Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl

Author	Ilsa J. Bick
ISBN	0761356878

People in Merit, Wisconsin, always said Jimmy was . . . you know. But people said all sorts of stupid stuff. Nobody really knew anything. Nobody really knew Jimmy.

I guess you could say I knew Jimmy as well as anyone (which was not very well). I knew what scared him. And I knew he had dreams—even...

Author

Sylvia Whitman

This timely, heartrending novel tells the moving story of a friendship between two girls: one an American teen, one a victim of the crisis in Darfur.

Know that there are many words behind the few on this paper...

Fifteen-year-old Nawra lives in Darfur, Sudan, in a camp for refugees...

Author	Anne de Graaf
ISBN	0802854060

Based on true stories of former child soldiers interviewed by the author in Liberia, Son of a Gun describes the journey of a brother and sister, ten-year-old Lucky and eight-year-old Nopi, who are kidnapped from school and forced to become child soldiers.
Lucky and Nopi manage to escape with the...

Author

Tim Tharp

Ceejay has never been pretty or popular, but she knows who she is: she's younger sister to Bobby, the most charming bad boy in town. Bobby's a bit wild, but with his big heart and sense of fun, everybody loves him. And nobody understands Ceejay like Bobby.

Now, Ceejay can't wait for Bobby to return...

Author	Jacqueline Woodson
ISBN	0142405558

3 soft snickerdoodles.

Cover Love: No, but I saw there were several editions of this book and many other great covers.

Why I Wanted to Read This:
My library has a bunch of Jacqueline Woodson books and I keep meaning to read some of them. I saw mention of this one in an article so I went...

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	Darrien Lee
ISBN	1933967714

This week I have started reading '16 Going on 21' by Darrien Lee. So far this book is really intense it jumps straight into the action. Denim and Dré have been friends since they were three years old and it is clear how much they love each other. The only thing in their way is Denim's annoying and overbearing...

Author	C. Leigh Purtill
ISBN	1595141804

Veronica May ("Big Vee") is a bubbly, gorgeous, confident, eighteen-year-old theater actress from Chester, Arizona. She is also two hundred pounds. She puts off college, her life, and her questions about her mother's death twelve years earlier to care for her widowed father. Then Daddy announces...

Author	N. Griffin
ISBN	1442431555

What happens when everything you’ve got to give isn’t enough to save someone you love?

It’s Maine. It’s winter. And it’s FREEZING STINKIN’ COLD! Dinah is wildly worried about her best friend, Skint. He won’t wear a coat. Refuses to wear a coat. It’s twelve degrees out, and...

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	Pete Hautman
ISBN	0763654043

The much-anticipated sequel to The Obsidian Blade transports readers to the terrifying and thrilling world of Lah Lia, the enigmatic girl who changed Tucker Feye’s life.

More than half a millennium in the future, in the shadow of the looming Cydonian Pyramid, a pampered girl named Lah Lia...

Author	Herbie Brennan
ISBN	0062071807

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Faerie Wars Chronicles, Herbie Brennan, comes this heart-pounding middle-grade adventure—think The Da Vinci Code for tweens. Reminiscent of the Percy Jackson and Artemis Fowl series, this edge-of-your-seat thriller involves an ancient curse,...

Author	Maria Padian
ISBN	0375865802

At Maquoit High School, Tom Bouchard has it made: captain and star of the soccer team, boyfriend to one of the prettiest, most popular girls, and third in his class, likely to have his pick of any college, if he ever bothers filling out his applications. But life in his idyllic small Maine town quickly gets...

Author	Marina Budhos
ISBN	1416903526

Jaya, Maria, and Lola are just like the other eighth-grade girls in the wealthy suburb of Meadowbrook, New Jersey. They want to go to the spring dance, they love spending time with their best friends after school, sharing frappés and complaining about the other kids. But there’s one big difference:...

Author	Jill Wolfson
ISBN	0805076697

I haven’t even explained yet about the Knitting Lady. Who is she? How did I wind up on her doorstep? How did I meet the other girls who became my friends—no, they became more than friends—despite the fact that they drove me absolutely crazy.

I need to take a giant step back, return myself...

Author	Fred Hiatt
ISBN	0385742738

A fast-paced contemporary thriller in the vein of James Patterson and Anthony Horowitz set against the bustling backdrop of Hong Kong, Vietnam, and the border of China. This heart-pounding adventure takes place as two teens, an American teenage boy and his friend, a Chinese girl from his Washington,...

Author	Kimberly Reid
ISBN	0758267428

Thanks to skills learned from her undercover-cop mom, Chanti Evans has saved lives and exposed lies at her exclusive private school. But taking down Langdon Prepsters is one thing. Does she have what it takes to go up against hardcore criminals?

After a semester with Langdon’s most rich...

Author	J. Alexander
ISBN	1439149909

How does a six-foot-four, Bronx-born black gay male become Queen of the Catwalk? In one word: attitude. Beloved by millions of fans for his outrageous wit, spot-on critiques, and irrepressible flair, J. Alexander, affectionately known as Miss J, has helped groom hundreds of wannabe models as a runway...

Author	Patti Kim
ISBN	1534419292

Ok Lee knows it’s his responsibility to help pay the bills. With his father gone and his mother working three jobs and still barely making ends meet, there’s really no other choice. If only he could win the cash prize at the school talent contest! But he can’t sing or dance, and has no magic up his sleeves,...

Author

Audrey Couloumbis

It's 1977. 

Fifteen-year old Vinnie isn't having a good year. He's recovering from the worst case of galloping acne his dermatologist's ever seen. His girl moved to California without even saying good-bye. And the ink on his parents divorce papers is barely dry, when his mom announces that...

Author	Sonia Manzano
ISBN	0545621844

The Pura Belpré Honor winner for The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano and one of America's most influential Hispanics--Maria on Sesame Street--delivers a beautifully wrought coming-of-age memoir.

Set in the 1970s in the Bronx, this is the story of a girl with a dream. Emmy Award-winning actress...

Author	Teresa E. Harris
ISBN	0547255195

Treasure’s dad has disappeared and her mom sets out to track him down, leaving twelve-year-old Treasure and her little sister, Tiffany, in small-town Virginia with their eccentric, dictatorial Great-Aunt Grace. GAG (as the girls refer to her) is a terrible cook, she sets off Treasure’s asthma...

Author	Shawn Goodman
ISBN	0385743246

Review originally posted at YA Love

Shawn Goodman’s sophomore release, Kindness for Weakness, made me feel an array of emotions: hope, grief, dismay, and more. I absolutely loved Something Like Hope, so when I featured Kindness for Weakness on Waiting on Wednesday, Shawn offered to send...

Author	Lisa Jahn-Clough
ISBN	0618959610

All dead. No one survived. All dead.

This morbid chant haunts seventeen-year-old Blue as she trudges through the countryside with just the clothes on her back, heading to her childhood home on the ocean. Something absolutely awful has happened, she knows it, but she doesn’t know what. She...

Author	Christopher Grant
ISBN	0375861912

High school freshman Martine (Teenie for short) is a good student, with a bright future ahead of her. She's desperate to be accepted into a prestigious study abroad program in Spain so that she can see what life is like beyond the streets of Brooklyn. She wouldn't mind escaping from her strict (though...