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Health Information Project Fiction Collection

With a Mid-Hudson Library System card, you may borrow titles from one of the library Centers, from any System public library or you may REQUEST A TITLE from your library's online catalog.

Book titles are listed under the following subject areas with overlapping topics listed in parentheses after each book summary (or, to search for a specific title or keyword, on your menu bar, go to "Edit" and then type your selection in the "Find" area):

ABUSE
(see also DATING ISSUES & VIOLENCE PREVENTION)
Absolute Brightness. By James Lecesne. HarperTeen 2008.
In the beach town of Neptune, New Jersey, Phoebe's life is changed irrevocably when her gay cousin moves into her house and soon goes missing. This is the story of a luminous force of nature: a boy who encounters evil and whose magic isn’t truly felt until he disappears. (Sexual Identity, Violence Prevention)

Born Blue. By Han Nolan. Harcourt, 2003.
Janie was four years old when she nearly drowned due to her mother's neglect. Through an unhappy foster home experience, and years of feeling that she is unwanted, she keeps alive her dream of someday being a famous singer. (Foster Homes, Family Issues)

Bruises. By Anke De Vrie. Front Street, 2003.
While living in Holland, Michael meets Judith, who is frightened, bullied, and beaten by her mother and blames herself for the abuse she is enduring. (Family Issues)

Dirty Liar. By Brian James. Push, 2006.
No longer able to tolerate living with his alcoholic mother and her abusive boyfriend, high schooler Benji, nicknamed Dogboy, has moved in with his emotionally distant father, stepmother, and stepsister, and strives to be invisible at home and at school until a series of events forces him to express himself. (Self-Esteem, Family Issues)

Freaky Green Eyes. By Joyce Carol Oates. HarperCollins, 2003.
Fifteen-year-old Franky relates the events of the year leading up to her mother's mysterious disappearance and her own struggle to discover and accept the truth about her parents' relationship. (Violence, Family Issues)

Living Dead Girl. By Elizabeth Scott. Simon Pulse, 2008.
When Alice was 10, Ray abducted her from a class trip and taught her how to be a “good girl.” After five years of horrifying sexual and emotional abuse, Alice believes no one will help her. Despite near starvation, wax treatments to remove her pubic hair, and pills to suppress her periods, Alice's body is becoming too mature—and she knows Ray will kill her soon. (Coping)

The Rules of Survival. By Nancy Werlin. Dial, 2006.
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. (Family Issues)

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. By Chris Crutcher. HarperTempest, 1993.
Sarah Byrnes and Eric have been friends for years. When they were children, his fat and her terrible scars made them both outcasts. Now Sarah, the smartest, toughest person Eric has ever known -- sits silent in the hospital. He must uncover the terrible secret she's hiding. (Body Image, Bullying)

Such a Pretty Girl. By Laura Wiess. Pocket Books, 2007. Haunted by flashbacks, fifteen-year-old Meredith learns that three years in prison has not changed the abusive father who molested her. (Self-Image, Family Issues)

Suckerpunch. By David Hernandez. HarperTeen, 2008.
Shy, seventeen-year-old Marcus and his sixteen-year-old brother, Enrique, accompanied by two friends, drive from their home in southern California to Monterey to confront the abusive father who walked out a year earlier, and who now wants to return home. (Violence, Family Issues)

What Mr. Mattero Did. By Priscilla Cummings. Dutton Books, 2005.
Three seventh-grade girls accuse their music teacher of having touched them inappropriately and sexually. (Self-Image)

When Kambia Elaine Flew in from Neptune. By Lori Aurelia Williams. Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Shayla lives in Houston and doesn't know what to think about her strange neighbor, Kambia who tells the most fantastic stories. (Sexual Abuse, African Americans, Family Issues)

When She Hollers. By Cynthia Voigt. Scholastic, 1994.
It's the day that Tish decides that her stepfather will never touch her again. (Child Sexual Abuse, Incest, Family Issues)

Uncle Vampire. By Cynthia Grant. Atheneum, 1993.
At the end of this compelling depiction of the trauma of sexual abuse, Carolyn, 16, summons the courage to tell someone what her Uncle Toddy has done for as long as she can remember. (Incest, Family Issues, Mental Health)

You Don't Know Me. By David Klass. Frances Foster Books, 2001.
John, abused by his mother's boyfriend, engages in interior monologues that examine his life, with humor and quirky insights. (Self-Image, Coping)

BACK TO TOPICS

ALCOHOL USE & TEENAGERS
Before, After and Somebody in Between. By Jeannine Garsee. Bloomsbury, 2007.
One hour into her first day of tenth grade, Martha Kowalski knows she’s really in trouble. The school bully, Chardonnay, has already threatened her life – and at home, things are even worse. Martha’s mom, fresh out of rehab, is shacking up with a total jerk in a run-down two-family house. (Bullying, Family Issues)

Best Foot Forward. By Joan Bauer. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2005.
For sixteen-year-old Jenna, life is finally coming together as she deals with her father's alcoholism, her best friend, and a possible romance. Problems begin when her employer hires Tanner who has been caught shoplifting. (Alcoholism, Interpersonal Relations)

The Blue Mirror. By Kathe Koja. Puffin, 2005.
Seventeen-year-old loner Maggy Klass, who frequently seeks refuge from her alcoholic mother's apartment by sitting and drawing in a local cafe, becomes involved in a destructive relationship with a charismatic homeless youth named Cole. (Homelessness, Family Issues)

The Boy Who Drank Too Much. By Shep Greene. Dell Publishing, 1979.
A teenage hockey star tries to cope with his problems through drinking, but finally seeks help through his friends. (Family Issues)

Buried. By Robin Merrow MacCready. Dutton, 2006.
When her alcoholic mother goes missing, seventeen-year-old Claudine begins to spin out of control, despite her attempts to impose order on every aspect of her life. (Family Issues, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)

Comfort. By Carolee Dean. Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Fourteen-year-old Kenny Roy Willson fantasizes about escape from his hometown of Comfort, Texas, following his alcoholic father's release from prison. (Coping Skills, High School, Family Issues)

Crunch Time. By Mariah Fredericks. Atheneum, 2006.
Four students form a study group to prepare for the SAT exam, and the reader learns that standardized tests don't reflect the real person. (Interpersonal Relations)

Leftovers. By Laura Wiess. Pocket Books, 2008.
Blair and Ardith are best friends who have committed an unforgivable act in the name of love and justice. Listen as they describe parents who are alternately absent and smothering, classmates who mock and shun anyone different, and young men who are allowed to hurt and dominate without consequence. (Abuse, Family Issues, Violence Prevention)

Morning in a Different Place. By Mary Ann McGuigan. Front Street, 2009
Fiona is Irish, Yolanda is African-American. When Fiona’s mother reunites with her alcoholic father, violence enters their lives. Fiona must make hard decisions about what she values – her mother and friendship with Yolanda. (Coping Skills/Decision Making/Peer Pressure, Prejudice/Racism, Violence Prevention)

Not Like You. By Deborah Davis. Clarion Books, 2007.
Kayla's mother has made the 15 years of her daughter's life unpredictable, from moving for "fresh starts" to drunken binges, no money, loser boyfriends, and a year in foster care. Kayla is tired of being the adult and of letting a guy use her for sex just to feel loved. When Marilyn moves them to New Mexico, Kay is skeptical, but she begins to make a life for herself by walking dogs and making friends, especially with a 24-year-old musician. (Coping, Sexual Behavior, Family Issues)

A Room on Lorelei Street. By Mary E. Pearson. Henry Holt and Company, 2005.
To escape a miserable existence taking care of her alcoholic mother, seventeen-year-old Zoe rents a room from an eccentric woman, but her earnings as a waitress after school are minimal and she must go to extremes to cover expenses. (Family Problems)

Sarah T: Portrait of a Teen-Age Alcoholic. By Robin S. Wagner. Ballantine Books, 1975.
A shocking and compassionate look at the growing problem of adolescent liquor abuse... and the desperate need for rehabilitation.

Serious Kiss. By Mary Hogan. HarperCollins Publishers, 2004.
Relates the angst-ridden life of fourteen-year-old Libby Madrigal as she tries to deal with her unhappily married alcoholic father and overeating mother, moving to a new town, and finding the perfect boy to "seriously" kiss.
(Family Issues, Eating Disorders)

BACK TO TOPICS

BODY IMAGE & EATING DISORDERS
Alt Ed. By Catherine Atkins. Penguin Group, 2003.
Participating in a special after-school counseling class with other troubled students, including a sensitive gay classmate, helps Susan, an overweight tenth grader, develop a better sense of herself.
(Interpersonal Relations, Sexual Identity)

Artichoke’s Heart. By Suzanne Supplee. Penguin, 2008.
Rosemary Goode tips the scale at almost 200 pounds and lists Sara Lee and Oprah as her only real friends. When the scale reaches an all-time high and she notices a cute boy in school, Rosemary realizes that she wants to change. And so begins a journey toward self-discovery.(Self-Esteem)

The Best Little Girl in the World. By Steve Levenkron. Contemporary Books, 1978.
A revealing story about a teenager, Francesca Deitrich, who suffers from destructive anorexia nervosa.

Big Fat Manifesto. By Susan Vaught. Bloomsbury, 2008.
Writing a column every week in the school newspaper about what it really means to be fat, Jamie Carcaterra – high school senior, star of her school's production of The Wiz, and features editor of The Wire offers readers a hilarious account of her full-size fight to change the thinking of a thin world. (Self-Esteem)

Crystal. By Walter Dean Myers. HarperCollins Publishers, 1987.
Fifteen-year-old Crystal has difficulty trying to reconcile her personal and school life with the sexy, sophisticated persona her career as a quickly advancing high-fashion model has forced upon her. (African American Women)

Does This Book Make Me Look Fat? By Marissa Walsh. Clarion, 2008.
Fourteen authors and artists weigh in on body image with a number of the entries autobiographical. Lists of relevant books, movies, songs and Web sites are welcome extras.

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. By Carolyn Mackler. Candlewick, 2003.
Feeling like she does not fit in with the other members of her family who are all thin, brilliant, and good-looking, fifteen-year-old Virginia tries to deal with her self-image, her first physical relationship, and her disillusionment with some of the people closest to her. (Family Issues)

Fat Hoochie Prom Queen. By Nico Medina. Simon Pulse, 2008.
Margarita "Madge" Diaz is fat, foxy, and fabulous. She loves herself, and is adored by almost everyone else...except queen bee/student-body president Bridget Benson. During a heated argument, they decide there's only one way to end their rivalry: be named prom queen and the other backs off. (Dating Issues, Interpersonal Relations)

The Fold. By An Na. Penguin, 2008.
Joyce never used to care that much about how she looked, but that was before she met John Ford Kang, the most gorgeous guy in school. Then her rich plastic-surgery-addict aunt offers Joyce a gift to fix her eyes. Joyce has heard of the fold surgery, a common procedure meant to make Asian women's eyes seem more "American" but she's not sure she wants to go through with it. (Interpersonal Relations, Korean Americans, Self-Esteem, Prejudice/Racism)

Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have. By Allen Zadoff. Egmont, 2009.
Andy, an overweight high school sophomore, is bullied by his peers, overprotected by his mother, and ignored by his father. When he is recruited for the football team, everything changes. For the first time, he experiences parties, girls, and popularity. (Interpersonal Relations, Dating, Coping Skills/Decision Making/Peer Pressure)

Girls Under Pressure. By Jacqueline Wilson. Delacorte Press, 2002.
Ellie learns to deal with her self-image as she battles anorexia.

Huge. By Sasha Paley. Simon Pulse, 2007.
April's been saving all year to afford Wellness Canyon (a.k.a. Fat Camp) and she can't wait to start losing weight. Wil's wealthy health-nut parents are forcing her to go to the camp, but Wil is determined to get revenge by gaining weight. Instead of working together to meet their weight-loss goals, but soon they're both crushing on the same guy and hiking to 7-Eleven.

Massive. By Julia Bell. Simon Pulse, 2005.
Because of her mother's obsession with weight, coupled with the false idea that being thin is the key to success, young Carmen becomes just as obsessed as her mother in having a perfect body. (Eating Disorders, Family Issues)

Maggie Bean Stays Afloat. By Tricia Rayburn. Aladdin Mix, 2008.
At the end of a tumultuous year, Maggie Bean is healthy and happy. After months of Pound Patrollers attendance, diet and tough swim workouts, the scale reads 146. But she has a busy summer ahead, and has to learn to juggle her new popularity with her old friends.

Melting of Maggie Bean. By Tricia Rayburn. Aladdin Mix, 2007.
Maggie Bean's dad lost his job and her mom's stressed about money. So Maggie focuses on what she does best: keeping up her straight-A average and eating chocolate. Everything changes when she has a chance to try out for the synchronized swim team. Will people be able to see beyond her pudgy body to the funny, cool girl hiding underneath? (Coping, Family Issues)

Mercy, Unbound. By Kim Antieau. Simon Pulse, 2006.
Believing she has wings and is an angel on earth, fifteen-year-old Mercy decides to stop eating due to her adamant view that angels don't need food, but when she is forced to go to an eating disorder clinic, Mercy begins to see things in a new light. (Family Issues, Religious Beliefs)

Model Summer. By Paulina Porizkova. Hyperion, 2007.
Paris, 1980. Everyone is beautiful and glamorous. At the edge of the crowd is 14-year-old Jirina who has always been too tall, too skinny and too odd to be popular. She spent most of her time taking care of her sister, hiding from her irritable mother and feeling like she could do nothing right until she was discovered by a Parisian modeling agency. Will she be able to return to her former life after having a taste of freedom? (Coping)

More Than You Can Chew. By Marnelle Tokio. Tundra, 2003.
Marty Black may not be able to control her parents' behavior, but she can decide what she will and will not eat. Eventually, she stops eating altogether. Marty is close to death when she finally asks for help and finds herself in a psychiatric institution. But recognizing her need for help is only the first tenuous step on a long road to recovery. (Self-Acceptance)

My Sister's Bones. By Cathi Hanaur. Delacorte Press, 1996.
From September to May is an eventful few months in the life of a plucky New Jersey girl, a doctor's younger daughter who is coming of age just as her beautiful older sister begins to succumb to anorexia. (Anorexia Nervosa, Sisters)

North of Beautiful. By Justina Chen Headley. Little, Brown & Co., 2009.
Terra looks forward to college where she can escape from her father. When Terra and her mother get into a car accident and meet Jacob, a Chinese boy with a cleft lip, Terra and Jacob grow close. When Terra's brother sends her and her mother tickets to visit, and Jacob's mother wants to try to track down Jacob's birth mother, they decide to travel together. But what about Erik, Terra's boyfriend? (Family Issues, Dating)

Purge. By Sarah Littman. Scholastic, 2009.
Janie Ryman hates throwing up. So why does she binge eat and then stick her fingers down her throat several times a day? That's what the doctors and psychiatrists at Golden Slopes hope to help her discover. But first Janie must survive shifting friendships and alliances among the kids in the ward.

Out of Order. By Robin Stevenson. Orca, 2007.
Sophie spent a year starving herself. Now she’s walked through the front doors of a new school, hoping no one will notice her and that no one will suspect that she used to be fat. (Friendship, High School, Self-Esteem)

Skin. By Adrienne Maria Vrettos. Margaret K, McElderry Books, 2006.
When his parents decide to separate, eighth grader Donnie watches with horror as the physical condition of his sixteen-year-old sister, Karen, deteriorates due to an eating disorder. (Anorexia Nervosa, Family Issues)

Specials. By Scott Westerfeld. Simon Pulse, 2006.
Tally was once an ugly, but is now programmed as a Special. She is programmed to keep the Uglies down and the Pretties stupid. Will her past interfere with orders and save the lives of those she cared for?
(Decision Making, Self-Esteem, Survival, Body Image)

This Book Isn't Fat, It's Fabulous. By Nina Beck. Point, 2008.
Manhattan It Girl Riley Swain is no pudgy wallflower. She's brash, bold, fashionable, and yes, fabulous. But this spring break, Riley's dad and wicked stepmother are shipping her off to New Horizons, a two-week fat camp in upstate New York. Then Riley gets to know adorable Eric, who sees beyond Riley's tough exterior. (Dating)

Uglies. By Scott Westerfeld. Simon Pulse, 2005.
Tally can't wait for her sixteenth birthday to become pretty like all the other perfect girls. But her new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty and runs away. Tally is forced to choose between helping her friend and transforming into a perfect beauty. (Runaways, Decision Making)

Wintergirls. By Laurie Halse Anderson. Viking, 2009.
Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend's restless spirit. (Death & Grief, Family Issues)

BACK TO TOPICS

BULLYING
(see also COPING SKILLS & VIOLENCE PREVENTION)
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl. By Barry Lyga. Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
A fifteen-year-old "geek" who keeps a list of the high school jocks and others who torment him, and pours his energy into creating a great graphic novel, encounters Kyra, Goth Girl, who helps change his outlook on almost everything, including himself. (Coping Skills, Friendship)

The Beckoners. By Carrie Mac. Orca Book Publishers, 2004.
Alienation and terror would be the only future for Zoe if she did not give into the local gang. The adults in her life are preoccupied with themselves or don't care. She has no choice but to witness and partake in the bullying of her entire community just to survive. (Female Gangs, Children of Alcoholics, Violence Prevention)

Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? By Cynthia Voigt. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006.
As new ninth-graders eager only to survive high school, Mikey and Margalo must deal creatively with stolen money and cheating on the tennis courts. (Best Friends, High School, Sports)

Brutal. By Michael Harmon. Knopf, 2009.
With her mother gone to save lives in South American, Poe Holly finds herself on the suburban doorstep of the father she never knew, who is also a counselor at her new high school. She misses Los Angeles. She misses the guys in her punk band. Poe manages to find new friends, but when a bully uses deadly pranks to intimidate one, Poe springs into action.

Burn. By Suzanne Phillips. Little, Brown and Company, 2008.
For high school freshman Cameron Grady, every day is a struggle – to get out of bed, make it through classes, and come home without being emotionally and physically tormented by Rich Patterson and his followers. They leave Cameron no choice but to fight back. At least that’s what he tells himself. (Violence Prevention)

Certain Strain of Peculiar. By Gigi Amateau. Candlewick Press, 2009.
Fed up after being harassed and bullied at school, 13-year-old Mary hops in her mother's old truck and drives from her Virginia home to her grandmother's cattle farm in Alabama. But the farm's manager, Bud, and his children Delta, and Dixie, don't make it easy. Will Mary learn that running away solves few problems? (Interpersonal Relations, Self-Esteem)

Drowning Anna. By Sue Mayfield. Hyperion, 2002.
Shy Anna is seemingly befriended by the popular Hayley in her new school, until Hayley's cruel bullying assumes dangerous proportions. (Popularity)

Games: A Tale of Two Bullies. By Carol Gorman. HarperCollins, 2007.
When fourteen-year-old rivals Boot Quinn and Mick Sullivan fight once too often, the new principal devises the punishment of having to play games together at his office, where they learn which battles are worth fighting. (Violence Prevention, Middle School)

Hate List. By Jennifer Brown. Little, Brown and Company, 2009.
Five months ago, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. The list he used to pick his targets. Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year. (Violence Prevention, Dating, Family Issues, Interpersonal Relations)

Just Another Hero. By Sharon M. Draper. Simon & Schuster, 2009.
During their senior year at Douglass High, Arielle, Kofi, and the rest of their group come to grips with a lethal hazing event from the past. But Arielle accidentally witnesses a repugnant bullying incident that the victim asks her to keep secret. Kofi worries his pain-pill addiction, and keeping his romance intact. New mother November returns to her classes. Crazy Jack hides his mental instability. Meanwhile, someone is stealing. (Disabilities, Mental Health, Parenting, Prescription Drugs)

Mousetraps. By Pat Schmatz. Carolrhoda Books, 2008.
Back in grade school, Maxie and Rick were best friends. Then something terrible happened to Rick, and he vanished from her school and her life. Years later, he shows up at Maxie's high school. But he's very different . . .

