Best Foot Forward
10 best books like Best Foot Forward (Joan Bauer): Razzle, The Off Season, Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks, The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman, Eyes of the Emperor, 12 Again, This Is What I Did, Lucy the Giant, Standing Against the Wind, Swear to Howdy
| Author | Ellen Wittlinger |
| ISBN | 0689856008 |
Razzle Penney, an oddball teen who works at the town dump, befriends Ken Baker when he and his parents first move to Cape Cod. Ken is drawn to Razzle's eccentricities, and she inspires the best photographs he has taken. However, she also introduces him to her nemesis, Harley, a boy-crazy beauty who gets...
| Author | Catherine Gilbert Murdock |
| ISBN | 0618686959 |
Life is looking up for D.J. Schwenk. She’s in eleventh grade, finally. After a rocky summer, she’s reconnecting in a big way with her best friend, Amber. She’s got kind of a thing going with Brian Nelson, who’s cute and popular and smart but seems to like her anyway. And then there’s the fact...
Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks
| Author | Lauren Myracle |
| ISBN | 0525477438 |
Wealth, privilege, and way too many pastel-tinted opinions...that's Carly's life. And guess what? It's. Getting. On. Her. Nerves.
Carly wants to be real, and she's always counted on her little sister, Anna, to love her and support her—and tell her how right she is. But when Anna turns "hot"...
| Author | Louise Plummer |
| ISBN | 0440227046 |
Gawky Kate Bjorkman has a rapier wit, genius IQ, and coke-bottle glasses. She’s been in love with Richard, her former neighbor and brother’s best friend, since they were kids, and she describes their budding romance by poking fun at Harlequin novel conventions, which take the lovers into bliss,...
| Author | Graham Salisbury |
| ISBN | 0440229561 |
Eddy Okana lies about his age and joins the Army in his hometown of Honolulu only weeks before the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Suddenly Americans see him as the enemy—even the U.S. Army doubts the loyalty of Japanese American soldiers.
Then the Army sends Eddy and a small band of Japanese American...
| Author | Sue Corbett |
| ISBN | 0142407291 |
In this captivating novel, wife and mother of three Bernadette McBride makes a wish she never expects to have granted—to be young again. When she awakens—transformed into a twelveyear- old—on what should be the morning of her fortieth birthday, she is at first jubilant, and then quickly realizes...
| Author | Ann Dee Ellis |
| ISBN | 0316013633 |
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 utterly frank, slightly awkward, and extremely loveable outcast enmeshed in a mysterious psychological drama. This story...
| Author | Sherri L. Smith |
| ISBN | 0440229278 |
Lucy Otswego is a big girl who towers over just about everyone and everything in her small Alaskan town, except for her father's horrible reputation as a mean drunk. At 15, she runs away from the cruel classmates who see her only as "the Giant," the embarrassed adults who pity her, and the abusive father...
| Author | Traci L. Jones |
| ISBN | 0374371741 |
Patrice Williams was happy living in Georgia with her grandmother, who called her “cocoa grandbaby.” Then her mother lured her to Chicago and ended up in jail. Now Patrice lives with her Auntie Mae, and her new nickname is “Puffy” – thanks to her giant poof of hair. But Patrice’s hair isn’t...
| Author | Wendelin Van Draanen |
| ISBN | 0440419433 |
A funny friendship turns serious in this haunting book about secrets, lies, and what it means to be a true friend.
Joey Banks is a walking adventure. He’s funny, daring, mischievous—and frequently in trouble. Or he would be if anyone found out about half the stuff he’s done. Luckily,...
| Author | Paula Yoo |
| ISBN | 0060790857 |
How to make your Korean parents happy:
1. Get a perfect score on the SATs.
2. Get into HarvardYalePrinceton.
3. Don't talk to boys.*
Patti's parents expect nothing less than the best from their Korean-American daughter. Everything she does affects her chances of getting...
