampire, but Destiny is determined to
restore Livvy to her human condition
and bring her back to their family.
Chanda’s War
Chandra Kabelo, a teenaged African girl,
must save her younger siblings after they
are kidnapped and forced to serve as
child soldiers in general Mandiki’s rebel
army.
F Stork, Francisco X
F Stratton, Allan
Behind The Eyes
Sixteen-year-old Hector is the hope of
his family, but when he seeks revenge
after his brother’s gang-related death and
is sent to a San Antonio reform school, it
takes an odd assortment of characters to
help him see that hope is still alive.
Leslie’s Journal
Leslie’s life seems to settle from chaos
to wonderful when Jason, the new guy in
school, asks her out. Things change
quickly, however, and spin out of control
as she finds out that Jason is not as nice
as she thought and she must find a way
to break out of the relationship.
F Strasser, Todd
Can’t Get There From Here
Tired of being hungry, cold, and dirty
from living on the streets of New York
City with a tribe of other homeless
teenagers who are dying, one by one, a
girl named Maybe ponders her future an
longs for someone to care about her.
F Stroud, Jonathon
The Golem’s Eye
In their continuing adventures,
magician’s apprentice Nathanial, now a
fourteen-year-old, and the djinni
Bartimaeus travel to Prague to locate the
37
source of golem’s power before it
destroys London.
F Sykes, Shelley
For Mike
When Jeff’s best friend Mike disappears
in the fall of their senior year in high
school, Jeff has disturbing dreams in
which Mike urges him to come get him,
and a secret begins to unfold.
F Tolan, Stephanie
Plague Year
Sixteen-year-old David is immediately
involved when a scandal is discovered
about the strange new boy in his high
school and everyone else turns against
him.
F Tolan, Stephanie
F Tanner, Mike
Resurrection Blues
None.
F Tashjian, Janet
The Gospel According to Larry
Seventeen-year-old Josh, a lonerphilosopher who wants to make a
difference in the world, tries to maintain
his secret identity as the author of a
website that is receiving national
attention.
F Tashjian, Janet
Vote for Larry
Not yet eighteen-year-old, Josh, a.k.a.
Larry, comes out of hiding and returns to
public life, this time to run for President
as an advocate for issues of concern to
youth and to encourage voter turnout.
F Taylor, Mildred
The Land
After the Civil War, Paul, the son of a
white father and a black mother, finds
himself caught between two worlds of
colored folks and white folks as he
pursues his dream of owning his own
land.
Surviving the Applewhites
Jake, a budding juvenile delinquent, is
sent for home schooling to the arty and
eccentric Applewhite family’s Creative
Academy, where he discovers talents
and interests he never knew he had.
F Troup, Gary
Bad Twin
Private detective Paul Artisan must
come up with a plan to learn the truth
when his investigation into the
disappearance of Alexander Widmore,
one of the heirs to the vast Widmore
fortune, along with his brother Cliffordm
yields more questions than answers.
F Trueman, Terry
Cruise Control
A talented basketball player struggles to
deal with the helplessness and anger tha
t come with having a brother rendered
completely dysfunctional by severe
cerebral palsy and a father who deserted
the family. Sequel to the novel Stuck in
Neutral.
F Trueman, Terry
Stuck in Neutral
38
Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel who
suffers from severe cerebral palsy and
cannot function, relates his perceptions
of his life, his family, and his condition
especially as he believes his father
is planning to kill him.
F Turner, Megan
The King of Attolia
Eugenides, still known as a Thief of
Eddis, faces palace intrigue and
assassins as he strives to prove himself
both to the people of Attolia and to his
new bride, their queen.
Now in eight grade, best friends Mikey
and Margalo try to figure out boys,
crushes, and falling in love.
F Volponi, Paul
Black and White
Two star high school basketball players,
one black and one white, experience the
justice system differently after
committing a crime together and getting
caught.
F Volponi, Paul
F Twain, Mark
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Set in the nineteenth century, Huck Finn,
the son of the town drunk, and Jim, an
escaped slave, make a break for freedom
down the Mississippi River on a raft.