Red Rage. By Brigitte Blobell. Annick Press, 2007.
Mara has a lot to be angry about. Rage is the only thing that offers relief from her world. Then she meets Tim, and there's a teacher who sees a better future for Mara. But when an unspeakable event occurs, Mara is forced to look inward, and to the one person who has never given up hope. (Violence)

The Revealers. By Doug Wilhelm. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Tired of being bullied and picked on, three seventh-grade outcasts join forces and, using scientific methods and the power of the Internet, begin to create a new atmosphere at Parkland Middle School.
(Internet, Friendship)

Stitches. By Glen Huser. Groundwood Books, 2003.
Travis's difficult life is examined over a period of three years, beginning in seventh grade. The only real constant in his life is Chantelle, a disfigured girl with a debilitating disease. Picked on unmercifully for no apparent reason by three bullies, Travis finds some balance through artistic expression, his encouraging teachers, some genuine friendships, and the support of his aunt. (Interpersonal Relations)

This Is What I Did. By Ann Dee Ellis. Little, Brown& Company, 2007.
Imagine if you had witnessed something horrific. Imagine if it had happened to your friend. And imagine if you hadn't done anything to help. That's what it's like to be Logan, an outcast enmeshed in a mysterious psychological drama. (Interpersonal Relations)

Wish You Were Dead. By Todd Strasser. Egmont, 2009.
The day after anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes Lucy would die, she vanishes. The students of Soundview High are scared. Especially frightened is Madison Archer, last person to see Lucy the night she disappeared. When two more popular students disappear and the students panic. Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances. (Violence Prevention)

BACK TO TOPICS

CAREERS, EDUCATION & FINANCES
A Field Guide to High School. By Marissa Walsh. Delacorte Press, 2007.
When Claire heads off to Yale, she leaves her eighth-grade sister a book titled A Field Guide to High School. In it, she explains the key to running the social and academic gambit at their private school, and discusses the elements of each social group and the importance of knowing what not to wear. (Coping Skills, Decision Making, Interpersonal Relations)

BACK TO TOPICS

COPING SKILLS/DECISION MAKING/PEER PRESSURE
Alice on Her Way. By Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Atheneum, 2005.
Alice is adjusting to her new stepmother, her brother's new apartment, her ex-boyfriend, and getting her driver's license. (High Schools, Family Issues)

The Beckoners. By Carrie Mac. Orca Book Publishers, 2004.
Alienation and terror would be the only future for Zoe if she did not give into the local gang. The adults in her life are preoccupied with themselves or don't care. She has no choice but to witness and partake in the bullying of her entire community just to survive. (Female Gangs, Bullying, Children of Alcoholics)

Before We Were Free. By Julia Alvarez. Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
In the early 1960's in the Dominican Republic, twelve-year-old Anita learns that her family is involved in the underground movement to end the bloody rule of the dictator. (Family Issues)

Book of Fred. By Abby Bardi. Washington Square Press, 2001.
Mary Fred Anderson, raised in an isolated fundamentalist sect whose primary obsessions seem to involve the likelihood of an apocalypse and the spreading of the name "Fred," is hardly your average fifteen-year-old.
(Religion, Family Issues)

Both Sides Now. By Ruth Pennebaker. Holt, 2000.
The one thing that Liza could never have planned on was her mother Rebecca getting breast cancer. (Breast Cancer, Family Issues, High School)

Breaking Point. By Alex Flinn. HarperCollins, 2002.
Fifteen-year-old Paul enters an exclusive private school and falls under the spell of a charismatic boy who may be using him. (Friendship, High School)

Can't Get There from Here. By Todd Strasser. Simon & Schuster, 2004.
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 and longs for someone to care about her. (Coping)

Catch. By Will Leitch. Penguin, 2005.
Teenager Tim Temples must decide if he wants to leave his comfortable life in a small town and go to college. (Colleges and Universities)

Chaser: A Novel in E-Mails. By Michael J. Rosen. Candlewick Press, 2002.
When his parents decide to move to an old house in the country, Chase uses email to his friends back in Columbus, Ohio, and to his sister in college to help him deal with cicadas, deer hunters, and other changes in his life. (Interpersonal Relations)

Conditions of Love. By Ruth Pennebaker. Dell, 2000.
During her freshman year at an elite high school in Dallas, Sarah tries to come to terms with her own volatile emotions, her changing relationship with her best friend, feelings about her mother, and new insights into her dead father whom she idolized. (Family Issues, Death, Interpersonal Relations)

Criss Cross. By Rae Lynne Perkins. Greenwillow, 2005.
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. (Interpersonal Relations)

Drift. By Manuel Luis Martinez. Picador, 2003.
At sixteen, Robert Lomos has lost his family. Only his iron-willed grandmother, worn down by years of hard work, is left. But, Robert’s got a plan. (Mexican-Americans, Family, Psychology)

Driver's Ed. By Caroline Cooney. Delacorte, 1994.
A prank goes wrong and a group of friends must evaluate their responsibility for a car accident. (High School, Death)

Drums, Girls, & Dangerous Pie. By Jordan Sonnenblick. Scholastic Press, 2005.
When his younger brother is diagnosed with leukemia, thirteen-year-old Steven tries to deal with his complicated emotions, his school life, and his desire to support his family.
(Leukemia, Family Issues, Middle School)

Family History. By Dani Shapiro. Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
Rachel Jensen has it all: a husband she adores, challenging work in art restoration, a terrific teenage daughter, and a new baby on the way. Then her infant son is injured in an accident in her daughter’s arms, and that accident causes a terrifying lie. (Family Issues, Grief)

Forbidden. By Judy Waite. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2004.
Elinor has lived in a cult her entire life, but when she meets a boy who looks strangely familiar, she begins to question what she has been taught. (Cults, Self-Discovery, Religion)

Fresh Girl. By Jaira Placide. Wendy Lamb Books, 2002.
After fleeing a coup d'etat in Haiti, Mardi tries to adapt to her new life in New York until secret memories of her former life are revived by the sudden appearance of her uncle. (Haitian-Americans)

The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading. By Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance. Simon Pulse, 2009.
When Bethany makes the varsity cheerleading squad, she gets noticed. She always felt comfortable as part of the nerd herd. How do you maintain dignity while wearing an insanely short skirt? What do you do when the head cheerleader spills her beer on you at your first party? (Family Issues, Depression, Interpersonal Relations)

Gossip Girl. By Cecily von Ziegesar. Little Brown, 2002.
Gossip Girl herself is an anonymous narrator with the ultimate insider scoop on the inner-workings of this privileged society because she's one of them. (Interpersonal Relations)

Guitar Highway Rose. By Brigid Lowry. Holiday House, 2003.
Two fifteen-year-olds, Rosie and Asher, upset over the various unhappy circumstances of their lives in the Australian city of Perth, decide to run away. (Family Issues)

Handbook for Boys. By Walter Dean Myers. Harper Collins, 2002.
Two African-American youth discover the rules of life, with the help of Duke and the other older guys. (African-American)

How Not to Be Popular. By Jennifer Ziegler. Delacorte Press, 2008.
Maggie Dempsey is tired of moving all over the country. Her parents uproot her every year or so to move to a new city. Now that they've moved to Austin, she decides not to make friends. She's not going to fit in. (Family Issues, Interpersonal Relations)

Hush. By Jacqueline Woodson. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2002.
Under the witness protection program, a young girl has to reinvent herself and her future in a new city. (African-American)

Hope Was Here. By Joan Bauer. Thorndike Press, 2001.
Ever since her mother left, Hope has, with her comfort-food-cooking aunt Addie, been serving up the best in diner food from Pensacola to NYC. (Cancer, Politics)

If I Stay. By Gayle Forman. Dutton, 2009.
The last normal moment that Mia, a talented cellist, can remember is being in the car with her family. Then she is standing outside her body beside their mangled Buick and her parents' corpses, watching herself and her little brother being tended by paramedics. (Death & Grief, Dating, Interpersonal Relations, Family Issues)

Initiation. By Susan Fine. Flux, 2009.
Terrified, Mauricio Londoño sets his main goal for freshman year: basic survival. But he can't resist the allure of the world of FaceSpace. When a cruel digital scheme sweeps through the school, Mauricio not only becomes one of its victims but also starts to think that maybe it's not so bad to be honest about who he really is. (Interpersonal Skills, Dating, Media Literacy)

Invisible Lines. By Mary Amato. Egmont, 2009.
Trevor is facing his first year in a fancy new school and has decided to make it a great one. But Xander, a star in the classroom and on the soccer field, has other plans. Will Trevor be able to overcome Xander's bullying and make a name for himself? (Family Issues)

King Dork. By Frank Portman. Delacorte, 2006.
High school loser Tom Henderson discovers that "The Catcher in the Rye" may hold the clues to the many mysteries in his life. (Self-Identity, Family Issues)

The Last Chance Texaco. By Brent Hartinger. HarperCollins, 2004.
Troubled teen Lucy Pitt struggles to fit in as a new tenant at a last-chance foster home. (Family Issues)

Leslie's Journal. By Allan Stratton. Annick Press, 2000.
Leslie's world seems to be crashing around her, and she records it all in a journal. (Family Issues, Friendship, Love)

Lucky Stars (stuttering). By Lucy Frank. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2005.
Music entwines Kira, a thirteen-year-old singer who hates that her father makes her perform for money on New York City subway platforms; Eugene, the class clown; and Jake, who longs to sing and to approach Kira, but feels held back by his stuttering. (Family Issues, Self-Esteem)

Lucky T. By Kate Brian. Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Carrie, a talented and beautiful but selfish teen, is in Calcutta trying to track down her lucky T-shirt that was accidentally sent to a shelter there. This shirt is one of the few connections she has with her often-absent, divorced father. In this foreign land, she finds a lot more than she ever expects. (Family Issues)

Messed Up. By Janet Nichols Lynch. Holiday House, 2009.
Fifteen-year-old R.D., part Mexican, part Cheyenne, lives with his grandmother until she splits town. He gets suspended his first day when he stops a fight between two girls wearing rival gang colors. His mom is in prison, and his migrant father is MIA. In order to avoid a group home, he hides the fact that he is living on his own. (Family Issues, Death & Grief)

Never Mind the Goldbergs. By Matthue Roth. Push, 2005.
Hava, a seventeen-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl leaves her home in New York for the summer to film a television show in California.
(Traditions, Family Issues, Friendship)

No Such Thing as the Real World. By M.T. Anderson et al. HarperTeen, 2009.
What's the line that separates childhood from "the real world"? And what happens when it's nothing you imagined it would be? (Teen Parenting, Suicide, Sexual Identity)

Notebook Girls. By Julia Baskin. Warner, 2006.
Four teens recount the course of their friendship at one of New York City's most prestigious public high schools, from their horrified witness to the September 11 attacks to their efforts to juggle demanding schedules and social pressures. (Friendship)

Notes From the Dog. By Gary Paulsen. Wendy Lamb Books, 2009.
Fifteen-year-old Finn is a loner, living with his dad and his dog, Dylan. Then Johanna moves in next door. She's 10 years older, cool, funny, and treats Finn as an equal. When she hires Finn to create a garden, it helps Finn discover his talents. (Health, Family Issues)

One True Friend. By Joyce Hansen. Clarion Books, 2001.
Fourteen-year-old orphan Amir, living in Syracuse, exchanges letters with his friend Doris, in which they share their lives and give each other advice on friendship, family, foster care, and making decisions. (African Americans, Friendship)

Out Of Order. By Amanda McRaney Jenkins. HarperCollins, 2003.
Sophomore Colt Trammel loves baseball and his girlfriend Grace, but he hates the rest of high school and maintains a tough facade to hide his feelings of inferiority. (High School, Self-Esteem, Interpersonal Relations)

The Pain Tree and Other Teenage Angst-Ridden Poetry. By Esther Pearl Watson & Mark Todd. Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Bold mixed-media illustrations accompany original poetry written by and for teens. (Poetry, Anxiety)

Prom. By Laurie Halse Anderson. Wing, 2005.
Eighteen-year-old Ash wants nothing to do with senior prom, but when disaster strikes and her desperate friend, Natalia, needs her help to get it back on track, Ash's involvement transforms her life.
(High School, Self-Realization, Friendship, Family Issues)

The Real Question. By Adrian Fogelin. Peachtree, 2006.
Fisher Brown, a sixteen-year-old over-achiever, is on the verge of academic burnout when he impulsively decides to stop cramming for the SATs for one weekend and accompany his ne'er-do-well neighbor to an out-of-town job repairing a roof. (Family Issues)

The Reappearance of Sam Webber. By Jonathan Fuqua. Candlewick Press, 2001.
Eleven-year-old Sam Webber was never very good at making friends his own age. In fact, he felt closest to his mother and father. So, Sam is devastated when, without warning, his father abandons the family. ( Family Issues, High School)

Sloppy Firsts: A Novel. By Megan McCafferty. Three Rivers Press, 2001.
Jessica's best friend moved away and now she has to deal with high school and her family all on her own. (High School, Family Issues)

Surviving the Applewhites. By Stephanie Tolan. HarperCollins, 2002.
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. (Theater, Family Issues)

Three Clams and an Oyster. By Randy Powell. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2002.
Three high school juniors must find a replacement for their football team. In one weekend they wrestle with the questions of life, death, and loyalty. (Friendship, Humor)

Travel Team. By Mike Lupica. Philomel Books, 2004.
After he is cut from his travel basketball team -- the very same team that his father once led to national prominence -- twelve-year-old Danny Walker forms his own team of cast-offs that might have a shot at victory. (Family Issues, Individuality, Teamwork, School Sports)

True Believer. By Virginia Euwer Wolff. Atheneum Books for Young Adults, 2001.
Living in the inner city amidst guns and poverty, fifteen-year-old LaVaughn learns from old and new friends and inspiring mentors, that life is what you make it - an occasion to rise to. (Single-Parent Families, Poverty, Friendship, Violence)

Truth About Twelve. By Theresa Golding. Boyds Mills Press, 2004.
Tremendously burdened by a secret guilt, twelve-year-old Lindy uses her skill at baseball to help her cope with a new school, scornful classmates, and complicated family problems. (Mental Health, Secrets, Baseball)

Walk Softly Rachel. By Kate Banks. Frances Foster Books, 2003.
When fourteen-year-old Rachel reads the journal of her brother, who died when she was seven, she learns secrets that help her understand her parents and herself. (Family Issues, Death, Secrets)

Whale Talk. By Chris Crutcher. Greenwillow Books, 2001.
The swim team members, all misfits and in a school that has no pool, grow together into self-acceptance, but not without heartache. (Sports, High School)

Worlds Apart. By Lindsay Lee Johnson. Front Street, 2005.
A thirteen-year-old daughter of a surgeon finds herself wrenched away from a comfortable lifestyle to a home on the grounds of a mental hospital, where her father has accepted a five-year contract. (Friendship, Mental Health, Family Issues)

You're the One That I Want. Cecily Von Ziegesar. Little, Brown, 2004.
After an agonizing wait for college acceptance letters, Blair, Serena, Nate, and their classmates at elite Manhattan prep schools discover that their college choice depends a lot on relationships--old and new. (High School, College, Decision Making, Friends)

BACK TO TOPICS

DATING ISSUES
An Abundance of Katherines. By John Green. Dutton, 2006.
Having been recently dumped for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, recent high school graduate and former child prodigy Colin sets off on a road trip with his best friend to try to find some new direction in life while also trying to create a mathematical formula to explain his relationships. (Self-Identity)

After Summer. By Nick Earls. Graphia, 2005.
Alex Delaney is worried about getting into college until he meets a mysterious girl named Fortuna. He spends a lot of time with her on the beach, falls in love, but worries when he realizes that things cannot last.
(Sexual Behavior)

Anything But Ordinary. By Valerie Hobbs. Frances Foster Books, 2007.
From the moment their friendship begins in eighth grade, Winifred and Bernie are individualists. They vow to attend college together but when Bernie’s mother dies and he drops out of school to work in a tire shop, Winnifred leaves for the University of California at Santa Barbara. (Death, Coping Skills)

Barb and Dingbat’s Crybaby Hotline. By Patrick Jennings. Holiday House, 2007.
Jeff can hardly believe it when he gets the second-hand news that his girlfriend is dropping him. And what's with Barb anyway? Why does she keep calling him, and why does he get the feeling she's not telling him the whole truth? (Interpersonal Relations)

The Boy Book. By E. Lockhart. Delacorte, 2006.
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 friendship with a clean-living vegetarian classmate. (Driving, Friendship)

The Breakable Vow. By Kathryn Ann Clarke. Avon, 2004.
After eighteen-year-old Annie becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she marries her boyfriend, but slowly realizes that he is abusive and that she must decide what she can and will do about the relationship and to keep her daughter and herself safe. Includes information on the characteristics of abusive relationships and how to end them. (Pregnancy, Self-Esteem)

Breaking Up is Hard to Do. By Niki Burnham, Terri Clark, Ellen Hopkins, Lynda Sandoval. Houghton Mifflin, 2008.
Stories about falling out of love by four popular authors. Each story shows the resilience of the human heart with a little humor, a little pain, and lots of truth. (Sexual Identity, Body Image, Sexual Behavior)

Breathing Underwater. By Alex Flinn. HarperCollins Publisher, 2001.
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.(Abuse, Violence, Anger Management)

Chicks with Sticks: Knit Two Together. By Elizabeth Lenhard. Dutton, 2006.
Chicago high-school juniors Scottie, Amanda, Tay, and Bella, rely on their friendship and their shared passion for knitting to help them as they navigate their relationships with boys. (Interpersonal Relationships)

David & Della. By Paul Zindel. HarperCollins, 1993.
Two creative Manhattan teens who just might be in love -- if Della can stay out of detox and David gets over his writer's block. (Alcohol Use)

Dead-End Job. By Vicki Grant. Orca Book Publishing, 2005.
When it turns out that the boy Frances has met at her job working the nightshift is a stalker, she realizes she may be in serious danger. (Violence)

Dishes. By Rich Wallace. Viking, 2008.
Ogunquit, Maine. That's not where you'd expect to find a guy like Danny. Only he and the bartender at Dishes, where he works as a dishwasher, are straight. But that's not what bothers Danny. What bothers him is that he's got straight-guy problems in a very gay town. (Sexual Identity)

Dreamland: A Novel. By Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2000.
Lost in her search for herself, Caitlin wanders in a dream land of drugs and a nightmare of Rogerson's sudden fists. (Violence, Interpersonal Relationships)

Exposed. By Susan Vaught. Bloomsbury, 2008.
Chan Shealy's got most things going right in her life. But after the football quarterback spreads a vicious lie about her, and the whole school decides she's too trashy for words, Chan begins to wonder if the only place she'll find love is online. (Family Issues, Violence Prevention, Media Literacy)

Flash Burnout. By L.K. Madigan. Houghton Mifflin, 2009.
When 15-year-old Blake snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, he never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa's long-lost meth addicted mom. Blake's participation opens up a world of trouble. (Sexual Behavior, Substance Abuse, Family Issues)

Girls. By Tucker Shaw. Amulet, 2009.
Mary loves Stephen, who is cheating with Crystal, who is cheating with Flip, Flora's boyfriend. Stylish, mysterious Sylvia delights in exposing good-girl Mary to this deceit but is shocked to learn that her sweetheart, Howie, is double-timing her with Miriam. Quietly observing it all is Peggy, Mary's roommate and best friend. (Interpersonal Relations)

Handcuffs. By Bethany Griffin. Delacorte, 2008.
Parker Prescott is an ice princess. Parker Prescott is a middle child. She's the good one, the dependable one, the one her parents trust. Or she used to be. Her boyfriend came over with handcuffs in his pocket. Everything went downhill from there. (Sexual Behavior, Media Literacy, Family Issues)

Head Games. By Mariah Fredericks. Atheneum, 2004.
Two teenagers connect online in a role-playing game which leads them into their own face-to-face, half-acknowledged courtship. (Dating, High School)

How They Met and Other Stories. By David Levithan. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
These love stories run the gamut of that emotion that at some point has turned every one of us inside out and upside down.

