Black Box

Author	Rachel Cohn
ISBN	0689878591

Jamal said only, "Laura..." And I knew, just knew by the rip through my gut and the instant convulsion in my heart, knew by Jamal's uncharacteristically unsmiling face. I knew because Laura always did what I wished I could do. First cousins Laura and Miles grew up like sisters. Miles thought of Laura as...

Author	Julie Burtinshaw
ISBN	1551928167

After the death of his tough, guitar-playing, much-loved sister, Michelle, Brian finds it increasingly difficult to care about anything. He doesn’t care about his parents. He doesn’t care about his friends. He doesn’t care about school. He just doesn’t care anymore. The only time Brian...

Author	Norma Fox Mazer
ISBN	0066237769

He could be any man, any respectable, ordinary man.

But he's not.

This man watches the five Herbert girls—Beauty, Mim, Stevie, Fancy, and Autumn—with disturbing fascination.

Unaware of his scrutiny and his increasingly agitated and forbidden thoughts about them,...

Author	Anne Snyder
ISBN	0451159438

(Excript from back cover)
Anorexia Nervosa...
That was the doctor's diagnosis. But seventeen-year-old Rosemary Norton knew better. She wasn't sick; the doctor and her parents were only worryworts. Jason, who said he loved her, was just like the rest of the boys; all he cared about was her...

Author

Bethany Pierce

At sixteen, Olivia Monahan is uprooted from her home when a scandal in the local church costs her father his ministry. The family retreats to the seclusion of a small Pennsylvanian town, where a host of rich characters all play part in Olivia's struggle to understand her disillusionment with Christianity...

Author	Blythe Woolston
ISBN	0761362126

Okay, this won me over -- just when I got so fed up with the relentlessly sad life the narrator, Loa, is living (seriously, I just about lost it when the dog dies in the story), things start to improve for her; yes, it improves slowly, and it's only a little bit, a glimmer, but that's realistic and doesn't undercut...

Author

Marthe Jocelyn

WOULD YOU RATHER know what’s going to happen or not know?
A summer night. A Saturday. For Natalie’s amazing older sister, Claire, this summer is fantastic, because she’s zooming off to college in the fall. For Natalie, it’s a fun summer with her friends; nothing special. When Claire is...

Author	Jacquelyn Mitchard
ISBN	0061345784

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, battered beyond recognition. Family and friends mourn one friend's loss and pray for the other's recovery. Then the doctors discover they...

Author	R.A. Nelson
ISBN	1595140948

"I need to see you. Please come right away.

We have to finish."

Frances Robinson is in high school now. She lives a quiet, suburban life, far from her horrifying past. When she was a child, her birthmother smothered her three sisters. Through pure luck, Frances survived. Now her mother...

Author	David Hernandez
ISBN	0061173304

Numerous reasons exist to prompt a reader into picking up this book for National Hispanic Heritage Month. The reader should pay attention to the development of masculinity. Hernandez cleverly unravels the danger of macho-bullshit. Enrique, the character who is most abused, embraces a tough guy...

Author

Susan Shaw

Suzie is a dark-eyed twelve-year-old who desperately needs to feel safe and worthy of love. Seeking only to be "good enough," she remains motionless and silent for hours on end, feeling the walls of her psychological prison pressing against her. Ultimately, Suzie finds herself in a mental hospital...

Author	Megan Frazer Blakemore
ISBN	1423117115

And the first runner up is... When Dara Cohen was little, she was a bright, shiny star. She was the cutest seven-year-old who ever sang Ella Fitzgerald, and it was no wonder she was crowned Little Miss Maine.

That was then. Now Dara's seventeen and she's not so little anymore. So not little, that...

Author	Michael Harmon
ISBN	0375940987

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 never thinks he’ll end up yanked out of his city life and plunked down into a small Montana town...

Author	Heidi Ayarbe
ISBN	0061351733

No matter how many times Kyle rewrites the scene, he can't get it right. He tries it in the style of Hitchcock, Tarantino, Eastwood, all of his favorite directors—but regardless of the style, he can't remember what happened that day in the shed. The day Jason died. And until he can, there is one question...

Author	Margo Rabb
ISBN	0385734026

"If she dies, I'll die," are the words 15-year-old Mia Perlman writes in her journal the night her mother is diagnosed with cancer. Twelve days later, Mia's mother is dead, and Mia, her older sister, and their father must find a way to live on in the face of sudden, unfathomable loss.

For Mia, this...

Author	Julius Lester
ISBN	0061558907

There are times when a tree can no longer withstand the pain inflicted on it, and the wind will take pity on that tree and topple it over in a mighty storm. All the other trees who witnessed the evil look down upon the fallen tree with envy. They pray for the day when a wind will end their suffering.

I...

Author	Maria Padian
ISBN	0375846751

Brett McCarthy lives for vocabulary words, soccer, and her larger-than-life grandmother, Nonna. Unfortunately, Brett’s got a big mouth she can’t seem to tame and opinions she can’t keep to herself. And she’s obsessed with the moment she became redefined and went from good student, bestfriend-to-Diane...

Author

David Almond

Mysterious and utterly mesmerizing, this graphic-novel-within-a-novel pairs the extraordinary prose of David Almond with the visual genius of Dave McKean.

Blue Baker is writing a story -- not all that stuff about wizards and fairies and happily ever after -- a real story, about blood and...

Author	Dana Reinhardt
ISBN	0375844538

HARPER'S DAD IS getting a divorce from her beloved stepmother, Jane. Even worse, Harper has lost her stepsister, Tess; the divorce divides them. Harper decides to escape by joining a volunteer program to build a house for a family in Tennessee who lost their home in a tornado. Not that she knows a thing...

Author	Traci L. Jones
ISBN	0374369143

Seventh-grader Serena Shaw is trying to keep up at school while rehearsing for the lead role in the spring musical and dealing with a father so "blue" he is nearly catatonic. With the aid of a not-so-secret admirer as well as a growing sense of self-confidence, she faces the challenges of caring for herself...

Author	Ron Koertge
ISBN	0763627054

Sixteen-year-old Ted O’Connor’s parents just died in a fiery car crash, and now he’s stuck with a set of semi-psycho foster parents, two foster brothers — Astin, the cocky gearhead, and C.W., the sometimes gangsta — and an inner-city high school full of delinquents. He’s having pretty...

Author	Ann Dee Ellis
ISBN	0316013641

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 between flirting with the boy next door and worrying about the fact that she's flat-chested, Mazzy has to face the fact that her mom is emotionally...

Author	Thomas Fahy
ISBN	1416940073

"In five years' time, your greatest fear will consume you. It will rob you of your last breath."

Five years ago six children who lived with their families in Jacob Crawley's Divine Path religious cult escaped by burning the compound to the ground. They are reunited at the funeral of Jacob's son,...

Author	Karen Foxlee
ISBN	0375856439

Ten-year-old Jennifer Day lives in a small mining town full of secrets. Trying to make sense of the sudden death of her teenage sister, Beth, she looks to the adult world around her for answers.

As she recounts the final months of Beth’s life, Jennifer sifts through the lies and the truth, but...