Rucker Park Setup
While playing in a crucial basketball
game on the very court where his best
friend was murdered, Mackey tried to
come to terms with his own part in that
murder and decide whether to maintain
his silence or tell J.R.’s father and the
police what really happened.
F Volponi, Paul
F Voight, Cynthia
A Solitary Blue
Jeff’s mother, who deserted the family
years before, reenters his life and widens
the gap between Jeff and his father, a
gap that only truth, love, and friendship
can heal.
F Voight, Cynthia
Bad Girls in Love
Rooftop
Still reeling from seeing the police shoot
his unarmed cousin to death on the roof
of a New York City housing project,
seventeen-year-old Clay is dragged into
the whirlwind of political manipulation
that follows.
.
F Vrettos, Adrienne
Skin
When his parents decide to separate,
eight-grader Donnie watches with horror
as the physical condition of his sixteenyear-old sister, Karen, deteriorates due
to an eating disorder.
39
When he and his high-school basketball
teammates steal from a fraternity house
in their small Indiana town, Nate
contends with his guilt, his loyalty to his
friends, and his desire to help his older
brother who comes under suspicion for
the crime.
F Wallace, Rich
Losing is Not an Option: Stories
Eleven episodes in the life of a young
man, from sneaking into his tenth
football game in a row with his best
friend in sixth grade to running his last
high school race, the Pennsylvania state
champions.
F Wallance, Rich
One Good Punch
Eighteen-year-old Michel Kerrigan,
writer of obituaries for the Scranton
Observer and captain of the track team,
is ready for the most important season of
his life. Until the police fiend joints in
his school locker, and he is faced with a
choice that could everything.
F Warner, Sally
Finding Hattie
In 1882, a fourteen-year-old orphan joins
her cousin Sophie in attending boarding
school at Miss Buckley’s Seminary for
Young Ladies in Tarrytown, New York,
and tries to find her place in the world.
F Weaver, Will
Full Service
In the summer of 1965, teenager Paul
Sutton, a northern Minnesota farm boy,
takes a job at a gas station in town,
where his strict religious upbringing is
challenged by new people and
experiences.
F Weisberg, Joseph
F Wallace-Brodeur, Ruth
Blue Eyes Better
When her older brother is killed in an
accident, Tessa and her parents find it
difficult to overcome their grief and
return to living normally.
10th Grade
Jeremiah Reskin has big plans for tenth
grade, and when he meets a group of
semi-bohemian outcasts, he feels he has
finally found a place where he belongs,
and where he can start to enjoy life.
F Werlin, Nancy
F, Waltman, Kevin
Are You Alone on Purpose?
Learning the Game
40
When two lonely teenagers, one the son
of a widower rabbi and the other the
sister of an autistic twin, are drawn
together by a tragic accident, they
discover they have more in common
than they had guessed.
city suffers from a mysterious epidemic
that is turning people into cannibals.
F Werlin, Nancy
F Westerfeld, Scott
Double Helix
Eighteen-year-old Eli discovers a
shocking secret about his life and his
family while working for a Nobel Prizewinning scientist while specialty is
genetic engineering.
So Yesterday
Hunter Braque, a New York City
teenager who is paid by corporations to
spot what is “cool,” combines his
analytical skills with girlfriend Ken’s
creative talents to find a missing person
and thwart a conspiracy directed at the
heart of consumer culture.
F Westerfeld, Scott
Pretties
Tally Youngblood learns that the
cosmetic enhancements she received
included brain lessons that left her in a
perpetual state of laziness.
F Werlin, Nancy
The Rules of Survival
Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts
his attempts, starting at a young age, to
free himself and his sisters from the grip
of their emotionally and physically
abusive mother.
F Westerfeld, Scott
Peeps
Cal Thompson is a carrier of a parasite
that causes vampirism, and must hunt
down all the girlfriends he has
unknowingly infected.