How to Say Goodbye in Robot. By Natalie Standiford. Scholastic, 2009.
New to town, Beatrice is expecting her new best friend to be one of the girls she meets on the first day. But she sits next to Jonah, a quiet loner who hasn't made a new friend since third grade. Soon they form an unexpected friendship. Can Bea help Jonah? (Dating, Family Issues, Mental Health, Disabilities, Death & Grieving)

Inexcusable. By Chris Lynch. Ginee Seo Books, 2005.
High school senior and football player Keir sets out to enjoy himself on graduation night, but when he attempts to comfort a friend and the love of his life whose date has left her stranded, things go terribly wrong. (Date Rape, Alcohol, Family Issues)

Major Crush. By Jennifer Echols. Simon Pulse, 2006.
When Virginia Sauter is forced to share the title of drum major with arrogant Drew Morrow, their constant bickering and heated competition turns to sizzling romance, but explosive rumors threaten the marching band's success. (Interpersonal Relations)

The Orange Houses. By Paul Griffin. Dial, 2009.
Tamika Sykes is a partially deaf student ; Fatima Espérer is a 16-year-old refugee; and Jimmy Sixes, already a disturbed veteran at age 18, is either a street poet or a junkie. The three form an unusual friendship, in a city that has become a powder keg of anti-immigration sentiment and is perilously close to the ever-present spark of gang violence. (Violence Prevention, Prejudices/Racism, Substance Abuse, Disabilities)

Past Forgiving. By Gloria Miklowitz. Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Alex, 15, thinks she's unbelievably lucky to have a boyfriend like Cliff--gorgeous, polite, popular, talented. So anxious is she to please, she excuses Cliff's controlling behavior, his angry outbursts, and his jealousy. (Acquaintance Rape, Violence)

A Perfect Day for Love Letters, Volume 2. By George Asakura. Ballantine Books, 2005.
Five stories about love letters and how they affect the lives of those who receive them. (Interpersonal Relations)

What Gloria Wants. By Sarah Withrow. Groundwood Books, 2005.
Gloria and Shawna have high school all planned out until Gloria detours and dates the hottest guy in school. Now she has to learn what it means to be a girlfriend with a controlling best friend, a phone hogging little sister, and protective parents.(Best Friends, Dating)

Who Am I Without Him? Short Stories About Girls and the Boys in Their Lives. By Sharon G. Flake. Jump at the Sun, 2005.
Twelve short stories about young girls and their boyfriends expose the ugly and happy truths of teenage relationships. (Abuse, Friendship, Sexual Behavior)

Year My Sister Got Lucky. By Aimee Friedman. Scholastic, 2008.
When Katie and Michaela Wilder are uprooted from NYC and planted in rural Fir Lake, Katie is horrified by their new surroundings. But while Katie suffers through shopping withdrawal, Michaela transforms into a small-town social firefly, flirting with the hot quarterback and soaking up nature with her new friends. (Family Issues)

BACK TO TOPICS

DEATH & GRIEF
All We Know of Heaven. By Jacquelyn Mitchard. HarperTeen 2008.
Bridget Flannery and Maureen O'Malley have been BFFs since forever. Then a brief moment of inattention on an icy road leaves one girl dead and the other in a coma. Then the doctors discover they have made a terrible mistake. The girl who lived is the one who everyone thought had died. (Substance Abuse, Alcoholism, Family Issues, Sexual Behavior)

Alicia Afterimage. By Lulu Delacre. Lee & Low Books, 2008.
When 16-year-old Alicia Betancourt is killed in a car accident, those left behind struggle to cope with the loss.

All Rivers Flow to the Sea. By Alison McGhee. Candlewick Press, 2005.
After a car accident in the Adirondacks leaves her older sister Ivy brain-dead, seventeen-year-old Rose struggles with her grief and guilt as she slowly learns to let her sister go. (Family Issues, Coping Skills)

All That Remains. By Bruce Brooks. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2001.
Three novellas explore the effects of death on young adults. (AIDS, Sports)

The Anatomy of Wings. By Karen Foxlee. Knopf, 2009.
Months before Beth's fatal fall, 10-year-old Jennifer's singing voice disappears. When and why it "got stuck" forms a central mystery. Each clue leads back to events from the year before Beth died, and Jennifer's search for her voice becomes a search for her sister. (Family Issues)

The Battle of Jericho. By Sharon Draper. Atheneum, 2003.
A high school junior and his cousin suffer the ramifications of joining what seems to be a "reputable" school club.

Before I Die. By Jenny Downham. David Fickling Books, 2007.
Everyone has to die. With only a few months left to live, 16-year-old Tessa has made a list of ten things she wants to do before she dies. Starting with sex. But getting what you want isn’t easy, and it doesn’t always give you what you need. And sometimes the most unexpected things become important. (Coping)

Birdland. By Tracy Mack. Scholastic, 2003.
Thirteen-year-old Jed spends Christmas break working on a school project filming a documentary about his East Village, New York City neighborhood, where he is constantly reminded of his older brother, Zeke, a promising poet who died the summer before. (Family Issues, Disabilities)

Bittersweet. By Drew Lamm. Clarion, 2003.
When her beloved grandmother suffers a stroke, high school junior and talented artist Taylor finds her inspiration and creative energy disappearing until she learns to reconnect with others and herself in unexpected ways. (Grandmothers, Interpersonal Relations)

Blind Faith. By Ellen Wittlinger. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2006.
While coping with her grandmother's sudden death and her mother's resulting depression and fascination with a spiritualist church, whose ministers claim to communicate with the dead, fifteen-year-old Liz finds herself falling for a new neighbor whose mother is dying of cancer. (Depression, Spiritualists, Family Issues)

Bringing Up the Bones. By Lara M. Zeises. Delacorte Press, 2002.
Bridget searches for happiness on her own after the death of Benji, her longtime best friend and boyfriend. (Dating Issues)

By the River. By Steven Herrick. Front Street, 2006.
A fourteen-year-old describes, through prose poems, his life in a small Australian town in 1962, where, since their mother's death, he and his brother have been mainly on their own to learn about life, death, and love. (Coping, Family Issues)

Catalyst. By Laurie Halse Anderson. Viking, 2002.
Kate finds herself losing control in her senior year as she faces difficult neighbors, the possibility that she may not be accepted by the college of her choice, and an unexpected death. (High School, Family Issues)

Chicken Boy. By Dowell, Frances O'Roark. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2005.
Since the death of his mother, Tobin's family life and school life have been in disarray, but after he starts raising chickens with his seventh-grade classmate, Henry, everything starts to fall into place.
(Family Issues, Self-Esteem)

The Color of Absence: 12 Stories About Loss and Hope. Edited by James Howe. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2001.
A collection of stories dealing with different kinds of loss experienced by young people. (Short Stories)

Comeback Season. By Jennifer Smith. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Ryan Walsh should be in class. But she's returning to the place that her father loved, where the two of them spent so many afternoons cheering on their team. It's on this day that she meets Nick. But Nick carries with him a secret. (Dating Issues)

Day I Killed James. By Catherine Ryan Hyde. Knopf, 2008.
When Theresa brings James to a party as her date, it's just for the night . . But when everything goes horribly wrong, James drives his motorcycle off a cliff-and Theresa knows she's responsible for his death. (Dating, Suicide)

Deadline. By Chris Crutcher. Greenwillow Books, 2007.
Ben Wolf had big things planned for his senior year, but now he has only one year left to make his mark on the world. He decides not to let anyone else know what’s going on and to become the best 123-pound football player his high school has ever seen. Ben's resolve begins to crumble when he realizes he isn't the only one keeping secrets. (Family Issues)

Deadville. By Ron Koertge. Candlewick, 2008.
Ryan's been sleepwalking through life since his younger sister died of cancer two years ago. But when Charlotte Silano - a gorgeous, popular senior way out of his league - has a riding accident and falls into a coma, Ryan finds himself drawn to her hospital room almost every day. (Substance Abuse, Dating, Family Issues, Interpersonal Relations)

Dear Zoe. By Phillip Beard. Viking, 2005.
Fifteen-year-old Tess writes a letter to her dead sister trying to figure out her own life and how to cope with her grief in a time when the United States is grieving over their losses from terrorism. (Family Issues, Coping, Terrorism)

Desert Crossing. By Elise Broach. Henry Holt, 2006.
A summer trip across the New Mexico desert turns nightmarish for fourteen-year-old Lucy, her older brother Jamie, and his best friend Kit, as they become involved in the suspicious death of a young girl. (Coping, Violence)

Elsewhere. By Gabrielle Zevin. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
After being hit and killed by a taxi, fifteen-year-old Liz Hall finds herself in a place both like and unlike earth. Liz must live her life elsewhere, aging backwards until she is a baby again, to return to earth and live a life she feels she missed out on.

Falling Through Darkness. By Carolyn MacCullough. Roaring Brook, 2003.
Seventeen-year old Ginny unexpectedly gets help from her father's new tenant while struggling to cope with her guilt and confusion over the death of her daredevil boyfriend.

Forever Changes. By Brendan Halpin. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
Eighteen-year-old Brianna Pelletier's dad is hassling her about her MIT application-a perfectly normal situation except that Brianna has cystic fibrosis. A gifted mathematician, Brianna knows the grim statistics on her life expectancy and wonders why she should plan for a future she probably won't have. (Family Issues)

Freewill. By Chris Lynch. HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.
A teenager trying to recover from the tragic death of his father and stepmother believes himself to be responsible for the rash of teen suicides occurring in his town. (Mental Health, Suicide)

Hard Hit. By Ann Turner. Scholastic Press, 2006.
A rising high school baseball star faces his most difficult challenge when his father is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. (Family Issues, Coping)

If the Witness Lied. By Caroline B. Cooney. Delacorte Press, 2009.
Three orphaned teenage siblings, separated by the tragic supposed patricide of their father by their two-year-old brother, reunite a year later to their brother from the clutches of their evil aunt, who wants to sell them out on a tell-all television show. (Family Issues, Media Literacy)

Just Like That. By Marsha Qualey. Dial, 2005.
A tragic accident, ending with the death of two people her own age, changes the life of an eighteen-year-old woman forever.
(Dating Issues, Family Issues, Coping)

Kamichama Karin (Graphic Novel). By Koge-Donbo (Nan Rymer). Tokyopop, 2005.
Karin is an average girl. She's not good at sports and gets terrible grades. On top of all that, her parents are dead and her beloved cat Shi-chan just died, too. She is miserable, but everything is about to change. Little does Karin know that her mother's ring has the power to make her a goddess! (Self-Esteem, Death)

Life at These Speeds. By Jeremy Jackson. Picador, 2002.
In eighth grade Kevin Schuler is a popular kid with a decent, if not stellar, record on the track. Yet after fate takes him off a bus that crashes and kills his fellow students, including his girlfriend, Kevin inexplicably becomes a track phenomenon. (Dating, Interpersonal Relations)

The Lightkeeper's Daughter. By Iain Lawrence. Delacorte Press, 2002.
Returning to a remote lighthouse island off British Columbia, her childhood home, Squid remembers painfully the death of her brother and her parents' involvement in the episode. (Family Issues)

Looking for Alaska. By John Green. Dutton books, 2005.
Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.

Love You, Hate You, Miss You. By Elizabeth Scott. HarperTeen, 2009.
Amy feels unloved by her parents. Along with her friend Julia, she turns to drinking and casual sex. After a devastating car crash leaves Julia dead, Amy goes into rehab. There, a therapist gives her a journal, which Amy uses to write letters to Julia, each dated with the number of days after Julia's death. (Alcohol Use, Family Issues)

Maybe. By Brent Runyon. Knopf, 2006.
Sixteen-year-old Brian struggles with life at a new school, his sexual desires, and his unresolved feelings about the loss of his older brother. (Sexual Behavior, Family Issues)

Pray Hard. By Pamela Walker. Scholastic Press, 2001.
Twelve-year-old Amelia feels secretly responsible for her father's death in a plane crash a year earlier. Her life is turned upside down when a newly religious ex-convict claims to have seen Amelia's father in a vision and moves in with Amelia and her mother.
(Family Issues, Spirituality)

Shadow Boxer. By Chris Lynch. HarperCollins, 1993.
The shadow of their deceased father, a boxer, provides a background for 14-year-old George and his younger, hyperactive brother, Monty. (Family Issues)

Skin Deep. By E.M. Crane. Delacorte Press, 2008.
If all the world’s a stage, Andrea Anderson is sitting in the audience. In the social hierarchy she is a Nothing, and at home her mother runs the show. Then one day Andrea accepts a job. Honora Menapace–a reclusive neighbor–is sick. Life is no longer predictable, and nothing is what it seems. Andrea must face the fact that life at first glance doesn’t even crack the surface. (Family Issues, Interpersonal Relations)

Snap: A Novel. By Alison McGhee. Candlewick Press, 2004.
Eleven-year-old Edwina confronts old and new challenges when her longtime best friend Sally faces the inevitable death of the grandmother who raised her. (Family Issues)

A Sudden Silence. By Eve Bunting. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.
Jesse Harmon knows he will never forget the night his deaf brother, Bry, was killed by a hit-and-run driver because he couldn't hear Jesse warn him. (Drunk Driving, Family Issues)

Sun, Moon, Stars, Rain. By Jan Cheripko. Front Street, 2006.
Still grieving over his father's death, nineteen-year-old college dropout Danny Murtaugh turns to a drunk, an eccentric landowner, and a young waitress for answers about his past and direction for his future. (Alcohol Use, Dating)

Tending to Grace. By Kimberly Fusco. Random House, 2004.
A teenaged girl copes with the death of a star track and field athlete by running. (Family Issues, Stuttering)

Truth About Forever. By Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2004.
The summer following her father's death, Macy plans to work at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where she makes new friends and finally faces her grief. (Grief, Death, Friendships, Interpersonal Relations)

The Turning. By Gillian Chan. KCP Fiction, 2005.
Sixteen-year-old Ben Larsson is angry; his mother is dead. His father has dragged him to England, hoping that a fresh start in a new country will repair their damaged relationship. Ben's life is consumed by unexplained events that could change his life forever. (Family Issues)

Twenty Boy Summer. By Sarah Ockler. Little, Brown, 2009.
Anna writes to Matt, even though more than a year has passed since Matt's sudden death. She has kept her relationship with Matt a secret from Frankie. Now, while on vacation with Frankie's family, Anna finds herself falling for cute, sensitive Sam- does that mean she no longer loves Matt? (Dating, Sexual Behavior)

The Usual Rules. By Joyce Maynard. St. Martin's, 2003.
Life for Wendy is fraught with the usual teen angst until September 11, when her mom heads off to work at the World Trade Center and never comes home. (Terrorism)

Way He Lived. By Emily Wing Smith. Flux, 2008.
Besides living in the same Mormon community in Utah, Tabbatha, Adlen, Miles, Claire, Norah and Lissa have something else in common: each had a special connection to Joel Espen, who died of dehydration after giving away his water during a badly planned Boy Scout expedition. (Mental Health, Family Issues, Interpersonal Relations)

Ways to Live Forever. By Sally Nicholls. Arthur Levine, 2009.
Eleven-year-old Sam knows that he is dying from leukemia. He writes a book about his thoughts as well as his lists and his questions. Through his writing, he draws a portrait of a family coping with a child's terminal disease. (Family Issues, Health)

When I Was Older. By Garrett Freymann-Weyr. Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Fifteen-year-old Sophie Merdinger's life fell apart when her younger brother died from leukemia and her parents' marriage dissolved. (Family Issues)

The Winter Road. By Terry Hokenson. Front Street, 2006.
Seventeen-year-old Willa, still grieving over the death of her older brother and the neglect of her father, decides to fly a small plane to fetch her mother in Northern Ontario, but when the plane crashes she is all alone in the snowy wilderness. (Coping)

Wrecked. By E.R. Frank. Atheneum Books For Young Readers, 2005.
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 family and herself. (Coping, Family Issues)

BACK TO TOPICS

DEPRESSION
America. By E.R. Frank. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2002.
Teenage America, a part-black, part-white, part-anything boy who has spent many years in institutions for disturbed, antisocial behavior, tries to piece his life together. (Prejudice/Racism, Suicide, Foster Care)

Damage. By A.M. Jenkins. HarperCollins Publisher, 2001.
Seventeen-year-old football hero Austin, trying to understand the inexplicable depression that has drained his interest in life, thinks he has found relief in a girl who seems very special. (Football, Dating, Mental Health)

Lisa, Bright and Dark. By John Neufeld. Puffin Books, 1969.
Lisa Shilling is sixteen and has everything, but is losing her mind. (Family Issues)

Saving Francesca. By Melina Marchetta. Random House, 2004.
Sixteen-year-old Francesca could use her outspoken mother's help with the problems of being one of a handful of girls at a parochial school that has just turned co-ed, but her mother has suddenly become severely depressed. (Family Issues)

BACK TO TOPICS

DISABILITIES
Anything But Typical. By Nora Raleigh Baskin. Simon & Schuster, 2009.
Jason, an autistic boy who is a creative-writing whiz, is at a loss in social interactions with "neurotypicals." He is comfortable in an online writing forum called Storyboard, where he kindles an e-mail-based friendship with a girl. His excitement turns to terror when he learns that his parents want to take him on a trip to the Storyboard conference. (Interpersonal Issues, Dating Issues)

Falling Boy. By Alison McGhee. Picador, 2007.
Left paralyzed by a mysterious accident, sixteen-year-old Joseph is living with his father in Minneapolis and working in a bakery, while two new people in his life set out to unravel the mystery of Joseph's life and past. (Friendship, Coping)

The Girls. By Lori Lansens. Little, Brown, 2006.
Since their birth, Rose and Ruby Darlen have been known simply as "the girls." They make friends, fall in love, have jobs, and follow their dreams. But the Darlens are special. Now nearing their 30th birthday, they are history's oldest conjoined twins. (Self Esteem)

Joey Pigza Loses Control. By Jack Gantos. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2000.
Now that Joey has a handle on his actions, he feels prepared to face the most mysterious member of his family--his estranged father, Carter Pigza. (ADHD, Alcohol Use)

Kissing Doorknobs. By Terry Spencer Hesser. Dell, 1999.
Fourteen-year-old Tara describes how her increasingly strange compulsions begin to take over her life and affect her relationships with her family and friends. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Interpersonal Relationships)

Marcelo in the Real World. By Francisco X. Stork. Arthur A. Levine, 2009.
Marcelo Sandoval is a high-functioning teenager with Asperger's syndrome. His father, Arturo, pushes Marcelo to live in the "real world." The teen is forced to work in his father's law firm during the summer. Marcelo learns that he can function in society. (Family Issues, Dating)

Owning It: Stories About Teens with Disabilities. By Donald Gallo. Candlewick, 2008.
A collection of stories about teens with disabilities. Chris Crutcher takes us on a wild ride through the mind of a teen with ADD, while David Lubar’s protagonist gets a sobering lesson from his friends. Robert Lipsyte introduces us to an elite task force whose number-one enemy is cancer. (Interpersonal Relations)

Read My Lips. By Teri Brown. Simon Pulse, 2008.
Serena wants to fly under the radar at her new school, but she's deaf and can read lips. Once the popular girl discovers her talent, there's no turning back. With each new secret she uncovers, Serena rises through the ranks of the school's most exclusive clique.

