Pool Boy
10 best books like Pool Boy (Michael Simmons): Would You, Mistik Lake, Converting Kate, Walking on Glass, Rubber Houses, No Laughter Here, Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath, Returnable Girl, Hold Me Tight, Joseph
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 | Martha Brooks |
| ISBN | 0374349851 |
Seventeen-year-old Odella is haunted by family secrets. Why doesn't her great-aunt Gloria visit anymore? Why does her mother, Sally, drink so much? Sally's tragic car accident on a frozen lake when she was sixteen seems to have cast a spell over her life that no one can break. Odella tries to hold her...
| Author | Beckie Weinheimer |
| ISBN | 0670061522 |
Kate was raised in the Holy Divine Church. It influenced everything from her homeschooling to her handmade clothes. But ever since her unbelieving father's death last year, she has suspected that there's more to life than memorizing scripture.
Taking advantage of their move to a new town,...
| Author | Alma Fullerton |
| ISBN | 0060778512 |
Your mother's suicide attempt has left her in a coma from which she's never waking up. You know that she wouldn't want to live like this, but could you really help her die? Here you are, making the hardest decision of your life and there's no one to help you: Your father has disappeared into depression. Your...
Typical teenager Kit lives a happy, normal life of friends,boys, and loving family. She and her younger brother, Buddy, are incredibly close despite their eight-year age difference, bonded by a shared love of baseball and math. But when Buddy is taken suddenly by cancer, Kit and herparents struggle...
| Author | Rita Williams-Garcia |
| ISBN | 0688162479 |
Even though they were born in different countries, Akilah and Victoria are true best friends. But Victoria has been acting strange ever since she returned from her summer in Nigeria, where she had a special coming-of-age ceremony. Why does proud Victoria, named for a queen, slouch at her desk and answer...
| Author | Steven Goldman |
| ISBN | 1599902710 |
Mitchell Wells may not survive eleventh grade. He really only has one friend, his best friend, David. His normally decent grade point average is in limbo due to a slightly violent, somewhat inappropriate claymation film. And girls . . . well, does hanging out with his sister count?
When David...
| Author | Pamela Lowell |
| ISBN | 0761453172 |
Abandoned. That's how Ronnie Hartman feels after her mother and Kenny, her mom's good-for-nothing boyfriend, move to Alaska, bringing Ronnie's two younger brothers with them and leaving her behind. Now thirteen years old, Ronnie has been returned from multiple foster homes because of her impulsive...
| Author | Lorie Ann Grover |
| ISBN | 0689852487 |
"I'm leaving."
Dad's words come as a complete shock to Essie. How can he just walk out on her and the family, especially when Mom is pregnant?Essie keeps her dad's leaving a secret. Then Essie's classmate, Chris Crow, disappears, and everyone finds out he's been kidnapped. Is Chris okay? Is Dad ever...
| Author | Shelia P. Moses |
| ISBN | 1416917527 |
For Joseph Flood, life is tough. Tough because of Mama's addiction to drugs and alcohol. Tough because Daddy is away with the army fighting in Iraq. Tough because it looks like there's no way out once you're living in a homeless shelter in a North Carolina ghetto neighborhood. And tough because Joseph...
| Author | Janet Nichols Lynch |
| ISBN | 0823421856 |
Aww, I loved this book.
R.D. is a 15 year old Mexican-American kid starting 8th grade for the second time. His father is out of the picture and his mother has long been gone away, serving time in prison for a drug offense. He is taken in by his grandmother, but she leaves him with her boyfriend Earl...
| Author | Julie Gonzalez |
| ISBN | 0385732287 |
The character Will is such a bully! But he got what he deserved by being put in jail. He pressured all his friends (Ryan,Daniel,and Connor) in to playing the game russian roulet. He finally got Connor and Ryan to take a turn, but he thought Daniel was to chicken (which he was). Then Will decided to make daniel...
| Author | Walter Sorrells |
| ISBN | 0525478019 |
Two years ago, David Crandall's mother was murdered and with little evidence, no witnesses, and no motive, the crime was left unsolved. Now a high school senior, David is unable to shake the sense that someone knows more than they're letting on. His suspicion deepens as he uncovers clues to a scandalous...
| Author | E.E. Charlton-Trujillo |
| ISBN | 0385733321 |
Growing up in a dead-end South Texas town, Mickey had two things she could count on: her big brother, Danny—the football hero everyone loved—and a beat-up copy of The Outsiders. But after the accident—after Danny abandoned her to a town full of rumors and a drunken father—all Mickey had left...
Hmm. The weird thing about Sophia Campbell is that she's totally white and her main characters always seem to be vaguely asian-looking, black punk rock girls. While I definitely like seeing some strong black female characters in comics, she does draw them in a ludicrously sexualized way. They all have...
Stan Smith has the world's dullest name, and the world's dullest life to go with it. At 17, the former junior chess champion turned "Town's Laziest Register Monkey at the Town's Only Video Store" has no car, no college, and, of course, no girl. If that weren't pathetic enough, he's got an organic-food-freak...
| Author | A.M. Jenkins |
| ISBN | 0064473740 |
Colt's perfect life crumbles when his girlfriend breaks up with him and looming academic ineligibility threatens his baseball career. For a guy who gets by on his good looks and talent with a bat, Colt knows that he could be facing his toughest challenge ever.
Just as she did in her acclaimed...
| Author | Brent Hartinger |
| ISBN | 0060824115 |
For most kids, fifteen is the year of the optional summer job: Sure, you can get a job if you really want one, but it isn't required or anything. Too bad Dave's dad doesn't agree! Instead of enjoying long days of biking, swimming, and sitting around, Dave and his two best friends are being forced by their...
Leo, Max, Jane, and Daisy don't have much in common. But when they all blow off their SAT prep in favor of forming their own study group, they actually begin to bond -- over why there's so much competition over a stupid test. And what it really measures, anyway.
Then it's revealed that someone has...
| Author | Patrick Jennings |
| ISBN | 1606843745 |
Readers who love Andrew Clements, Dan Gutman, Gordon Korman, and Tom Angleberger will find this charming, funny, easy-to-read middle-grade novel from the beloved Patrick Jennings an absolute hoot!
When the new kid joins his class, Woodrow agrees with his schoolmates--Toulouse is really...
| Author | Mark Jean |
| ISBN | 1423107594 |
Ernie Banks, named for the legendary Chicago Cub shortstop, is a troubled, 13-year-old juvenile delinquent. Abandoned on the doorstep of the Lakeside Home for Boys when he was three years old, he's now considered a "lifer," a permanent ward of the state. His only proof that he once belonged to somebody...
| Author | Nancy Bo Flood |
| ISBN | 1590786610 |
On the island of Saipan, in the South Pacific, the second world war is a distant idea. The Japanese have governed the island for twenty-five years and they mix regularly with the native islanders. Though no one questions who holds power, the two peoples coexist peacefully.
Joseph has known...
| Author | Angela Johnson |
| ISBN | 0142405442 |
How do you use the gift of a heart which isn't yours? How does one beg the most important question when they couldn't stand to hear the answer either way?
Bird is a leisurely-paced novella that centers around three teens who all are still coping with tragedies faded but still visible - divorce,...
| Author | Guy Burt |
| ISBN | 0345446593 |
In a dark room of a dilapidated house, as a storm rages outside, Matthew lights a candle and places it in the center of the floor. Its light spreads across the wall and illuminates Sophie, tied up in a chair facing him. She is frightened, fearful of what he might do next. But for now, it seems, all Matthew wants...