F Westerfeld, Scott
The Last Days
Five New York teenagers try to
concentrate on their new band while the
F Westerfield, Scott
Uglies
In a world where sixteen-year-olds are
subjected to a procedure that makes tem
“pretty”, fifteen-year-old Tally has to
choose between finding and turning in
her runaway friend, or never turning
“pretty” at all.
F Whitcomb, Laura
A Certain Slant of Light
After benignly haunting a series of
people for 140 years, Helen meets a
teenage boy who can see her together
they unlock the mysteries of their pasts.
F Wieler, Diana
41
Ranvan: A Worthy Opponent
Searching for escape from the drudgery
of his new life in Thunder Bay, Rhan
Van is drawn into a new video game,
Gemini Planet.
F Wieler, Diana
F Wittlinger, Ellen
Heart on My Sleeve
From the end of high school to the
beginning of college, Chloe and Julian
deal with major changes in their families
and friendships and explore their
feelings for each other through e-mails,
letters, and a visit.
Ranvan: Magic Nation
Rhan Van, a former video knight,
embarks on the game of real life and
finds new world responsibility and the
tough, and exhilarating, consequences of
being part of a team.
F Williams, Michael
F Wittlinger, Ellen
Crocodile Burning
Hoping to earn the money to get his
brother out of prison, Seraki joins the
cast of a musical written to express rage
at conditions in their South African
township and travels to perform it in
New York.
Razzle
When his retired parents buy a group of
tourist cabins on Cape Cod, fifteen-yearold Kenyon Baker’s days are filled with
repair work until he becomes friends
with an eccentric girl and makes her the
subject of a series of photographs.
F Williams-Garcia, Rita
F Wittlinger, Ellen
No Laughter Here
In Queens, New York, ten-year-old
Akilah is determined to find out why her
closest friend, Victoria, is silent and
withdrawn after returning from a trip to
her homeland, Nigeria.
What’s in a Name?
Each of ten teenagers living in Scrub
Harbor, Massachusetts, explores his or
her identity at the same time that the
local residents consider changing the
name of their town.
F Wither, Pam
F Wittlinger, Ellen
Skater Stuntboys
None.
Zig Zag
A high school junior makes a trip with
her aunt and two cousins, discovering
42
places she did not know existed and
strengths she did not know she had.
Adopted by white parents and sent to an
exclusive Connecticut girls’ school
where she is the only African-American
student, fourteen-year-old Lahni Schuler
feels like an outcast, particularly when
her parents separate, but after attending a
local church where she hears gospel
music for the first time, she finds her
voice.
F Wooding, Chris
Poison
When Poison leaves her home in the
marshes of Gull to retrieve the infant
sister who was snatched by the fairies,
she and a group of unusual friends
survive encounters with the inhabitants
of various Realms, and Poison herself
confronts a surprising destiny.
F Yancey, Richard
F Woods, Brenda
F Yep, Laurence
Emako Blue
Monterey, Savannah, Jamal, and Eddie
have never had much to do with each
other until Emako Blue shows up at
chorus practice, but just as the lives of
the five Los Angeles high school
students become intertwined, tragedy
tears them apart.
Angelfish
Robin, a young ballet dancer who is
half-Chinese and half-white, works in a
fish store for Mr. Tsow, a brusque
Chinese who accuses her of being a halfperson and who harbors a bitter secret.
F Woodson, Jacqueline
F Yolen, Jane
Behind You
After fifteen-year-old Jeremiah is
mistakenly shot by police, the people
who love him struggle to cope with their
loss as they recall his life and death,
unaware that Miah is watching over
them.
Jason and the Gorgon’s Blood
Jason, who will grow up to be head of
the Argonauts, leads five other boys on a
dangerous quest to save the kingdom of
Lolcus, learning along the way what it
means to be in command.
F Wright, Bil
F Yolen, Jane
When the Black Girl Sings
Odysseus in the Serpent Maze
The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred
Kropp
Through a series of dangerous
misadventures, teenage loser Alfred
Kropp rescues King Arthur’s legendary
sword Excaliber from the forces of evil.
43
Thirteen-year-old Odysseus, who longs
to be a hero, has many opportunities to
prove himself during an adventure which
involves pirates and satyrs, a trip to
Crete’s Labyrinth, and the two young
girls, Penelope and Helen, who play a
major role in his future life.