Rules. By Cynthia Lord. Scholastic Press, 2006.
Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence but her world is further complicated by a friendship with a young paraplegic.(Friendship, Coping)

Shooting Monarchs. By John Halliday. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2003.
Two teenage boys, one delinquent, the other physically handicapped, lead separate lives until they engage in a memorable final encounter. (Criminals)

Side Effects. By Amy Goldman Koss. Roaring Brook, 2006. Everything changes for Isabelle, not quite fifteen, when she is diagnosed with lymphoma. Eventually she survives and even thrives. (Illness, Recovery)

Socrates in Love, Volume 1. By Kyoichi Katayama. VIZ, 2005. A high school romance endures the tragedy and challenges of the girl’s leukemia diagnosis. (Leukemia, Dating, Coping)

Stuck in Neutral. By Terry Trueman. HarperCollins, 2000.
Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel loves the taste of smoked oysters and his mother's gentle hugs. Unfortunately, it's impossible for Shawn to feed himself or to hug his mom back. (Cerebral Palsy, Family Issues)

Tangerine. By Edward Bloor. Scholastic, 1997.
Twelve-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. (Family Issues)

With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child 1. By Keiko Tobe. Hachette Book Group, 2007.
The Azuma's newborn Hikaru is different from the other children. His diagnosis of autism confuses and devastates his parents. As they learn and experience more, they become a family. (Family Issues, Coping)

With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child 2. By Keiko Tobe. Hachette Book Group, 2008.
Sachiko and Masato Azuma have overcome numerous obstacles in dealing with Hikaru's autism. The young couple welcomed a healthy baby girl, Kanon, into their family. But with the differences between Hikaru's and Kanon's abilities, social prejudices against Hikaru's disability become apparent. (Family Issues, Coping)

BACK TO TOPIC

FAMILY ISSUES
After Tupac and D Foster. By Jacqueline Woodson. Putnam, 2008.
When D Foster walks into Neeka and her best friend's lives, their world opens up. D doesn't have a real mom, and they envy her independence. But D wants to feel connected, and the three girls bond over their love of Tupac Shakur's music. (African Americans, Interpersonal Relations)

Along for the Ride. By Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2009.
Auden is about to start college in the fall, and decides to escape her control-freak mom to spend the summer with her father and his new family. (Dating Issues, Death & Grief)

Anna Begins. By Jennifer Davenport. Black Heron Press, 2008.
Anna Begins is a pair of novellas, each about a girl and a boy, both seventeen years old. As both of them fall through the cracks at their school, they approach an ending neither of them can return from. (Alcohol Use, Sexual Behavior, Mental Health, Substance Abuse)

Big Game of Everything. By Chris Lynch. HarperTeen 2008.
Jock and his younger brother Egon spend a summer working at their grandfather's golf course. When two of Grampus' old marine buddies show up, Jock begins to see Grampus in a new light.

Bounce. By Natasha Friend. Scholastic Press, 2007.
Evyn wants to be left alone. Her mother died when she was young, and her father’s marrying a woman she hardly knows and forcing Evyn and her brother to move in with the woman and her five children. But she doesn’t want to make the necessary changes, but must find a way to manage her life. (Coping Skills)

A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life. By Dana Reinhardt. Wendy Lamb Books, 2006.
Sixteen-year-old atheist Simone Turner-Bloom's life changes in unexpected ways when her parents convince her to make contact with her biological mother, an agnostic from a Jewish family who is losing her battle with cancer. (Adoption, Death/Grief)

Converting Kate. By Beckie Weinheimer. Viking, 2007.
Kate was raised in the Church of the Holy Divine. But ever since the death of her nonreligious father, Kate has suspected there’s more to life than memorizing Bible passages. Taking advantage of a move to a new town, Kate quits the Holy Divine. Kate discovers there's a big difference between religion and faith. (Death, Interpersonal Relations, Religion)

Everything Is Fine. By Ann Dee Ellis. Little Brown & Company, 2009.
Stuck at home caring for her severely depressed mother and abandoned by her father, Mazzy has only the day-to-day dramas of her neighborhood to keep her busy. But Mazzy has to face the fact that her mom is emotionally paralyzed by a family tragedy. (Death & Grief, Depression, Family Issues)

Gifts. By Ursula K. Le Guin. Harcourt, 2004.
Orrec makes a decision to not use his “gift” – an ability to unintentionally kill the ones he loves – despite it being part of his family’s heritage. Instead, he decides to move through his world with a blindfold with the help of his friend, Gry, who also chooses to reject her gift. Can these two outcasts, useless in a place where gifts are everything, find purpose in the world? (Fantasy)

Girl, Hero. By Carrie Jones. Flux, 2008.
After landing a lead role in the high school musical, freshman Liliana Faltin is hoping for some stability and happiness in her life. But her mom's live-in boyfriend has a thing for booze, touching, and telling dark family secrets. To deal, Lily writes letters to John Wayne. Now, Lily just needs to figure out how to be a hero herself. (Alcohol Abuse, Dating)

He Forgot to Say Goodbye. By Benjamin Alire Saenz. Simon & Schuster, 2009.
Ramiro Lopez and Jake Upthegrove don't appear to have much in common. Ram's brother is sinking into a world of drugs. Jake has a problem managing his anger. But both are lost boys who have never met their fathers. (Anger management, Substance Abuse, Interpersonal Relations)

Important Things that Don't Matter. By David Amsden. HarperCollins, 2003.
At age five, the anonymous narrator witnesses the end of his parents' troubled marriage. As the boy negotiates his parents' two worlds, he's also absorbed in the usual dramas; he has his first girlfriend, dumps her and plays the field with other girls who are themselves the scarred victims of no-fault divorce. (Family Issues)

In the Space Left Behind. By Joan Ackermann. HarperTeen, 2007.
When Colm Drucker’s mother heads out to Las Vegas for her third honeymoon, Colm has plans of his own – organizing his baseball cards, playing guitar and remodeling the family house as a surprise wedding present. But from the start of his week alone, Colm is faced with a series of unforeseen and bewildering events: his dog dies, his absent father calls out of the blue with a bizarre proposition and he gets kissed by a beautiful girl. When he learns that his mother plans on putting the house up for sale, he embarks on a cross country trip with the one person he never wanted to depend on. (Dating Issues, Death)

Jellicoe Road. By Melina Marchetta. HarperTeen, 2008.
Taylor Markham isn't just one of the new student leaders of her boarding school, she's also the heir to the Underground Community, one of three battling school factions in her small Australian community. For a generation, these three camps have fought "the territory wars," a deadly serious negotiation of land and property rife with surprise attacks, diplomatic immunities, and physical violence. (Dating, Self Identity)

Just Another Day in My Insanely Real Life. By Barbara Dee. Margaret K, McElderry Books, 2006.
With her father "out of the picture" and her mother working long hours, twelve-year-old Cassie unconsciously describes her anger and confusion in a fantasy novel she is writing for school. (Single-Parent Family, Coping)

Kendra. By Coe Booth. Push, 2009.
Growing up with her grandmother, 14-year-old Kendra Williamson is waiting for Renée, her 28-year-old mom, to finish school so they can get their own place. When her mother gets her PhD and moves to a studio apartment in Harlem, she leaves her daughter behind. Will Kendra get a chance to live with her mother? (Dating, Interpersonal Relations)

King of the Screwups. By K.L. Going. Harcourt, 2009.
High-school senior Liam is a talented athlete. A mediocre student, he constantly disappoints his dad, who kicks Liam out of the house. He moves in with his gay, cross-dressing, trailer-dwelling uncle. Liam joins the AV club at his new school and actively tries to fight his natural status as "Mr. Popularity"; but everything goes awry. (Sexual Identity, Dating)

Last Exit to Normal. By Michael Harmon. Knopf, 2008.
It's true: After 17-year-old Ben's father announces he's gay and the family splits apart, Ben does everything he can to tick him off: skip school, smoke pot, skateboard nonstop, get arrested. But he gets plunked down into a small Montana town with his dad and Edward, The Boyfriend. (Sexual Identity, Coping, Substance Abuse)

Life Is Funny. E.R. Frank. DK Publishing, 2000.
A high-intensity, multicultural, multidimensional teen reading experience that will challenge and change those who open it. (Interpersonal Relations)

Little Audrey. By Ruth White. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
Audrey lives in a Virginia coal-mining camp with her father, who drinks; her mother, who drifts away; and her sisters. Illness has left her eyesight compromised, and she is so thin kids call her Skeleton Girl. Yet it's her family's troubles that weigh on her most. (Alcohol Use, Death & Grief)

Lock and Key. By Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2008.
When the social worker asks Ruby where her mother is, she knows she's in trouble. She's sent to live with her older sister, Cora, who has a wealthy husband. Now Ruby has a luxurious house, private school, new clothes and a chance for the future. But she has a hard time letting go of her old life. (Alcohol Use, Coping)

Mom's Cancer.(Graphic Format) By Brian Fies. Abrams Image, 2006.
This graphic novel is the inspirational story about one family's struggle with lung cancer. It explores how they all cope with the effects and ongoing treatment. (Recovery)

The Monster in Me. By Mette Ivie Harrison. Holiday House, 2003.
In a small town near Salt Lake City, Utah, a caring foster family and her love of running help thirteen-year-old Natalie Wills feel that she can be a part of normal life, despite having been raised by a drug-addicted mother. (Foster Homes, Family Problems)

My Dad's a Punk: 12 Stories About Boys and Their Fathers. Edited by Tony Bradman. Kingfisher, 2006.
This collection of twelve original stories explores the relationships between fathers and sons, from a boy who longs for a different father, to a boy who has a digital father from the future. (Coming-of-Age)

Ostrich Eye. By Beth Cooley. Delacorte Press, 2004.
Fifteen-year-old Ginger, who lives with her mother, stepfather, and younger stepsister and never knew her father, is convinced that the strange man who keeps showing up unexpectedly is really her dad.
(Family Issues, Kidnapping)

Peace, Locomotion. By Jacqueline Woodson. Putnam, 2009.
Lonniespeaks in letters to his beloved little sister, Lili. The siblings are heartbroken about their separation, which followed the death of their parents in a fire. After Lonnie's foster brother returns home injured from war, the contrast between the peaceful home and the tragedy of war feels savage. (Violence Prevention)

Pop. By Gordon Korman. HarperTeen, 2009.
When Marcus moves to a new town, he strikes up a friendship with an older man. Charlie is actually Charlie Popovich, or "the King of Pop," a former NFL linebacker. When Marcus begins school, he meets the starting quarterback: Troy Popovich. Right from the beginning, Marcus and Troy disagree-about football, about Troy's ex-girlfriend, Alyssa, but most of all about what's good for Charlie. Marcus is willing to risk everything to help his friend. (Coping Skills/Decision Making/Peer Pressure)

Returnable Girl. By Pamela Lowell. Marshall Cavendish, 2006. Friendship with an outcast classmate and memories of her mother's desertion interfere with the relationship thirteen-year-old Ronnie tries to establish with her new foster mother. (Friendship, Self-Identity)

Runaway. By Van Draanen. Knopf, 2006.
After running away from her fifth foster home, Holly, a twelve-year-old orphan, travels across the country, keeping a journal of her experiences and struggle to survive. (Homelessness, Survival)

Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez. By Alan Lawrence Sitomer. Hyperion, 2008.
Sonía's parents are illegal, driven north by poverty across the Mexican border, but she was born in the U.S. and is determined to graduate from high school. She is forced to cook and clean for her family and must stay up past midnight to get her homework done. Papi works three jobs, and is her strong support, and after Sonía visits Mexico, she gains new respect for her roots. (Prejudices/Racism, Legal Issues)

Somebody's Daughter. By Marie Myung-Ok Lee. Beacon Press, 2005.
Adopted and raised by Scandinavian-American parents in Minnesota, a Korean teenager returns to her native country to find her birth mother.
(Adoption, Self-Identity)

Stitches: A Memoir. By David Small. Norton, 2009.
David Small's harrowing account of growing up under the watchless eyes of parents who gave him cancer and let it develop untreated for years--but in delicate glimpses of the author's child's-eye view, sketched most often with no words at all. (Health, Coping Skills/Decision Making/Peer Pressure)

Thief. By Brian James. Scholastic, 2008.
Elizabeth is a pickpocket and thief living on the edge in New York City. She and her foster sister, Alexi, are living with Sandra – a cruel woman who takes in foster children and then forces them to steal things for her. Elizabeth doesn’t question her life – until Sandra takes in a third foster child, Dune. Elizabeth doesn’t want him to share her fate and must find a way out. (Legal Rights)

Tribute to Another Dead Rock Star. By Randy Powell. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
For a tribute to his mother, a dead rock star, fifteen-year-old Grady returns to Seattle, where he faces his mixed feelings for his retarded younger half-brother Louie while pondering his own future. (Death, Disabilities)

Waiting for Normal. By Leslie Connor. HarperCollins, 2008.
Addie is waiting for normal. But her mom has an all-or-nothing approach to life: a food fiesta or an empty pantry, jubilation or gloom, her way or no way. In spite of life’s twists and turns, Addie remains optimistic, hoping to find normal. (Divorce, Coping, Friendship)

What Erika Wants. By Bruce Clements. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
The bright spot in the life of fourteen-year-old Erika Nevski is her lawyer, who supports Erika as she faces a custody battle, deals with her shoplifting friend, and tries out for the school play. (Family Issues)

What I Call Life. By Jill Wolfson. Henry Holt and Company, 2005.
Placed in a group foster home, eleven-year-old Cal Lavender learns how to cope with life from the four other girls who live there and from their storytelling guardian, the Knitting Lady. (Foster Homes, Family Issues)

GAMBLING
Big Slick: High Stakes and Dirty Laundry. By Eric Luper. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
16-year-old Andrew Lang has to spend his afternoons slaving away at his dad's dry-cleaning business, but even that's not so bad with Jasmine working beside him. Plus, he's good at poker. All it takes is one bad bet to turn his bankroll from huge to nonexistent. Sooner or later his dad will notice the $600 missing from the register ... (Family Issues)

Hand You're Dealt. By Paul Volponi. Atheneum, 2008.
When Huck Porter's dad suddenly dies, it feels like nothing will ever make sense again. The only thing that still makes sense for Huck is the game his dad taught him: Texas hold'em. Huck's math teacher, Mr. Abbott wears the local poker tournament's first prize, a silver watch that Huck's dad wore proudly for three years. Huck hatches a plan to knock Abbott off his throne and win back the watch. (Death & Grief, Interpersonal Relations)

BACK TO TOPICS

GANGS
If I Grow Up. By Todd Strasser. Simon and Schuster, 2009.
DeShawn's life in a housing project is ruled by the Douglass Disciples, a gang in constant battle with the nearby Gentry Gangstas. Despite the lure of money and power, the sensitive DeShawn has no intention of joining the Disciples, instead focusing on his schoolwork while watching his best friend work his way up the hierarchy. (Substance Abuse, Violence Prevention, Teen Pregnancy)

BACK TO TOPICS

GENDER ISSUES
Cycler. By Lauren McLaughlin. Random House, 2008.
For most of the month, Jill is a normal teenager who has best friends, a crush, and elaborate plans for wrangling an invitation to the prom. On four days during each month, though, Jill physically morphs into Jack, complete with the anatomy and fantasies of a 17-year-old boy. (Dating)

Don't Cramp My Style. By Lisa Rowe Fraustino. Simon & Schuster, 2004. A collection of stories by young women about that time of the month. (Menstruation, Short Stories)

HIV/AIDS
The Beat Goes On. By Adele Minchin. Simon & Schuster, 2004.
Beautiful, confident, and popular with boys, Emma seems to have it all. But then she finds out she's HIV positive from having sex just once. (Sexual Behavior, Coping Skills)

Chanda's Secrets. By Allan Stratton. Annick Press, 2004.
Chanda, is an astonishingly perceptive girl living in the small city of Bonang, a fictional city in Southern Africa. When her youngest sister dies, the first hint of HIV/AIDS emerges, Chanda must confront undercurrents of shame and stigma. Not afraid to explore the horrific realities of AIDS, Chanda's Secrets also captures the enduring strength of loyalty, friendship and family ties. (Family Issues, Death/Grief)

Chanda’s Wars. By Allan Stratton. HarperTeen, 2008.
It’s been six months since Mama died, and Chanda is struggling to raise her little brother and sister. Determined to end a family feud, she takes them to her relatives’ remote rural village. But across the nearby border, a brutal civil war is spreading. Rebels attack at night, stealing children. All that separated Chanda from the horror is the rugged bush and a national park filled with predators. Soon she must face the unthinkable with an unlikely ally. (Family Issues, Violence Prevention, Coping)

Girl Who Saw Lions. By Berlie Doherty. Roaring Brook Press, 2007.
When her mother dies of AIDS in their African village, Abela is left to face the lions of the world. Lions like her Uncle Thomas, who has plans to sell her in Europe. Lions like his bitter white wife, whom he abandons with Abela, who is forced to stay in a London apartment, cooking and cleaning while dreaming of her homeland. (Death, Family Issues)

The Heaven Shop. By Deborah Ellis. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2004.
Binti and her siblings are orphaned when their father dies of AIDS. They are separated and sent to relatives all over Malawi.
(Death, Family Issues)

It Happened to Nancy. By Beatrice Sparks. Avon Books, 1994.
Fourteen-year-old Nancy, an asthmatic, meets 18-year-old Collin, a gentle, caring young man who appears to be the answer to her dreams--until he rapes her, leaving her HIV-infected. (Violence Prevention)

Positively. By Courtney Sheinmel. Simon & Schuster, 2009.
Emerson Price was four years old when she and her mom were diagnosed as HIV-positive. Now she is thirteen and her mother is dead. Emmy moves in with her father and stepmother, but no one understands what it's like to have to take medicine every single day and to be afraid of getting sick. When she is sent to Camp Positive for HIV-positive girls, Emmy realizes that she is not so alone. (Death & Grief, Family Issues, Coping/Decision Making/Peer Pressure)

BACK TO TOPICS

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
48 Shades of Brown. By Nick Earls. Graphia, 1999.
After moving in with his aunt, seventeen-year-old Dan starts to fall in love with her twenty-two-year-old friend. (Family Issues)

Alice in the Know. By Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006.
Alice fills the summer before her junior year of high school with a job at the mall, hanging out with her friends, and wishing she had a bigger family. (Family Issues, Self-Discovery)

Are We There Yet? By David Levithan. Knopf, 2005.
Tricked by their parents into taking a trip to Italy together, two brothers--one in high school and the other recently graduated from college--reflect on the directions of their own lives and on the distance that has grown between them. (Family Issues)

The Au Pairs Skinny-Dipping. By Melissa de la Cruz. Simon & Schuster, 2005.
While Mara recovers from her break-up with Ryan and Eliza's family repairs their financial damage, the girls still manage to find a way to enjoy their busy summer as nannies in the Hampton homes of the rich and famous. (Dating Issues)

Big Mouth and Ugly Girl. By Joyce Carol Oates. HarperCollins, 2002.
When sixteen-year-old Matt is falsely accused of threatening to blow up his high school and his friends turn against him, an unlikely classmate comes to his aid. (High School, Friendship)

Blankets. Craig Thompson. Top Shelf Productions, 2005.
Loosely based on the author's life, chronicles Craig's journey from childhood to adulthood, exploring the people, experiences, and beliefs that he encountered along the way. (Family Issues, Dating Issues, Religion)

Blue Highway. By Diane Tullson. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2003.
The friendship of two best friends, Truth and Skye, is torn between boys and alcohol. (Friendship, Betrayal)

Caddy Ever After. By Hilary McKay. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2006.
The four eccentric Casson siblings each contribute written accounts of the events--which include a Valentine's Day dance, the appearance of a sinister balloon, and the breakdown of a car--that lead to Caddy's wedding day. (Family Issues)

The Cheat. By Amy Goldman Koss. Dial Books, 2003.
An eighth grader, Sarah, is given answers to the geography midterm by a schoolmate, leading to some fast-paced middle school gossip, serious self-examination, and strained friendships. (Cheating)

Chicks with Sticks (KnitWise Series). By Elizabeth Lenhard. Dutton Books, 2007.
For Scottie, Amanda, Bella and Tay, life in Chicago is all about seeking shelter. They’ve found it in their firelit stitch ‘n bitch at Joe; in the halls of their quirky private school; in the arms of boyfriends – and always in the comfort of the friendship that bonds them together. But now the Chicks are staring down the end of high school and it’s time to contemplate life beyond the protective web of their knitty ensemble. (Friendship)

Click Here: To Find Out How I Survived Seventh Grade. By Denise Vega. Little Brown, 2005.
Seventh-grader Erin Swift writes about her friends and classmates in her private blog, but when it accidentally gets posted on the school Intranet site, she learns some important lessons about friendship.
(Weblogs, Middle School)

Crunch Time. By Mariah Fredericks. Atheneum, 2006.
Four students form a study group to prepare for the SAT exam, and the reader learns that standardized tests don't reflect the real person.