Without his job at the hospital, Clay would be lost. The hard work, the struggles of the patients, the drama in the ERÑit makes his days worth something, and gives focus to his dream of someday becoming a doctor. Clay can't afford to go away to college like the rest of his graduating senior class, but what...
| Author | Katherine Sturtevant |
| ISBN | 0374378096 |
In Restoration London, sixteen-year-old Meg Moore is something of an anomaly. Unlike other girls her age, Meg pores over books. She spends long hours conversing with the famous authors and poets who visit her father's bookstore, and even writes her own stories, laboring over every word until her hand...
| Author | Laura Bowers |
| ISBN | 0152057641 |
Abbey Garner has a plan: to earn a million dollars by the time she's thirty-five. Financial independence will allow her to break the cycle of unhappiness endured by the women in her family. Determined to fulfill her dream, Abbey works at Granny Po's struggling beauty shop, where the feisty Gray Widows...
| Author | Kathryn Erskine |
| ISBN | 0399255052 |
Mike tries so hard to please his father, but the only language his dad seems to speak is calculus. And for a boy with a math learning disability, nothing could be more difficult. When his dad sends him to live with distant relatives in rural Pennsylvania for the summer to work on an engineering project,...
Ever since her mother passed away, Katie's been alone in her too-big house with her genius dad, who restores old paintings for a living. Katie takes a summer job at a garden estate, where, with the help of two brothers and a glamorous librarian, she soon becomes embroiled in decoding a mystery. There are...
| Author | Caroline B. Cooney |
| ISBN | 0385901674 |
When the invitation to the Preffyn family reunion arrives interrupting a perfectly decent summer vacation, 15-year-old Shelley Wollcott is anything but enthusiastic. It’s not that Shelley has anything against her relatives, she just can’t stand it when they give her that “what a pity”...
| Author | Jean Ferris |
| ISBN | 0152015906 |
Sandy Huntington-Ackerman's life becomes increasingly complicated when his bungling, moneygrubbing uncles try to shanghai the family fortune by poisoning a birthday cake. Luckily, those conniving uncles prove yet again that they can't do anything right. Instead of bumping off the whole family,...
The Life and Opinions of Amy Finawitz
| Author | Laura Toffler-Corrie |
| ISBN | 1596435801 |
If you are looking for a fun read, peppered with the sarcasm and wit of an 8th grader, give The Life and Opinions of Amy Finawitz a try.
Amy starts the book being quite self-centered. Everything is all about her. The story is told in the form of emails Amy sends to her friend who has moved away, abandoning...
| Author | Justina Chen |
| ISBN | 0316011312 |
A half Asian and half white teen navigates a summer of woe and love in this utterly relatable novel that Meg Cabot calls "A funny, touching read that will leave you craving more." Half Asian and half white, Patty Ho has never felt completely home in her skin. Things get worse when a Chinese fortune-teller...
| Author | Hilary McKay |
| ISBN | 1416903720 |
Feisty Rose takes center stage as the highly original Casson family faces a long, hot summer.
As usual, things are a bit chaotic. Eldest daughter Caddy is now engaged to darling Michael, and she's not altogether sure she likes it. Saffy and Sarah are on a mission to find Saffy's biological father...
| Author | Rose Kent |
| ISBN | 0375863443 |
Ice cream warms the heart, no matter what the weather.
That's the Dobson family motto. Whenever things get tough, they break out the special heart-shaped bowls and make sundaes. The road has been especially rocky lately for Tess and her deaf little brother, Jordan. Their plucky Texan mother talks...
The Loser's Guide to Life and Love
| Author | Ann Edwards Cannon |
| ISBN | 0061128465 |
Ordinary, boring Ed works a loser summer job at Reel Life Movies, where he doesn't even have his own name tag. He's stuck with "Sergio." Ed's only consolations are his two best friends. Shelving DVDs isn't so mind-numbingly dull with Scout cracking jokes, and after hours Ed hangs out with the superbrain,...
| Author | Judy Waite |
| ISBN | 0689851391 |
Taylor, Sam, and Sophie have been best mates forever. But lately things have been changing. Taylor is starting to sense that maybe Sam and Sophie would rather hang out only with each other instead of with her. And she can't talk to her mum about it -- Mum's been acting even more depressed than usual, spending...
| Author | Katherine Paterson |
| ISBN | 0060557125 |
Angel Morgan's family is falling apart.
Her daddy is in jail, and her mother has abandoned Angel and her little brother, Bernie, at their great-grandmother's crumbling Vermont farmhouse. Grandma spends most of her time wrapped in a blanket by the wood stove.
There is one bright spot...