Other Recommended Titles
158 Pelzer
F Zucker, Naomi
Benno’s Bear
After he and his father are arrested as
pickpockets, Benno is separated from the
bear he had raised and come to love
when the bear is sent to a zoo and Benno
is taken in by a kindly policeman and his
wife.
Help Yourself for Teens: Real Life
Advice for Real-Life Challenges
Presents the author’s view on how teens
can help themselves become productive
members of society using his won
physical and emotional abuse
experiences as a child to demonstrate
how teens are in control of their life.
F Zusak, Markus
305.23 PERF
I Am the Messenger
After capturing a bank robber, 19-yearold cab driver Ed Kennedy begins
receiving mysterious messages that
direct him to address where people need
help, and he begins getting over his
lifelong feeling of worthlessness.
Perfectly Secret: the Hidden Lives of
Seven Teenage Girls
None.
306. 87 MY
My Crazy Life: How I Survived My
Family
None.
F Zusak, Markus
The Book Thief
Trying to make sense of the horrors of
World War II, Death relates the story of
Liesel—a young German girl whose
book-stealing and story-telling talents
help sustain her family and the Jewish
man they are hiding, as well as their
neighbors.
362.28 Runyon
The Burn Journals
Presents the true story of Brent Runyon,
who at fourteen set himself on fire and
sustained burns over eighty-percent of
his body and describes the months of
physical and mental rehabilitation that
followed as he attempted to put his life
together.
44
(Manga) 741.5 Satrapi, Marjane
Persepolis
Contains black-and-white comic strip
images in which the author shares the
story of her life in Tehran, Iran, where
she lived from ages six to fourteen while
the country came under control of the
Islamic regime.
810.8 Guy
(Manga) 741.5 Tamaki, Mariko
SC Acampora
Skim
Wiccan Goth teen Kimberly Keiko
Cameron sinks into a growing
depression after her classmate’s exboyfriend kills himself, sparking a
school revolution that forces all the
students to redefine themselves.
Every Man for Himself: Ten Short
Stories About Being a Guy
An anthology of ten original stories
about such things as family problems,
sexuality, and courage, written by wellknown authors of children’s books.
Guys Write for Guys Read
This is a collection of stories, minimemoirs, advice, poems, comics, and
drawings that are filled with defining
guy moments.
SC Asher
(Manga) 741.5 Lemke, Donald
Gulliver’s Travels
A graphic novel adaptation of Jonathan
Swift’s satire in which a shipwrecked
Englishman encounters bizarre
populations in unheard-of lands,
including an enlightened race of horses
which makes him see his fellow humans
in a different light.
(Manga) 741.5 Stassen, Jean-Phillipe
Deogratias: a Tale of Rwanda
A graphic novel that describes the Tutsi
genocide in Rwanda in 1994 through the
eyes of a boy named Deogratias, a Hutu,
who is in love with Benigne, a Tutsi.
On Her Way: Stories and Poems About
Growing Up Girl
A collection of stories and poems about
the challenges, joys, and emotions girls
face while growing up.
SC Dunc
Trapped!: Cages of Mind and Body
This is a collection of stories by different
writers and various genres in each of
which a young protagonist is trapped in
some way, whether emotionally,
physically, or mentally.
SC Duncan
796.357 Dam
Idiot: Beating “The Curse” and Enjoying
the Game of Life
Subject: Johnny Damon and the Boston
Red Sox.
On the Edge: Stories at the Brink
A collection of twelve stories by
different writers and in different genres
in each of which a young person is
45
physically and/or emotionally on the
edge.
SC Lanagan
White Time
Presents ten short stories, both dark and
hopeful, that journey into the past, the
future, and altered versions of the
present.
SC Noyes
The Restless Dead
Contains ten original stories of the
supernatural.
SC Twice
Twice Told
Presents nine drawings by a single
illustrator, each of which has been
translated into a story by two different
authors writing about what they imagine
is going on in the picture.
46