Dead Girls Don't Write Letters. By Gail Giles. Roaring Book, 2003.
Fourteen-year-old Sunny is stunned when a total stranger shows up at her house posing as her older sister Jazz, who supposedly died out of town in a fire months earlier. (Death, Family Issues )

Define Normal. By Julie A. Peters. Little Brown, 2000.
When the repressed, rule-following Antonia Dillon finds out that she's to be the peer counselor for the rebellious pierced Jazz Luther whose outrageous behavior is the antithesis of everything Antonia holds dear, she is horrified. (Family Issues, Friendship, Peer Counseling)

Deliver Us from Normal. By Kate Klise. Scholastic, 2005.
For Charles, life in Normal, Illinois isn't normal at all. His family is poor and he is cursed with a secret unwanted skill. After an ugly incident at school, the family is forced to move, starting a physical and also, a personal journey for Charles. (Family Issues, Self Identity, Religion)

Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. By E. Lockhart. Hyperion, 2008.
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14: A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school. Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15: A knockout figure, a sharp tongue, a chip on her shoulder and a gorgeous new senior boyfriend. Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16: Possibly a criminal mastermind. (Friendship, Self-Identity, Dating Issues)

Feeling Sorry for Celia. By Jaclyn Moriarty. St. Martin's Press, 2001.
Written as a series of notes and letters, Elizabeth deals with parents who aren't perfect and with romantic disappointments, as well as calamities both large and small. (Family Issues, Dating Issues)

Friends: Stories About New Friends, Old Friends, and Unexpectedly True Friends. By Ann M. Martin and David Levithan. Scholastic, 2005.
A collection of stories dealing with friendship and the effects that it can have on the lives of the people involved. (Friendship, Short Stories)

Gothic Lolita. By Dakota Lane. Ginee Seo Books, 2008.
Chelsea lives in Los Angeles; Miya lives in Tokyo. They got to know each other through their blogs. Three years ago something happened to Chelsea, an event so terrible that she stopped writing. Miya's been checking Chelsea's blog ever since. Today is the day Chelsea finally goes back online and tells Miya everything. And today is the day that Miya's life could change forever because of it. (Death & Grief)

Honey, Baby, Sweetheart. By Deb Caletti, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2004.
In the summer of her junior year, sixteen-year-old Ruby McQueen and her mother, both nursing broken hearts, set out on a journey to reunite an elderly woman with her long-lost love and in the process learn many things about "the real ties that bind" people to one another.(Love, Old Age, Self-Identity)

Honey Blonde Chica. By Michele Serros. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Evie Gomez and her best friend Raquel hang with Flojos, a crew name for their designer flip-flops and habit of doing absolutely nothing. But when their shy friend, Dee Dee, comes home from Mexico City transformed into a Sangro diva with a new name, attitude, and clothes, Evie and Raquel must reexamine their friendship and social desires. (Friendship, Self-Identity)

How Not to Be Popular. By Jennifer Ziegler. Delacorte, 2008.
Maggie Dempsey is tired of moving all over the country. Her parents are second-generation hippies who uproot her every year or so to move to a new city. When Maggie was younger, she thought it was fun and adventurous. Now she hates it. When she moved after her freshman year, she left behind good friends. Now that they’ve moved to Austin, she’s not going to make friends. She’s not going to fit in. Only . . . things don’t go exactly as planned. (Coping Skills, Decision Making, Family Issues)

I Am the Wallpaper. By Mark Peter Hughes. Delacorte Press, 2005.
Thirteen-year-old Floey Packer, jealous of her attractive and popular older sister, shares her home with two younger cousins and experiences a summer vacation filled with embarrassing events, with herself as the star.
(Family Issues)

Jake, Reinvented. By Gordon Korman. Hyperion Press, 2003.
Rick becomes friends with the popular new boy, Jake Garrett, football player and host of superlative parties, and, in the process, discovers the true nature of his schoolmates and uncovers the mystery of Jake's past. (Self-Perception, Peer Pressure)

Leaving Fletchville. By Rene Schmidt. Orca, 2008.
Brandon is the biggest and toughest kid in his small-town school. He is feared as a bully. When Leon, his sister Winnie, and their lively little brother Sam, arrive in Kingsville, they are the only black people in town. When Brandon discovers the truth about their situation, he decides to do what he can to protect them from harm. (Violence Prevention, Prejudices/Racism, Disabilities)

Letters from the Inside. By John Marsden. Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
In this Australian twist to an answer to the personal ads, two teenage girls begin a correspondence that gradually reveals more than either young woman wants known. (Family Issues, Letters, Friendship)

Lord of the Deep. By Graham Salisbury. Delacorte Press, 2001.
Working for his stepfather on a charter fishing boat in Hawaii teaches thirteen-year-old Mikey about fishing, and about taking risks, making sacrifices, and facing some of life's difficult choices. (Family Issues, Decision Making)

Love (and Other Uses for Duct Tape). By Carrie Jones. Flux, 2008.
Belle is closing in on her last few months of high school and things are much better than before. Belle's not too sure about all the sureness that other people seem to have about things like labels, change, and love. Not to mention, there are unexpected surprises. (Sexual Identity, Family Issues)

Love, Cajun Style. Diane Les Becquets. Bloomsbury, 2005.
Teenage Lucy learns about life and love with the help of her friends and saucy Tante Pearl over the course of one hot summer before her senior year of high school. (Friendship, Family Issues, Dating Issues)

Meanest Girl. By Debora Allie. Roaring Books, 2005.
Sixth-grader Alyssa Fontana, who thinks that her life is perfect, becomes the object of a practical joke which she blames on Hayden Martin, the new girl, who is tagged "the meanest girl in town." (Cliques, Friendship, Middle School)

Men of Stone. By Gayle Friesen. Kids Can Press, 2000.
Great-Aunt Frieda helps Ben understand who he is and what kind of person he wants to be. (Anger Management, Decision Making)

The Miles Between. By Mary E. Pearson. Henry Holt & Co., 2009.
Des's parents packed her off to boarding school and she hasn't been home for nine years. When she sees a convertible idling outside, she sets off with four classmates to grab their "one fair day." It is the road-trip adventure of a lifetime. On the way, they share profound secrets, including revealing why a family would estrange themselves from seven-year-old Destiny Faraday. (Family Issues, Mental Health)

Notes From the Midnight Driver. By Jordan Sonnenblick. Scholastic, 2006.
After being assigned to perform community service at a nursing home, sixteen-year-old Alex befriends a cantankerous old man who has some lessons to impart about jazz guitar playing, love, and forgiveness. (Friendship, Self-Identity)

On the Fringe. Edited by Donald R. Gallo. Dial Books, 2001.
Compilation of short stories on teen issues. (High School, Teen Issues, Short Stories)

Ordinary Miracles. By Diana Aspin. Red Deer Press, 2003.
A collection of 13 coming of age stories set in a small northern town.
(Family Issues, Sexual Behavior)

Queen Bee (Graphic Novel). Chyanna Clugston. Graphix, 2005.
Haley is the new girl in middle school, but her popularity is challenged when an even newer girls moves in with the same powers. The battle has begun! (Psychokinesis, Popularity)

The Queen of Cool. By Cecil Castellucci. Candlewick Press, 2006.
Bored with her life, popular high school junior Libby signs up for an internship at the zoo and discovers that the "science nerds" she meets there may have a few things to teach her about friendship and life. (Friendship, Self-Identity)

Rits. By Mariken Jongman. Front Street, 2008.
Rits has serious problems: his mother has been institutionalized, and his father has abandoned the family for a girlfriend. Rits now lives with his uncle, who rouses from laziness only to verbally abuse poor Rits. (Mental Health, Family Issues)

Sand Dollar Summer. By Kimberly K. Jones. McElderry Books, 2006.
When twelve-year-old Lise spends the summer on an island in Maine with her self-reliant mother and bright--but oddly mute--younger brother, her formerly safe world is complicated by an aged Indian neighbor, her mother's childhood friend, and a hurricane. (Coping, Siblings)

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. By Ann Brashares. Delacorte Press, 2001.
Story of four best friends, the biggest summer ever, and a pair of magical pants that brought it all together. (Friendship)

Stone Cold. By Pete Hautman. Aladdin Paperbacks, 2000.
Sixteen-year-old Denn finds himself alienating both friends and family when he becomes obsessed with playing high-stakes poker with adult gamblers. (Gambling, Addiction)

Stotan!. By Chris Crutcher. Greenwillow Books, 1986.
In the final swimming season at Frost High School, Coach Max II Song offers his team the gift of self-discipline in the form of Stotan Week--a grueling four-hour-a-day, nonstop test of physical and emotional stamina. (High School, Sports)

Stranger, You, & I. By Patricia Calvert. Scribner, 1988.
Zee must come to terms with a friendship that is growing and a friend who is pregnant. (Friendship, Pregnancy, Family Issues)

Sweethearts. By Sara Zarr. Little, Brown and Company, 2008.
As children, Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were both social outcasts. When Cameron disappears without warning, Jennifer thinks she's lost the only person who will ever understand her. Now in high school, she's popular, happy, and dating, but she still can't shake the memory of her long-lost friend. When Cameron suddenly reappears, they are both confronted with memories of their shared past and the drastically different paths their lives have taken. (Body Image, Self-Esteem)

That Was Then, This Is Now. By S.E. Hinton. Viking Press, 1971.
A deeply-felt portrait of best friends Bryon and Mark, as they grow up and grow apart. (Friendship)

Then Again, Maybe I Won't. By Judy Blume. Bradbury Press,1971.
Ever since his dad got rich from an invention and his family moved to a wealthy neighborhood on Long Island, Tony Miglione's life has been turned upside down. (Mental Health, Family Issues)

Things Change. By Patrick Jones. Walker & Co., 2004.
Sixteen-year-old Johanna, one of the best students in her class, develops a passionate attachment for troubled seventeen-year-old Paul and finds her plans for the future changing in unexpected ways.(Dating Violence, Mental Health, Family Issues)

To Catch a Prince. By Gillian McKnight. Simon Pulse, 2006.
Stepsisters Alexis Worth and Helen Masterson, both sixteen and in London for the summer, must choose between maintaining their friendship and winning the heart of Prince William. (Family Issues, Best Friends)

Too Big a Storm. By Marsha Qualey. Dial Books, 2004.
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. (Friendship, Protest Movements, Family Issues)

Trick of the Mind. By Judy Waite. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2005.
The struggles of several young people who confront family problems, emotional problems, unrequited love, mystery, and violence, is told from the viewpoint of Matt, who is known for his unusual behavior but who has unusual gifts, and Erin, who tries to use her proficiency with magic to attract Matt. (Magic, Family Issues)

True Confessions of a Heartless Girl. By Martha Brooks. Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2003.
A confused seventeen-year-old girl, a single mother and her young son, two elderly women, and a sad and lonely man, with their own individual tragedies to bear, come together in a small Manitoba town and find a way to a better future. (Interpersonal Relations)

True Meaning of Cleavage. By Mariah Fredericks. Atheneum, 2003.
When Jess and Sari, best friends since seventh grade, begin their freshman year of high school and Sari becomes obsessed with a senior boy, Jess wonders if their friendship will survive. (Interpersonal Relations, High School, Individuality)

Twists and Turns. By Janet McDonald. Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2003.
With the help of a couple successful friends, Teesha and Keeba try to capitalize on their talents by opening a hair salon in the run-down Brooklyn housing project where they live. (African Americans, Careers, Family Issues)

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah! BY Fiona Rosenbloom. Hyperion, 2005.
As her bat mitzvah approaches, Stacy Adelaide Friedman of White Plains, New York, has a lot on her mind--her parents have separated, her mother dresses her like an American Girl doll, her younger brother is embarrassing, and she is totally in love with Andy Goldfarb.
(Family Issues, Coming-of-Age)

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LEGAL ISSUES
Dooley Takes the Fall. By Norah McClintock. Red Deer Press, 2008.
When Dooley is discovered next to a dead kid sprawled on the pavement, he knows he's in trouble. For one thing he's got a record. For another, the dead kid isn't exactly a stranger - and he's no friend. Slowly the net begins to close around 17-year-old Dooley. And all around him are other teenagers at school and in the world he's drawn into who would like to pin him with responsibility for a growing number of murders that swirl through the city. (Violence Prevention, Family Issues)

Juvie Three. By Gordon Korman. Hyperion, 2008.
Gecko Fosse, Terence Florian and Arjay Moran are serving time in juvenile detention centers when they meet Douglas Healy. Healy is knocked unconscious while trying to break up a scuffle among the boys. When Healy awakes, he has no memory. Afraid of being sent back to Juvie, the guys hatch a crazy scheme to continue on as if the group leader never left until Healy's memory returns. (Dating, Interpersonal Relations)

Ten Mile River. By Paul Griffin. Dial Books, 2008.
Ray and José, 14 and 15, have survived foster care and juvenile detention together, and now hide out from their parole officers in a burned-out stationhouse in New York City's Ten Mile River park. They make their way by stealing, working occasionally, and trying to stay under police radar. They are friends to the end-until Ray meets and falls for Trini, who encourages both boys to go straight. (Family Issues, Dating, Interpersonal Relations)
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MEDIA LITERACY
Chat Room. By Kristin Butcher. Orca, 2006.
Using an online nickname, shy Linda visits her high school's numerous chat rooms and becomes celebrated for her quick wit and clever comebacks, thus when a secret admirer starts sending her gifts, Linda becomes hopeful that they are coming from her classmate Cyrano. (Internet Safety, Interpersonal Relations)

The Gospel According to Larry. By Janet Tashjian. Henry Holt and Company, 2001.
Seventeen-year-old Josh, a loner-philosopher who wants to make a difference in the world, tries to maintain his secret identity as the author of a web site that is receiving national attention. (Websites, Self-Identity)

Sun Signs. By Shelly Hrdlitschka. Orca Book Publishers, 2005.
While taking online courses, fifteen-year-old Kaleigh learns that on the Internet, people are often not who they seem. (Sexual Behavior, Self-Discovery)

BACK TO TOPICS

MENTAL HEALTH (see also DEPRESSION IN YOUTH)
America. By E.R. Frank. Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Teenage America, a part-black, part-white, part-anything boy who has spent many years in institutions for disturbed, antisocial behavior, tries to piece his life together. (Racism/Prejudice)

Bait. By Alex Sanchez. Simon & Schuster, 2009.
After Diego punches a classmate in the face, he gets probation. His probation officer, though, becomes a trusted friend, pushing Diego to delve into his troubled past to solve his current problems. (Anger Management, Depression, Self-Injury, Suicide)

Ball Don’t Lie. By Matt De La Pena. Delacorte, 2005. Seventeen-year-old Sticky lives to play basketball at school and at Lincoln Rec Center in Los Angeles and is headed for the pros, but he is unaware of the many dangers--including his own past--that threaten his dream. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Careers)

Echo. By Kate Morgenroth. Simon & Schuster Books, 2007. After Justin witnesses his brother's accidental shooting death, he must live with the repercussions, as the same horrific day seems to happen over and over. (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Coping)

Egg on Three Sticks. By Jackie Fischer. Thomas Dunne Books, 2004.
In the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1970s, twelve-year-old Abby watches her mother fall apart and must take on the burden of holding her family together. (Family Issues, Coping, Coming of Age)

Get Well Soon. By Julie Halpern. Feiwel and Friends, 2007.
Anna Bloom is depressed—so depressed that her parents have committed her to a mental hospital with a bunch of other messed-up teens. Here she meets a roommate with a secret (and a plastic baby), a doctor who focuses way too much on her weight, and a cute, shy boy who just might like her. But wait! Being trapped in a loony bin isn’t supposed to be about making friends, losing weight, and having a crush, is it? (Interpersonal Relations, Body Image, Dating Issues)

Helicopter Man. By Elizabeth Fensham. Bloomsbury, 2005.
Peter Sinclair cares for his father, who is mentally ill, and tries to make the most of their homeless life together. (Homelessness, Family Issues)

Inside Out. By Terry Trueman. HarperCollins, 2003.
A sixteen-year-old with schizophrenia is caught up in the events surrounding an attempted robbery by two other teens who eventually hold him hostage. (Schizophrenia, Juvenile Delinquency, Suicide)

Invisible. By Pete Hautman. Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Two unlikely best friends, Doug and Andy, talk about everything, except what happened at the Tuttle place a few years back. As Doug retreats into his own world, long-buried secrets are revealed and his grip on reality loosens. (Friendship, Schools)

Kerosene. By Chris Wooding. Scholastic Publishing, 1999.
Cal likes fire because it helps him cope with life until life gets too complicated. (Alcohol Use)

Like a Thorn. By Clara Vidal. Delacorte, 2008.
Melie's mother is sometimes nice, sometimes mean-prone to erratic behavior that Mélie does her best to cope with. As a young girl, she invents rituals to protect herself from her mother's moods; but as Mélie becomes a teenager, the years of tiptoeing around her own home take their toll, and Mélie sinks into increasing unhappiness. (Family Issues)

Lizard People. By Charlie Price. Roaring Book Press, 2007.
Ben Mander's junior year is derailed when his mentally ill mother erupts in the school office. His mysterious new friend, Marco, also has a mentally ill mother. Marco tells a story that turns Ben's idea of reality upside down. Soon Marco's tale begins to uncomfortably mirror Ben's own life. Is Ben losing his grip? (Family Issues)

Memories of Summer. By Ruth White. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2000.
When 13-year-old Lyric, her older sister, Summer, and their father move to Flint, Michigan, from rural Virginia, Summer (who has always been a little odd) makes a swift and frightening slide into full-fledged schizophrenia. (Family Issues)

Nature of Jade. By Deb Caletti. Simon & Schuster, 2007.
Since being diagnosed with Panic Disorder, Jade DeLuna is trying her best to stay calm, and visiting the elephants at the nearby zoo seems to help. That’s why she keeps the live zoo webcam on in her room, which is where she first sees Sebastian. She is drawn to his life with his son and grandmother on their Seattle houseboat. But Sebastian is hiding a terrible secret, which will force Jade to decide between what is right and what feels right. (Family Issues, Dating Issues)

Swallow Me Whole. By Nate Powell. Top Shelf Productions, 2008.
Ruth suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and thinks she can hear insects speak, making it difficult for her to walk across grassy lawns but landing her a sweet internship in the natural history museum. Perry sometimes sees a tiny wizard who speaks to him about his destiny. Dark inks and elongated whispering word balloons carry us into Ruth's world of voices and missing time, while experimental paneling masterfully conveys the characters' inner worlds and altered states.

Total Constant Order. By Crissa-Jean Chappell. HarperCollins, 2007.
Fin can’t stop counting. Ever since she's moved to the Sunshine State and her parents split up, numbers thump like a metronome, rhythmically keeping things in control. When a new doctor introduces terms such as "clinical depression" and “OCD” and offers a prescription for medication, the chemical effects make Fin feel even more messed up. Then she meets Thayer, a doodling, rule-bending skater who buzzes to his own beat – and who might understand Fin’s struggle for total constant order. (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

When She Was Good. By Norma Fox Mazer. Arthur A. Levine Books, 1997.
Most of fourteen-year-old Em's life has been spent placating Pamela, her frighteningly mentally ill older sister. (Family Issues, Violence)

Where I Want to Be. By Adele Griffin. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2005.
Two teenaged sisters, separated by death but still connected, work through their feelings of loss over the closeness they shared as children that was later destroyed by one's mental illness, and finally make peace with each other. (Family Issues, Death)

Wild Roses. By Deb Caletti. Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Seventeen-year-old Cassie learns about the good and bad sides of both love and genius while living with her mother and brilliant, yet disturbed, stepfather and falling in love with a gifted young musician. (Family Issues, Dating Issues)

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PARENTING (TEEN PARENTS)
Broken China. By Lori Aurelia Williams. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2005.
China Cup Cameron, a fourteen-year-old single mother with only her paralyzed Uncle Simon for support, takes on tremendous personal debt in hopes of a beautiful funeral after her daughter dies.
(Coping Skills, Death, Harassment)

Chill Wind. By Janet McDonald. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
An unmarried mother of two, 19-year old Aisha must figure out how to cope after she receives termination-of-welfare-benefits notice. (Teenage Mothers, African-American)

Detour for Emmy. By Marilyn Reynolds. Morning Glory Press, 1993.
The story of one single mother's experiences from her first date in 9th grade with Art to giving birth at 16 and later completing community college. (Pregnancy, Unmarried Mothers)

The First Part Last. By Angela Johnson. Simon & Schuster, 2003.
Bobby's carefree teenage life changes forever when he becomes a father and must care for his adored baby daughter. (Teenage Fathers, African Americans)

Hanging on to Max. By Margaret Bechard. Roaring Book Press, 2002.
High school senior Sam, juggling the demands of fatherhood with school and friends, must deal with his girlfriend's decision to give up their baby. (Teenage Fathers)

Imani All Mine. By Connie Porter. Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Told in Tasha's voice, is the story of great promise shining through monstrous obstacles. (Teenage Pregnancy, African American Teens)

No More Saturday Nights. By Norma Klein. Fawcett, 1989.
Tim Weber and Cheryl Banks had what they thought was a "casual" relationship -- until she got pregnant and wanted to put the baby up for adoption. (Teenage Fathers, Family Issues)

Sky Bridge. By Laura Pritchett. Milkweed Editions, 2005.
Libby is raising her younger sister's baby girl because of a promise. She promised to raise baby Amber if Tess did not have an abortion. Now, Libby bags groceries at the local supermarket to support Amber, while Tess is off exploring the world somewhere. (Family Issues, Adoption)

Spellbound. By Janet McDonald. Farrar. Straus and Giroux, 2001.
Raven, a teenage mother and high school dropout living in a housing project, decides, with the help and sometime interference of her best friend Aisha, to study for a spelling bee which could lead to a college preparatory program and a four-year-school scholarship. (Teenage Mothers, Dropouts, Interpersonal Relations)

Too Soon for Jeff. By Marilyn Reynolds. Morning Glory Press, 1994.
Whether Jeff is ready or not, he is going to be a father. His plan for his life has changed forever. (Teenage Fathers, Teen Pregnancy)

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PREGNANCY
Baby Girl. By Lenora Adams. Simon Pulse, 2007.
With her tough facade and hard attitude, Sheree doesn't make friends easily and lives a lonely life, but when she gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby with the intention of finding unconditional love, Sheree learns important lessons about herself that change her entire outlook on life. (Family Issues, Drugs, Abortion, Friendship, Teen Parenting)

Butterflies in May. By Karen Hart. Bancroft, 2006.
Ali Parker is a bright seventeen-year-old girl headed for college. She and her boyfriend are usually careful about birth control, but she ends up pregnant after one lapse. She schedules an abortion but can't go through with it. Her parents are disappointed but supportive. She meets a perfect couple who want to adopt her child but wonders if she can bring herself to part with the baby. (Adoption, Dating, Decision Making)

Conception. By Kalisha Buckhanon. St. Martin’s Press, 2008.
Shivana Montgomery, a 15-year-old girl living in Chicago, believes all Black women wind up the same: single and raising children along, like her mother. Until the sudden visit of her beautiful and free-spirited Aunt Jewel, Shivana spends her days struggling to understand life and confront the challenges she faces growing up in a tough environment. When she accidentally becomes pregnant by an older man and must decide what to do, she begins a journey toward adulthood. Then she falls in love with Rasul, a teenager with problems of his own. (Dating Issues)

Contents Under Pressure. By Lara Zeises. Delacorte Press, 2004.
Lucy, a fourteen-year-old high school freshman, experiences the happiness and confusion of dating a popular older boy, changing relationships with life-long friends, and sharing a bedroom with her older brother's pregnant girlfriend. (Pregnancy, High School, Family Issues, Dating Issues)

Dancing Naked: A Novel. By Shelley Hrdlitschka. Orca Book Publishers, 2001.
Just sixteen, Kia finds herself pregnant and the father wants her to get an abortion; Kia, faced with difficult choices, decides to give her baby up for adoption. (Abortion, Adoption)

Dear Nobody. By Berlie Doherty. Orchard Books, 1992.
When Helen discovers that she is pregnant during the last few months of high school, she and her boyfriend, Chris, cope with the consequences of their actions and lurch toward solutions. (Unmarried Mothers))

Don't Think Twice. By Ruth Pennebaker. Holt, 1996.
Set in the late 1960s in a rural Texas home for pregnant teens, this is much more than a "girls in trouble" story. (Unmarried Mothers, Adoption)

The Girl with a Baby. By Sylvia Olsen. Sono Nis Press, 2003.
Jane never drinks, smokes dope, or misses a single day of school. She's in the drama club, gets top marks, and is one of the popular kids. Or she used to be. Now she's a teenage mother packing diaper bags with her knapsack, wheeling strollers into the high-school daycare, tired and grumpy. Jane's only fourteen, and she can feel the stares in the school halls. (Teen Parenting, Indian Teenagers, Self-Identity)

Her Daughter's Eyes. By Jessica Inclan. New American Library, 2001.
Kate Phillips -- 17 years old, unmarried, and pregnant -- and her younger sister Tyler have been abandoned by their parents. (Single Parent Family)

Like Sisters on the Homefront. By Rita Williams-Garcia. Lodestar Books, 1995.
At 14, Gayle is pregnant. Again. The first time she kept the baby; Mama takes the issue to drastic measures and sends them down South. (Family Issues, Teen Pregnancy, African American Teens)

Little Wing. By Joanne Horniman. Allen & Unwin, 2008.
Suffering from postpartum depression, Emily visits her grandmother . As she tries to sort through her despair and self-hatred-seeing herself as a worthless teenage girl who abandoned her child-she is befriended by a stay-at-home dad and his son, Pete. (Depression, Mental Health)

Lucy Peale. By Colby Rodowsky. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1992.
Pregnant 17-year-old who, cruelly rejected by her preacher father, is taken in by thoroughly wholesome Jake, who has dropped out of college in order to write. (Rape, Self-Reliance)

My Life as a Rhombus. By Varian Johnson. Flux, 2007.
When the classmate she is tutoring in trigonometry admits she is pregnant, high school junior Rhonda must finally come to terms with the abortion her father insisted she undergo three years earlier and examine how it has changed her life. (Family Issues)

November Blues. By Sharon M. Draper. Atheneum, 2007.
When November Nelson loses her boyfriend to a pledge stunt gone horribly wrong, she thinks her life can’t possibly get any worse. But he left something behind that will change her life forever, and now she’s faced with the biggest decision she could ever imagine. How will she tell her mom? (Death, Grief)

Perfect Family. By Jerrie Oughton. Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
It's 1955 in the town of Lily, North Carolina. Unwed teen mothers are shuttled off to far away cities; girls are going crazy over James Dean; and "porch setting" is a viable pastime. (Unmarried Mothers)

Slam. By Nick Hornby. Putnam, 2007.
Things had been going well for Sam. His teachers were encouraging him to go to college, his mother had ditched her loser boyfriend and he had a gorgeous new girlfriend. When the couple’s ardor has unintended consequences, Sam turns to skateboarder Tony Hawk for advice. (Family Issues, Dating Issues)

Someone Else's Baby. By Geraldine Kaye. Hyperion Book, 1992.
Terry, 17, is pregnant as the result of an encounter at a party where she'd had so much to drink that she's not sure who the father is; though she wasn't willing, she blames herself too much to call it rape. (Unmarried Mothers, Rape, Family Issues)

Stealing Henry. By Carolyn MacCullough. A Deborah Brodi Book, 2005.
Savannah and her eight-year-old half brother flee from his abusive father and their oblivious mother. Their journey to safety is interspersed with the earlier story of her mother, Alice, as she meets Savannah's father and unexpectedly becomes pregnant.(Runaways, Abuse, Interpersonal Relations, Family Issues)

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PREJUDICES/RACISM
145th Street. By Walter D. Myers. Delacorte Press, 2000.
Set in a Harlem block; ten stories with laughter and tragedy; good choices and risky ones; love and death. (African American Teens, City Life)

American Born Chinese (Graphic Format). By Gene Yang. First Second Books, 2006.
Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. (Self-Identity, Assimilation)

Angry Management. By Chris Crutcher. Greenwillow, 2009.
This collection of three novellas explore how anger, insecurity and prejudice occur in teen’s lives. (Anger Management, Self-Esteem)

BANG! By Sharon G. Flake. Jump At The Sun, 2005.
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. (Street Life, Friendship, Coming-of-Age)

Border Crossing. By Jessica Lee Anderson. Milkweed Editions, 2009.
Manz lives on the wrong side of the tracks. With an alcoholic mother and a best friend that hits him, he finds comfort in the voices inside him that get louder with each passing day. When Border Patrol begins rounding up illegals, the voices tell him he may be next. (Mental Health, Family Issues, Alcohol Use, Interpersonal Relations)

Candle in the Wind. By Maureen Wartski. Fawcett Juniper, 1995.
While celebrating his acceptance into Harvard, Harris Mizuno, a Japanese-American teenager, is shot dead by an elderly white man who mistakes him for an intruder. (Death)

Dairy Queen. By Catherine Gilbert Murdock. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
After spending the summer running the family farm and training the quarterback for her school's rival football team, sixteen-year-old D.J. decides to go out for the sport herself, not anticipating the reactions of those around her. (Gender Roles, Self-Discovery, Football)

Fade to Black. By Alex Flinn. Harper Tempest, 2005.
An HIV-positive high school student hospitalized after being attacked, the bigot accused of the crime, and the only witness, a classmate with Down Syndrome, reveal how the assault has changed their lives as they tell of its aftermath. (HIV/AIDS, Down Syndrome, High School, Interpersonal Relations)

A Heart Divided. By Jeff Gottesfeld. Delacorte, 2004.
When sixteen-year-old Kate, an aspiring playwright, moves from New Jersey to attend high school in the South, she becomes embroiled in a controversy to remove the school's Confederate flag symbol. (High School, Moving)

Help Wanted. By Gary Soto. Harcourt, Inc., 2005.
Ten stories portray some of the struggles and hopes of young Mexican Americans. (Coping Skills, Sports)

Homestretch. By Paul Volponi. Simon & Schuster, 2009.
A runaway boy with nothing finds everything he needs, including a family, in the most unlikely of places--at a racetrack. (Death & Grief, Family Issues, Violence Prevention)

If You Come Softly. By Jacqueline Woodson. Penguin, 1998.
Miah and Ellie are in love. But the people around them don’t see their love. They can only see that Miah is black, Ellie is white and Jewish. Their love, no matter how real, is too strange and scary for the world they live in. (Interracial Dating, African Americans)

Jimi & Me. By Jaime Adoff. Jump At The Sun, 2005.
After his father's tragic death, twelve-year-old Keith James moves from Brooklyn to a small Midwestern town where his mixed race heritage is not accepted, but he finds comfort in the music of Jimi Hendrix and the friendship of a white classmate. (Family Issues)

Letters to My Mother. By Teresa Cardenas/ Translated by David Unger. Groundwood Books/ House of Anansi Press, 1998/2006 translation.
A young African-Cuban girl is sent to live with her aunt and cousins after the death of her mother and begins to write letters to her deceased mother telling of the misery, racial prejudice, and mistreatment at the hands of those around her. (Grieving, Death)

My Mother the Cheerleader. By Robert Sharenow. HarperTeen, 2007.
Louise Collins didn’t think anything exciting would happen in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, where she lived with her mother in their boardinghouse. But when desegregation begins, her mother joins the Cheerleaders, a group of women who gather every morning to heckle the African-American student. When a man from New York arrives, Louise thinks there might be hope, until secrets come to light. (School Integration)

New Boy. By Julian Houston. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.
As a new sophomore at an exclusive boarding school, a young black man is witness to the persecution of another student with bad acne. (Friendship, Survival, Boarding Schools)

Playing the Field. By Phil Bildner. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2006.
When seventeen-year-old Darcy Miller pretends to be a lesbian in order to play on the baseball team, she must learn to battle discrimination on every playing field.(Sexual Identity, Gender Roles)

Shine, Coconut Moon. By Neesha Meminger. Margaret McElderry, 2009.
Samar (aka Sam) considers herself a regular teenage girl, even though she is Indian American. Her mother has kept her away from her old-fashioned family, and she never has identified with her Indian heritage. One day, shortly after 9/11, a man wearing a turban shows up on her doorstep. He is her estranged uncle, and through him, Sam begins to realize how important being Indian American is to her identity. (Family Issues, Violence Prevention)

Slam!. By Walter D. Myers. Scholastic Inc., 1996.
A Harlem teenager learns how to apply the will he has to win at hoops to other parts of his life. (High School, African American Teens)

A Step from Heaven. By An Na. Front Street, 2000.
A young Korean girl and her family find it difficult to learn English and adjust to life in America. (Family Issues, Immigration, Korean Americans)

Ten Things I Hate About Me. By Randa Abdel-Fattah. Orchard Books, 2009.
Jamilah Towfeek hides her Lebanese-Muslim background from the other kids at her school "to avoid people assuming I fly planes into buildings as a hobby." She dyes her hair blonde, wears blue contacts and stands by when kids make racist remarks. Passing as "Jamie" is fraught with difficulties: she can't invite friends to her house, lies to cover up her dad's strict rules and reveals her true self only to an anonymous boy she meets online. Tensions at home and school culminate when the band she plays in at her madrassa (Islamic school) is hired to perform at her 10th-grade formal. (Family Issues, Body Image)

Weedflower. By Cynthia Kadohata. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006.
After twelve-year-old Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are relocated from their flower farm in southern California to an internment camp on an Indian Reservation in Arizona, she helps her family and neighbors, becomes friends with a local Indian boy, and tries to hold on to her dream of owning a flower shop. (Coping Skills, Interracial Friendship, Family Issues)

White Girl. By Sylvia Olsen. Sononis Press, 2004.
Josie is no longer invisible after she moves to her new stepfather's Indian reserve and is known as "Blondie." Josie and her mother are the only people with blonde hair and blue eyes. Her mother hides her in the house to avoid the teasing, but Josie is only fourteen and is determined to get a life. (Self-Identity, Family Issues, Bullying)

When the Black Girl Sings. By Bil Wright. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Lahni Schuler is the only black student at her private prep school. She’s also the adopted child of two loving, but white, parents who are on the road to divorce. Struggling to comfort her mother and angry with her dad, Lahni feels more and more alone. A visit to a gospel choir and her love of singing leads her to discover her own identity. (Family Issues, Interracial Adoption)

Zazoo. By Richard Mosher. Clarion Books, 2001.
Amid old secrets revealed and rifts healed, a thirteen-year-old Vietnamese orphan raised in rural France by her aging "Grand-Pierre" learns about life, death, and love. (Family Issues, Orphans)

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PRESCRIPTION DRUGS
How Ya Like Me Now. By Brendan Halpin. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2007.
Eddie can take care of himself. Since his dad died, Eddie’s mom has spent all her time getting high on OxyContin, leaving Eddie to keep their suburban home clean and supplied with food. When Eddie’s mom goes into rehab and his aunt and uncle take him away to Boston, everything changes. He becomes so comfortable in his new home that when he gets word that his mother is being released from rehab, he has a tough decision to make. (Family Issues, OxyContin, Racism, Substance Abuse)

BACK TO TOPICS

SELF-ESTEEM
The Amazing Life of Birds (The Twenty-Day Puberty Journal of Duane Homer Leech). By Gary Paulsen. Wendy Lamb, 2006.
As twelve-year-old Duane endures the confusing and humiliating aspects of puberty, he watches a newborn bird in a nest on his windowsill begin to grow and become more independent, all of which he records in his journal. (Puberty, Body Image, Self-Identity)

A Maze Me: Poems for Girls. By Naomi Shihab Nye. Greenwillow, 2005.
A collection of poems about nature, home, school, and the community connecting to a girl's inner world. (Interpersonal Relations, Self-Identity)

Alt Ed. By Catherine Atkins. Penguin Group, 2003.
Participating in a special after-school counseling class with other troubled students, including a sensitive gay classmate, helps Susan, an overweight tenth grader, develop a better sense of herself.
(Interpersonal Relations, High School, Body Image, Sexual Identity)

Being. By Kevin Brooks. Scholastic, 2007.
It was just supposed to be a routine exam. But what the doctors discover doesn't make medical sense. Not fully anesthetized, he hears them claim that his insides aren't human. On the run for murder of a doctor, Robert Smith, an orphan tries to learn his identity and live a “normal” life with his new found girl, Eddy. (Self-Identity, Decision Making)

Born Confused. By Tanuja Desai Hidier. Scholastic Press, 2002.
Seventeen-year-old Dimple, from India, struggles with her cultural identity, her life complicated by the manipulations of her best friend and her love for Karsh. (East Indian Americans)

Boy Proof. By Cecil Castellucci. Candlewick Press, 2005.
Feeling alienated from everyone around her, Los Angeles high school senior and cinephile Victoria Denton hide behind the identity of a favorite movie character until an interesting new boy arrives at school and helps her realize that there is more to life than just the movies. (Self-Identity, Dating Issues)

Bronx Masquerade. By Nikki Grimes. Dial Books, 2002.
Eighteen teenagers turn a school poetry-writing assignment into a risky and challenging experience of mutual self-revelation. (African-American, High School)

Burned. By Ellen Hopkins. Margaret K, McElderry Books, 2006.
Seventeen-year-old Pattyn, the eldest daughter in a large Mormon family, is sent to her aunt's Nevada ranch for the summer, where she temporarily escapes her alcoholic, abusive father and finds love and acceptance, only to lose everything when she returns home. (Alcoholism, Abuse, Self-Identity)

Dolores: Seven Stories About Her. By Bruce Brooks. Harper Collins, 2002.
A free-spirited girl grows from seven to self-assured sixteen through a series of personally challenging events. (Identity, Siblings)

Don’t Call Me Ishmael. By Michael Bauer. Greenwillow Books, 2007.
By the time ninth grade begins, Ishmael's perfected the art of making himself virtually invisible. But all that changes when James Scobie joins the class. Unlike Ishmael, James has no sense of fear—he claims it was removed during an operation. Now nothing will stop James and Ishmael from taking on bullies, bugs, and Moby Dick, in the toughest, weirdest, most embarrassingly awful and best year of their lives. (Interpersonal Relations)

Dude! Stories and Stuff for Boys. By Sandy Asher and David Harrison. Dutton, 2006.
An anthology of original stories, plays, and poems by a variety of authors that celebrates what being a boy is all about. (Coming-of-Age, Decision Making, Coping)

Girl Stories (Graphic Novel). By Lauren R. Weinstein. Henry Holt, 2006.
A collection of comics about the ins and outs of being a girl on the verge of adolescence, many of which appeared originally on the web site gurl.com. (Dating Issues, Friendship, Coming-of-Age)

Jinx. By Margaret Wild. Walker & Company, 2002.
A novel written as a series of poems, Jen becomes known as "Jinx" when two of her boyfriends die, a nickname outgrown only when she falls in love with Hal. (Self-Identity, Interpersonal Relations)

Kayla Chronicles. By Sherrie Winston. Little, Brown and Co., 2007.
Kayla Dean, budding feminist and future journalist, is about to break the story of a lifetime. Egged on by her best friend, Kayla has tried our for her high school’s dance team, the Lady Lions, in order to expose their unfair selection process. But when she makes the team, the true investigation begins. Kayla begins to wonder: Can you be a strong woman and still wear cute shoes? (Self-Identity, Interpersonal Relations)

Lucky Stars. By Lucy Frank. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2005.
Music entwines Kira, a thirteen-year-old singer who hates that her father makes her perform for money on New York City subway platforms; Eugene, the class clown; and Jake, who longs to sing and to approach Kira, but feels held back by his stuttering. (Family Issues, Stuttering)

Margaux with an X. By Ronald Koertge. Candlewick Press, 2004.
Margaux, known as a "tough chick" at her Los Angeles high school, makes a connection with Danny, who, like her, struggles with the emotional impact of family violence and abuse. (Sexual Abuse Victims, Family Violence, Interpersonal Relations)

The Outside Groove. By Erik E. Esckilsen. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
Tired of having her own accomplishments ignored, high school senior Casey, sister of the town's stock car racing champion, becomes the local track's first female driver and discovers that there is more to winning than crossing the finish line first. (Family Issues)

Paisley Hanover Acts Out. By Cameron Tuttle. Dial, 2008.
Always one of the popular kids, sophomore Paisley Hanover gets a rude awakening when she's booted out of yearbook and into the badlands of drama class. Paisley takes action-and an unexpected liking to her drama buddies. The result? An undercover crusade that could bring down the popularity pecking order, and Paisley along with it.

Sahara Special. By Esme Raji Codell. Hyperion Press, 2003.
Struggling with school and her feelings since her father left, Sahara gets a fresh start with a new and unique teacher who supports her writing talents and the individuality of each of her classmates. (Self-Esteem, African Americans)

The Secret of Me. By Meg Kearney. A Karen and Michael Braziller Book, 2005.
Fourteen-year-old Lizzie struggles to inform her friends and talk to her parents about being adopted. She feels they might view her as "less" of a person because her mother gave her up at birth. It takes a tragic accident for Lizzie to realize what she must do. (Adoption, Self-Identity)

Semiprecious. By D. Anne Love. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2006.
Uprooted and living with an aunt in 1960s Oklahoma, thirteen-year-old Garnet and her older sister Opal brave their mother's desertion and their father's recovery from an accident, learning that "the best home of all is the one you make inside yourself." (Family Issues, Coming-of Age, Coping Skills)

Shug. By Jenny Han. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2006.
A twelve-year-old girl learns about friendship, first loves, and self-worth in a small town in the south. (Self-Identity, Coping Skills)

Simon Says. By Elaine Marie Alphin. Harcourt Inc, 2002.
A troubled young painter attending a boarding school for the arts discovers the pain and pleasure involved being true to himself and his talent. (Self-Identity)

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie. By David Lubar. Dutton Books, 2005.
Scott Hudson is overwhelmed the changes of starting high school and his mother's unexpected pregnancy. His friends are drifting away; his old friend Julia is the freshman beauty who every boy desires including himself, and he can't get enough sleep to keep up with all of it.
(Self-Identity, Family Issues, Bullying, Dating Issues)

Story of a Girl. By Sara Zarr. Little, Brown, 2006.
In the three years since her father caught her in the back seat of a car with an older boy, sixteen-year-old Deanna's life at home and school has been a nightmare, but while dreaming of escaping with her brother and his family, she discovers the power of forgiveness. (Dating Issues, Sexual Behavior, Family Issues)

Such a Pretty Face. By Ann Angel. Amulet Books, 2007.
A beauty queen with a chin-hair problem, an aspiring model who would rather take pictures than be in them, a boy in love with the gorgeous nurse he’s never seen, a girl named Beauty who feels like anything but – the characters in these dozen original stories know the power of beauty, whether it’s to torment or comfort, and must decide whether or not to live by the rules. (Self-Identity)

Things You Either Hate or Love. By Brigid Lowery. Holiday House, 2006.
A cynical, overweight, and lonely Australian teenager spends her summer vacation making lists, eating comfort foods, and trying to earn enough money to attend a big rock concert. (Body Image, Careers)

Who Will Tell My Brother? By Marlene Carvell. Hyperion Books, 2002.
A young Native American engages in a crusade to rid his high school of offensive Indian mascots, learning through the painful experience about his heritage and his place in the world. (Mohawk Indians, Tolerance)

Worth. By A. LaFaye. Simon & Schuster, 2004.
After breaking his leg, eleven-year-old Nate feels useless because he cannot work on the family farm in nineteenth-century Nebraska, so when his father brings home an orphan boy to help with the chores, Nate feels even worse.(Frontier and Pioneer Life, Orphans, Family Issues)

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SELF-INJURY
After the Moment. By Garret Freymann-Weyr. Houghton Mifflin, 2009.
Leigh Hunter, 17, moves to Washington, DC, to help his stepsister Millie cope with the death of her father. Maia Morland, a recovering anorexic and self-mutilator, eats her meals with the Hunters as part of her recovery. At first Leigh wants only to keep her safe but falls in love. He eats so that she will eat. She's raped (and filmed) by three prep-school classmates on his one night away from DC. Leigh eventually learns how hard it is when he can't hold on to love. (Body Image, Dating Issues, Violence Prevention, Sexual Behavior)

Cut. By Patrick McCormick. Front Street, 2000. (Audiobook)
Self-mutilation has become Callie's cry for help from a terrifyingly delicate, asthmatic brother; a nonfunctioning mother; and an escaping father. (Self-Mutilation, Family Issues, Psychiatric Hospitals).

The Dream Where the Losers Go. BY Beth Goobie. Orca, 2006. After treatment for self-destructive behavior, Skey Mitchell returns to high school where she encounters a boy her own age, with dreams - and secrets - much like her own. (Interpersonal Relations, Mental Health, High School)

The Luckiest Girl in the World. By Steven Levenkron. Scribner, 1997.Pretty, smart, and a talented ice-skater, 15-year-old Katie Roskova seems to have a lot going for her. But, in fact, her public face and her private one are vastly different. (Self-Mutilation, Mothers and Daughters, High School)

Patron Saint of Butterflies. By Cecilia Galante. Bloomsbury, 2008.
Agnes and Honey have always been best friends, but they haven't always been so different. Agnes loves being a Believer. She knows the rules at the Mount Blessing religious commune are there to make her a better person. Honey hates Mount Blessing and the control Emmanuel, their leader, has over her life. When Agnes's grandmother makes an unexpected visit to the commune, she discovers a violent secret that the Believers are desperateto keep quiet. (Abuse, Family Issues, Religion)

Shut the Door. By Amanda Marquit. St. Martin's Press, 2005.
Two teenage sisters, Lilliana and Vivian, take risks and undergo disturbing transformations that go unchallenged by their emotionally absent parents.
(Family Issues, Interpersonal Relations)

Willow. By Julia Hoban. Dial Books, 2009.
Seven months ago, on a rainy March night, Willow's parents died in a horrible car accident. Willow was driving. Willow is blocking the pain by secretly cutting herself. But when one boy discovers Willow's secret, it sparks a relationship that turns the world Willow has created for herself upside down. (Dating, Death & Grief))

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SEXUAL BEHAVIOR
After Summer. By Nick Earls. Graphia, 2005.
Alex Delaney is worried about getting into college until he meets a mysterious girl named Fortuna. He spends a lot of time with her on the beach, falls in love, but worries when he realizes that things cannot last.
(Interpersonal Relations)

Easy. By Kerry Cohen Hoffmann. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Fourteen-year-old Jessica finds it almost impossible to get any attention from her family and friends. So, she turns to boys and men who are very easy to attract with the right clothes and attitude. They fill her void until it is more than she can handle. (Self-esteem, Family Issues)

Everything Beautiful in the World. By Lisa Levchuk. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
Seventeen-year-old Edna is in the midst of having a fight with her mother when she is told she has cancer. Edna begins an affair with her art teacher while her mother is in the hospital. Making it clear she will not visit her mother, and ignoring a father who ignores her, Edna is given a "free pass" to do what she wants. (Family Issues, Coping Skills)

Jumping Off Swings. By Jo Knowles. Candlewick Press, 2009.
Ellie has sex with boys who make her feel wanted and beautiful and then never call again. Even Josh, a virgin, never speaks to her again. When Ellie gets pregnant she'll spend the next nine months finding out what it means to grow up. (Parenting, Family Issues)

Love & Sex: Ten Stories of Truth. Edited by Michael Cart. Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Compilation of stories by various authors dealing with teenage relationships. (Dating Issues)

Tricks. By Ellen Hopkins. McElderry Books, 2009.
Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching...for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don't expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words "I love you" are said for all the wrong reasons. (Substance Abuse)

Virginity Club. By Kate Brian. Simon Pulse, 2004.
Mandy, Kai, Debbie and Eva have one thing they must do before graduation – win the prestigious Treemont scholarship. It’s a free pass to the college of their choice. But the award has one requirement: Purity of soul and body. In an effort to proclaim their “purity” to the whole school, Mandy starts the Virginity Club. But each friend is hiding something … something important, and their secrets may cost them more than just a scholarship.

BACK TO TOPICS

SEXUAL IDENTITY
Absolute Brightness. By James Lecesne. HarperTeen 2008.
In the beach town of Neptune, New Jersey, Phoebe's life is changed irrevocably when her gay cousin moves into her house and soon goes missing. This is the story of a luminous force of nature: a boy who encounters evil and whose magic isn’t truly felt until he disappears. (Abuse, Violence Prevention)

Absolutely, Positively Not. By David LaRochelle. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2005.
Follows a teenage boy's humorous attempts to fit in at his Minnesota high school by becoming a macho, girl-loving, "Playboy" pinup-displaying heterosexual. (Coming Out, High School)

Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence. Edited by Marion Dane Bauer. HarperCollins, 1994.
Sixteen short stories about gay awareness by a variety of writers--some gay, some not. (Short Stories)

Between Mom and Jo. By Julie Anne Peters. Little Brown and Company, 2006.
Fourteen-year-old Nick has a three-legged dog named Lucky 2, some pet fish, and two mothers, whose relationship complicates his entire life as they face prejudice, work problems, alcoholism, cancer, and finally separation. (Family Issues, Cancer)

Boy Meets Boy. By David Levithan. Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
Paul lives in a present-day gaytopia, where boys come out of the closet to become class president, and the Gay-Straight Alliance has more members than the football team. The cheerleaders ride Harleys, and the cross-dressing homecoming queen is also the star quarterback.
(Interpersonal Relations)

Deliver Us from Evie. By M.E. Kerr. HarperCollins, 1994.
Parr Burrman is used to hearing jokes about his masculine, strong older sister, Evie; what he's not used to is his growing awareness that she may be a lesbian. (Sexual Identity, Family Issues)

Empress of the World. By Sara Ryan. Viking, 2001:
While attending a summer institute, fifteen-year-old Nic meets another girl named Battle, falls in love with her, and finds the relationship to be difficult and confusing. (Sexual Identity, Dating Issues)

Far from Xanadu. By Julie Anne Peters. Little Brown, 2005.
In a small Kansas town, sixteen-year-old Mary-Elizabeth "Mike" Szabo tries to come to terms with her father's suicide and her own homosexuality.
(Suicide, Grief)

Getting It. By Alex Sanchez. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Hoping to impress a sexy female classmate, fifteen-year-old Carlos secretly hires gay student Sal to give him an image makeover, in exchange for Carlos's help in forming a Gay-Straight Alliance at their Texas high school. (Mexican Americans, Coming-of-Age, Interpersonal Relations)

God Box. By Alex Sanchez. Simon & Schuster, 2007.
High school senior Paul has dated Angie since middle school, and they’re good together. They have similar interests, including singing in their church choir and being active in Bible Club. But when Manuel transfers to their school, Paul has to rethink his life. Manuel is the first openly gay teen anyone in the small town has met, and he’s a Christian. Manuel’s outspokenness triggers dramatic consequences at school, culminating in a terrifying situation that leads Paul to take a stand. (Religion, Interpersonal Relations)

Gravel Queen. Tea Simon Bendun. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2003.
All Aurin wants to do the summer before her senior year in high school is hang out with her friends Kenney and Fred. But, when she falls in love with Neila, everything changes. (Friendship)

Grl2grl. By Julie Anne Peters. Little, Brown and Company, 2007.
This short story collection portrays teens as they navigate the hurdles of relationships and sexual identity. From the young lesbian taking her first steps toward coming out, to the two strangers who lock eyes across a crowded train, to the transgender teen longing for a sense of self, or the girl whose abusive father has turned her to stone, the characters resonate with the reader long after the book has been put down. (Dating Issues, Interpersonal Relations)

Jack. By A.M. Homes. Macmillan, 1989.
Fifteen year old Jack just discovered that his father is gay. (Family Issues)

Keeping You a Secret. By Julie Ann Peters. Little Brown, 2003.
As she begins a very tough last semester of high school, Holland finds herself puzzled about her future and intrigued by a transfer student who wants to start a Lesbigay club at school. (Sexual Identity, Family Issues)

Lady God. By Lesa Luders. New Victoria Publishers, 1995.
Landy is a young woman haunted by images of early childhood incest at the hands of her sexually abusive, deranged mother. (Sexual Identity, Violence Prevention, Incest, Alcoholism, Suicide)

Luna: A Novel. By Julie Anne Peters. Little, Brown, 2004.
Fifteen-year-old Regan's life, which has always revolved around keeping her older brother Liam's transsexuality a secret, changes when Liam decides to start the process of "transitioning" by first telling his family and friends that he is a girl who was born in a boy's body.
(Self-Identity, Family Issues)

My Heartbeat. By Garret Freymann-Weyr. Houghton, 2002.
As she tries to understand the closeness between her older brother and his best friend. (Family Issues, Interpersonal Relations)

Rainbow Boys. By Alex Sanchez. Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Three high school seniors, a jock with a girlfriend and an alcoholic father, a closeted gay, and a flamboyant gay rights advocate, struggle with family issues, gay bashers, first sex, and conflicting feelings about each other. (Homosexuality, Family Issues, Alcoholism, Interpersonal Relations)

Rainbow High. By Alex Sanchez. Simon & Schuster, 2003.
The rest of your life depends on high school decisions about college. Jason Carrillo, the best-looking athlete in school, Kyle Meeks, swim team star and all-around good guy, and Nelson Glassman, outgoing and defiant, thought they had it all figured out. But then Jason's eyes turn to love-and Kyle. Kyle is finally in the relationship he's wanted. Nelson fears testing positive. Graduation is ahead and decisions must be made.
(Interpersonal Relations, Family Issues, HIV/AIDS)

Rainbow Road. By Alex Sanchez. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005.
While driving across the United States during the summer after high school graduation, three young gay men encounter various bisexual and homosexual people and make some decisions about their own relationships and lives. (Interpersonal Relations)

Skim. By Mariko & Jillian Tamaki. Walker Books, 2009.
Kimberly Keiko Cameron-aka Skim-is a mixed-race high school student struggling with identity, friendships, and romantic yearning. After her parents' divorce, she turns to tarot cards and Wicca to make sense of life. She is intrigued by Ms. Archer, her English teacher. Skim forms an unlikely friendship with popular Katie. She realizes that Katie is far funnier, more genuine, and traumatized than she originally thought. (Coping Skills, Decision Making & Peer Pressure, Family Issues, Interpersonal Skills)

So Hard to Say. By Alex Sanchez. Simon Pulse, 2004.
Frederick is perfect boyfriend material for the pretty and popular Xio, but he thinks more about Victor, the captain of the soccer team.
(School, Mexican-Americans, Interpersonal Relations)

Steady Beat, Volume 1 (manga). By Rivkah. TOKYOPOP, 2005.
Sixteen-year-old Leah Winters is forever living in her older sister's shadow, and when she finds a love letter to her sister from a girl, she must come to grips with their differences and similarities. (Family Issues)

Tale of Two Summers. By Brian Sloan. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Even though Hal is gay and Chuck is straight, the two fifteen-year-olds are best friends and set up a blog where Hal records his budding romance with a young Frenchman, and Chuck falls for a summer theater camp diva. (Interpersonal Relations, Dating Issues)

Tips on Having a Gay (ex)Boyfriend. By Carrie Jones. Flux, 2007.
Is it fair to be mad, mad, mad at your boyfriend for being gay? Can’t heartbroken Belle whine just a little? What’s a girl to do when her perfect soulmate says Goodbye Belle, Hello Bob? For starters, she makes a list on how to deal. (Dating Issues)

The Vast Fields of Ordinary. By Nick Burd. Dial, 2009.
Dade has a crappy job at Food World, a "boyfriend" who won't publicly acknowledge his existence (Pablo also has a girlfriend), and parents on the verge of a divorce. Then he meets Alex Kincaid. Falling in real love finally lets Dade come out of the closet. But just when happiness has set in, tragedy shatters the summer. (Dating Issues, Substance Abuse, Family Issues)

What Happened to Lani Garver. By Carol Plum-Ucci. Harcourt Inc, 2002.
Who or what is newcomer Lani, an angel? An unusual story of compassion and tragedy.

BACK TO TOPICS

SUBSTANCE ABUSE
The Beast. By Walter Dean Myers. Scholastic, 2003.
A visit to his Harlem neighborhood and discovery that the girl he loves is using drugs give seventeen-year-old Anthony Witherspoon a new perspective both on his home and on his life at a Connecticut prep school. (Coping)

Beauty Queen. By Linda Glovach. HarperCollins, 1998.
Writing in her diary about an ex-boyfriend, 19-year-old Samantha seems normal, but after moving into her own apartment, working as a topless dancer, and becoming a heroin addict, she sounds like a hardened drug abuser. (Heroin Addiction)

Bottled Up. By Jaye Murray. Dial Books, 2003.
A high school boy comes to terms with his drug addiction, life with an alcoholic father, and a younger brother who looks up to him.
(Alcohol Use, Family Issues, High School)

Crackback. By John Coy. Scholastic Press, 2005.
Miles barely recalls when football was fun after being singled out by a new coach, constantly criticized by his father, and pressured by his best friend to take performance-enhancing drugs. (Steroids, Sports, Family Issues)

Crank. By Ellen Hopkins. Simon Pulse, 2004.
Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter, gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, Kristina disappears and Bree takes her place. Bree is the exact opposite. Through a boy, Bree meets the monster: crank. And what begins as a wild ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul - her life.
(Family Issues, High School)

Dope Sick. By Walter Dean Myers. Amistad, 2009.
Pursued by police after a drug deal goes disastrously wrong, 17-year-old Lil J hides out in an abandoned building where he encounters a strange, solitary man named Kelly, who is watching television. Stranger still is what Kelly is watching: scenes from Lil J’s past and his prospective future. (Legal Issues, Self-Image, Violence Prevention)

Exit Here. By Jason Myers. Simon & Schuster, 2007.
Travis is back from school for the summer, and he’s just starting to settle in to the usual pattern at home: drinking, drugging, watching porn, and hooking up. But he isn’t settling in – maybe it’s that deadly debauch in Hawaii, the memories of which he can’t quite shake. Or maybe it’s his suddenly sensing how empty and messed up his life is, and wanting out. (Coping)

The Game. By Teresa Toten. Red Deer Press, 2001.
With the support of new friends at the clinic, Dani develops the courage to face her family's deep dysfunction and terrible secret- and to eliminate the Game from her life forever. (Family Issues)

Glass. By Ellen Hopkins. Simon & Schuster, 2007.
In this sequel to Crank, Kristina Snow, a former 17-year-old with high grades and a loving family, has returned to Reno pregnant. While living with her mother and working at a convenience store, she becomes addicted to meth in order to recapture her pre-baby figure. When her addiction takes over her life, she becomes a slave to it and has to give up her baby. (Family Issues, Parenting, Teen Pregnancy)

Go Ask Alice. By Anonymous. Prentice-Hall, 1971.
The classic diary by an anonymous, addicted teen. (Runaways, Diaries)

Gossip of the Starlings. By Nina De Gramont. Algonquin Books, 2009.
When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Perry School for Girls, it’s on the condition that she reform her ways. But that’s before the beautiful and charismatic Skye Butterfield chooses Catherine for her best friend. Skye is in love with the thrill of taking risks, breaking rules, and crossing boundaries, no matter the stakes. But the stakes keep getting higher in this chilling portrait of adolescent temptations

Imani in Never Say Goodbye. By Jackie Hardrick. Enlighten
Publications, 2003.
Seventeen-year-old Imani's hopes for getting into Howard University-on a basketball scholarship or otherwise-are nearly dashed during her tumultuous senior year, primarily due to her friend and teammate Dominique's rapid descent into drug abuse. (African-Americans)

In Ecstasy. By Kate McCaffrey. Annick Press, 2009.
Mia and Sophie, both 15 years old, decide to take Ecstasy at a party. They find that they don't know very much about each other as one escalates her drug use and the other harbors a frightening secret. (Interpersonal Relations, Violence Prevention)

Lunch with Lenin and Other Stories. By Deborah Ellis. Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2008.
A collection of short stories about the impact of drugs, alcohol, and addiction on the lives of young people. (Alcohol Abuse, Legal Issues)

Making the Run. By Heather Henson. Joanna Cotler Books, 2002.
Eighteen-year-old Lu is set on leaving her Kentucky home town after high school graduation. She bides the time by doing drugs, making the run with her friends for alcohol and focusing on her photography. (Alcohol Use, Family Issues, Teen Pregnancy)

My Brother's Keeper. By Patricia McCormick. Hyperion, 2005.
Thirteen-year-old Toby, a prematurely gray-haired Pittsburgh Pirates fan and baseball card collector, tries to cope with his brother's drug use, his father's absence, and his mother dating Stanley the Food King. (Coping, Family Issues, Baseball)

One Night. By Marsha Qualey. Dial Books, 2002.
Kelly Ray, a recovering heroin addict, meets a real prince whom she would like to appear on her aunt's radio talk show. Love and other complications intervene. (Interpersonal Relations)

Rats Saw God. By Rob Thomas. Simon Pulse, 1996.
For Steve York, life was good. He had a 4.0 GPA, friends he could trust, and a girl he loved. Now he spends his days smoked out. But his herbal endeavors – and personal demons – have led to a severe lack of motivation. Steve’s flunking out, but if he writes a 100-page paper, he can graduate. Through telling the story of how he got to where he is, he discovers exactly where he wants to be. (Self-Identity)

Rehab. By Randi Reisfeld. Simon Pulse, 2008.
When Kenzie Cross becomes a TV star, it's like it's Christmas and her birthday every day, and she begins to party hard. But when her partying goes a little too far, she is given an ultimatum by her director: Go to rehab, or get cut from the film. Kenzie agrees to the stint and even enjoys it until it finally hits her why she's really there, and she begins to wonder if she's even ready to leave ... (Decision Making, Self-Identity)

Rx. By Tracy Lynn. Simon Pulse, 2006.
Thyme Gilchrest is an honors student, popular, and on student council. She is also a drug dealer. Like piecing together a logic puzzle, Thyme has organized a complex trading system that enables her to obtain the meds her friends need. They all come to her to diagnose their problems and provide the "cure." This power trip helps her believe she is in control of something within her high school world. (Drug Dealing, Prescription Drug Abuse)

Smack. By Melvin Burgess. Holt, 1997.
After running away from their troubled homes, two English teenagers move in with a group of squatters in the port city of Bristol ad try to find ways to support their growing addiction to heroin. (Runaways, Friendship)

Spectacular Now. By Tim Tharp. Knopf, 2008.
Unlike most high school seniors, Sutter Keely is not concerned with the future. He's the life of the party, and he's interested in the Spectacular Now. He carries whiskey in a flask, and once it's mixed into his 7Up, anything is possible. He will jump into the pool fully clothed, climb up a tree and onto his ex-girlfriends roof or cruise around all hours of the night. (Dating)

Street Pharm. By Alison Va Diepen. Simon Pulse, 2006.
Seventeen-year-old African-American drug dealer, Ty Johnson, takes over his father's business and struggles to make sense of his life when competition from out of town threatens him and those who are close to him. (Violence Prevention)

Tweaked. By Katherine Holubitsky. Orca, 2009.
Gordie Jessup is a good kid, but he's living in a nightmare. His older brother's two-year addiction to crystal meth has left their family emotionally and financially drained. And just when Gordie thinks he can no longer stand the manipulating, the lying and stealing, things get even worse. (Family Issues, Death & Grief)

When Dreams Are Crushed. By Olga Altstatt. 1st Books Library, 2001.
Story about peer pressure in reverse-- a high school girl helps her best friend quit using drugs. (Friendship, Peer Pressure)

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SUICIDE
Aimee. By Mary Beth Miller. Dutton Books, 2002.
It seems that everyone, even her own parents, believes that Zoe helped her best friend, Aimee, commit suicide. (Friendship)

After. By Francis Chalifour. Tundra, 2005.
Fifteen-year-old Francis struggles to come to terms with his father's suicide. (Grief, Death, Family Issues)

The Cloud Chamber. By Joyce Maynard. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2005.
In their small Montana community, fourteen-year-old Nate copes with his own sadness and anger over his father's attempted suicide. (Depression, Family Issues)

Crash Into Me. By Albert Borris. Simon Pulse, 2009.
Owen, Audrey, Jin-Ae, and Frank don't seem to have much in common, but they bond online over a shared interest: to commit suicide. They take a cross-country road trip from New Jersey that will culminate at Death Valley. There, they will take their own live. But as they travel, the teens begin to connect over more than just their desire to die; as they share their darkest secrets and most cherished wishes, real friendship and even romantic love develop. As the end of their trip nears, the time comes to decide: Is life worth living in spite of the pain, or do they keep their deadly promise? (Sexual Identity, Dating, Interpersonal Relations, Alcohol Use)

Impulse. By Ellen Hopkins. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2007.
Three teens who meet at Reno, Nevada's Aspen Springs mental hospital after each has attempted suicide connect with each other in a way they never have with their parents or anyone else in their lives. (Friendship, Survival, Mental Health)

St. Michael's Scales. By Neil Connelly. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2001.
Keegan Flannery, feeling responsible for his twin brother's death and his mother's mental illness, believes he must atone by committing suicide before his sixteenth birthday, but he gains new insights when he joins his school's wrestling team. (Death, Mental Health)

Stay With Me. By Garret Freymann-Weyr. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
When her sister kills herself, sixteen-year-old Leila goes looking for a reason and, instead, discovers great love, her family's true history, and how she fits into everything. (Self-discovery, Family Issues)

Thirteen Reasons Why. By Jay Asher. Penguin, 2007.
When Clay Jenson plays the cassette tapes he received in a mysterious package, he's surprised to hear the voice of dead classmate Hannah Baker. He's one of 13 people who receive Hannah's story, which details the circumstances that led to her suicide. (Violence Prevention, Death/Guilt)

Trigger. By Susan Vaught. Bloomsbury Children's Books, 2006. Teenager Jersey Hatch must work through his extensive brain damage to figure out why he decided to shoot himself. (Violence, Disabilities)

You Know Where to Find Me. By Rachel Cohn. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Miles has spent her life in the shadow of her cousin Laura - smart, gorgeous, and a student at a prep school. Miles is overweight, anti-social, and lives with her mom in the carriage house on her uncle's property. Miles thinks Laura has the perfect life--until Laura commits suicide. (Death & Grief, Substance Abuse, Interpersonal Relationships, Family Issues)

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VIOLENCE PREVENTION
(see also ABUSE & BULLYING)
After. By Francine Prose. HarperCollins, 2003.
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. (School Shootings)

Behind the Eyes. By Francisco Stork. Dutton, 2006.
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. (Gangs, Coming-of -Age, Death/Grief, Coping)

The Brimstone Journals. By Ron Koertge. Candlewick Press, 2001.
In a series of short interconnected poems, students at a high school nicknamed Brimstone reveal the violence existing and growing in their lives.

Bruises. By Anke De Vrie. Front Street, 2003.
While living in Holland, Michael meets Judith, who is frightened, bullied, and beaten by her mother and blames herself for the abuse she is enduring. (Abuse, Survival, Family Issues)

Burn. By Suzanne Phillips. Little, Brown and Company, 2008.
For high school freshman Cameron Grady, every day is a struggle - to get out of bed, make it through classes, and come home without being emotionally and physically tormented by Rich Patterson and his followers. They leave Cameron no choice but to fight back. At least that's what he tells himself.

The Chosen One. By Carol Lynch Williams. St. Martin's Griffin, 2009.
In this thriller, 13-year-old Kyra lives in an isolated polygamist cult. Life is more confining than the chain-link fence on its perimeter. But Kyra is able to slip outside to wander the desert. There she chances upon a friendly book-mobile driver who opens the world of children's literature to her. Kyra even begins a flirtation with her classmate, Joshua, a dangerous sin for which they will both pay dearly. The brutal leader, Prophet Childs, assigns her to be the seventh wife of her own 60-year-old uncle. When she resists, she and Joshua are badly beaten and are told that other young people have been killed. (Family Issues, Dating)

Claiming Georgia Tate. By Gigi Amateau. Candlewick Press, 2005.
Twelve-year-old Georgia Tate feels loved and safe living with Nana and Granddaddy, until her sexually abusive father tries to win her custody.
(Incest, Sexual Abuse, Self-Identity)

Darkness Before Dawn. By Sharon Draper. Atheneum Books, 2001.
Keisha struggles to put her world back in perspective, she learns the power and the danger of silence, and discovers the secret gifts that had been waiting for her all along. (Violence, African American Teens)

Dirty Work. By Julia Bell. Walker & Company, 2007.
Hope Tasker, an upper-class girl from Britain, wants to be free. When she meets Natasha, she thinks it's her way out of her mundane life. Except Natasha is really Oksana, an impoverished girl from Russia, who was tricked into being sold into sexual slavery as a way to support her family. Oksana is a trap. The two girls soon realize that if they are ever going to escape, they must learn to find enough common ground to work together—and to trust each other. (Interpersonal Relationships)

Dope Sick. By Walter Dean Myers. Amistad, 2009.
Pursued by police after a drug deal goes disastrously wrong, 17-year-old Lil J hides out in an abandoned building where he encounters a strange, solitary man named Kelly, who is watching television. Stranger still is what Kelly is watching: scenes from Lil J's past and his prospective future. (Legal Issues, Substance Abuse, Self-Image)

Every Time a Rainbow Dies. By Rita Williams-Garcia. HarperCollins, 2001.
Thulani spends long hours on the roof of their brownstone alone with his beloved doves. One day he hears a scream and looks over the parapet to see a young woman being raped in the alley below. (Caribbean Americans, Interpersonal Relationships)

Give a Boy a Gun. By Todd Strasser. Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Gary and Brendan hold their classmates hostage at a dance with rifles stolen from a neighbor.

Hershey Herself. By Cecilia Galante. Aladdin Mix, 2008.
When 12-year-old Hershey must run away with her mother to a women’s shelter, she wonders howshe’ll compete in the town talent show and who will take care of her cat, and if she’ll survive being on a new bus route with her sworn enemy. Most of all, she wonders how she, her mom and her baby sister will start a new life, hidden away on the other side of town from her mom’s abusive boyfriend. She turns to her journal and Cheese Doodles for comfort, until another resident at the shelter helps her discover a talent she never realized she had.

House of the Scorpion. By Nancy Farmer. Atheneum Books, 2002.
Told in a future time, the young clone of a corrupt drug leader in a small country between the U.S. and former Mexico experiences adventure at every turn. (Substance Abuse, Science Fiction)

I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This. By Jacqueline Woodson. Delacorte, 1994.
Marie, the only black girl in the eighth grade willing to befriend her white classmate Lena, discovers the Lena's father is doing horrible things to her in private. (Racism/Prejudice)

If I Grow Up. By Todd Strasser. Simon & Schuster, 2009.
For DeShawn, joining a gang seems like a terrible decision. A bright boy, he does well in school and tries his best to obey his grandmother. But the lure of the streets becomes a stronger force, pulling him toward his housing project's premier gang. He sees no other hope for supporting his pregnant girlfriend and growing family without fast money. (Substance Abuse, Dating Issues, Sexual Behavior, Interpersonal Relations)

Jumped. By Rita Williams-Garcia. HarperTeen, 2009.
Leticia's intrigued when she overhears Dominique threaten to beat up Trina for bumping her in the hallway. But she doesn't feel the need to get involved, even after she realizes that Trina has no idea that she's going to get jumped. Will she follow best friend Bea's advice and warn Trina of the danger she faces, before a potential tragedy can unfold? (Bullying, Interpersonal Relations)

Making Up Megaboy. By Virginia Walter and Katrina Roeckelein. Delacorte Press, 1998.
On Robbie Jones 13th birthday, he decides to shoot and kill an old man. No one knows what caused Robbie Jones to do it, least of all himself. (Graphic Format)

Missing Girl. By Norma Fox Mazer. HarperTeen, 2008.
In Mallory, New York, as five sisters, aged eleven to seventeen, deal with assorted problems, conflicts, fears, and yearnings, a mysterious middle-aged man watches them, fascinated, deciding which one he likes the best. The sisters are unaware that they are being scrutinized by a predator.

Monster. By Walter D. Myers. HarperCollins, 1999.
Written as a screenplay, "Monster" is what the prosecutor called 16-year-old Steve Harmon for his supposed role in the fatal shooting of a convenience-store owner. (Self-Image, African American Teens)

Nothing to Lose. By Alex Flinn. HarperCollins, 2004.
A year after running away with a traveling carnival to escape his unbearable home life, sixteen-year-old Michael returns to Miami, Florida, to find that his mother is going on trial for the murder of his abusive stepfather. (Runaways, Abuse)

Nugrl90 (Sadie) (Bloggrls Series). By Cheryl Dellasega. Marshall Cavendish, 2007.
Sadie, a.k.a. nugrl90, wakes up one day to discover that her semi-happy teen life has taken a turn toward disaster. Her parents are getting divorced and her family is moving. She starts a blog to try to figure out the changes in her life, and then she meets Buff Boy, who turns out to have a troubled dark side. Forced to make a life-altering decision, Sadie relies on her blog as a source of strength. (Divorce, Family Issues, Coping/Decision Making)

Out of the Blue. By S.L. Rottman. Peachtree, 2009.
Stu and his mom are heading to Minot, North Dakota, where she will assume command of the Air Force base. His brother is away at college, and their father has to moved to Nevada. Stu finds himself on his own. As he struggles to find his way, he is pulled into his neighbors' drama. When tragedy finally strikes, Stu must come to terms with his own culpability. (Family Issues)

Prey. By Lurlene McDaniel. Delacorte, 2008.
Told from their separate points of view, fifteen-year-old Ryan has a secret affair with his 33-year-old history teacher at an Atlanta high school, and his best friend Honey becomes determined to uncover the reason he is increasingly distant. (Sexual Abuse, Interpersonal Relations)

Raymond. By Mark Geller. Noguer y Caralt, 1994.
Spanish book dealing with child abuse. (Child Abuse, Spanish Language)

Real Time. By Pnina Moed Kass. Clarion Books, 2004.
Sixteen-year-old Tomas Wanninger persuades his mother to let him leave Germany to volunteer at a kibbutz in Israel, where he experiences a violent political attack and finds answers about his own past. (Self-Identity, Israel, Politics)

Road of the Dead. By Kevin Brooks. The Chicken House, 2006.
Two brothers, sons of an incarcerated gypsy, leave London traveling to an isolated and desolate village, in search of the brutal killer of their sister. (Coping)

Rooftop. By Paul Volponi. Viking, 2006.
Still reeling from seeing 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. (Death, Prejudice, Criminal Justice)

Safe. By Susan Shaw. Dutton Books, 2007.
In the aftermath of an unspeakable crime, Tracy must fight her way back to safety and find comfort in her mother’s memory once again. A raw and moving story of a young rape victim’s journey toward healing.

Search and Destroy. By Dean Hughes. Ginee Seo Books, 2005.
Recent high-school graduate Rick Ward, undecided about his future and eager to escape his unhappy home life, joins the army and experiences the horrors of the war in Vietnam. (Dating)

Shattered: Stories of Children and War. By Jennifer Armstrong. Knopf Press, 2001.
Twelve stories that explore the ways young people are affected by war. (War Stories)

Shattering Glass. By Gail Giles. Roaring Book Press, 2002.
When Rob, the charismatic leader of the senior class, turns the school nerd into Prince Charming, his actions lead to unexpected violence.

Shooter. By Walter Dean Myers. HarperTempest, 2004.
Written in the form of interviews, reports, and journal entries, the story of three troubled teenagers ends in a tragic school shooting.
(Bullies, Family Issues, Mental Health)

Speak. By Laurie Halse Anderson. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1999.
(Audiobook)
A stunning and sympathetic tribute to a teenage outcast and a rape survivor. (Emotional Problems, High School)

A Stone In My Hand. By Cathryn Clinton. Candlewick Press, 2002.
Set in the mounting tensions between Palestinians and Israelis, an 11-year old girl must move beyond the violence surrounding her and act with courage and hope. (Muslims, Family Life, Jewish)

Street Love. By Walter Dean Myers. Amistad, 2006.
This story told in free verse is set against a background of street gangs and poverty in Harlem in which seventeen-year-old African American Damien takes a bold step to ensure that he and his new love will not be separated. (Prejudice, Sports)

Target. By Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson. Roaring Brook, 2003.
After being raped, Grady goes to a new high school where he meets an outgoing African American and several other students who try to help him deal with the horrible secret. (Rape, Anorexia, Racism/Prejudice, Sexual Identity)

We All Fall Down. By Robert Cormier. Delacorte, 1991.
Jane Jerome and her family come home to find that vandals have destroyed their possessions, urinated on their walls, and left 14-year-old Karen in a coma at the bottom of the basement stairs. (Alcohol Use)

What Happened to Cass McBride. By Gail Giles. Little, Brown, 2006.
After his younger brother commits suicide, Kyle Kirby decides to exact revenge on the person he holds responsible. (Suicide)

When Dad Killed Mom. By Julius Lester. Silver Whistle/Harcourt, 2001.
Jenna and Jeremy must deal with the fact that their father murdered their mother. (Family Issues)

Where People Like Us Live. By Patricia Cumbie. HarperTeen, 2008.
It's a routine Libby's used to by now: pack up, move, start over, repeat. This time it's to Rubberville and Angie, a girl who nearly-but-not-quite gets Libby killed the first day they meet. Angie is everything Libby wishes she were: outspoken, fearless, and happy to risk it all to have a little fun. But one day Libby learns that behind Angie's attitude is a frightening secret. Libby faces an impossible choice: Does she protect her friendship or her friend? (Interpersonal Relations)

Wonder When You'll Miss Me. By Amanda Davis. HarperCollins, 2003.
A year after being raped at school, Faith is bent on revenge. This quest for retribution eventually compels her to violence, forcing her to flee home in search of the only friend she has and to tumble into the colorful, transient world of the circus. Faith ultimately begins to discover who she is and all that she is capable of. (Runaway Teens, Body Image, Coping)

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