The Dear One

Author

Anna Fienberg

Sixteen-year-old Callisto May feels a deep connection to astronomy, but feels completely alone on planet Earth. Now that she's pregnant, her loneliness is acute. She can't turn to her mother, her father, or even her surfer boyfriend. Only Callisto's little brother loves her unfailingly, but she...

Author	Kate Walker
ISBN	0618111301

“I had a dream about him,” I said.
“The camp bloke?”
“Yeah, last night. I dreamed he came into my room and sat on my bed.”
“And!” Tony’s eyes got wider. Wider than usual.
“He talked about lawnmowers.”
“And!”
“That’s it, he just talked.”
Actually,...

Author	Dana Davidson
ISBN	0786818514

Jason is a basketball star and one of the most popular guys in school. Brainy Kyra isn't, but she doesn't much care what other people think. Under normal circumstances, Jason and Kyra would live in their separate worlds until graduation. But fate intervenes, and the unlikely duo is paired up for a class...

Author	Cynthia D. Grant
ISBN	0679867260

I'm really surprised the summary at the top of Goodreads lays it all about the sexual abuse...I'm sure the metaphoric descriptions throughout the book would be obvious to an adult, but for me, a sheltered 11 year old reading it in 1995, it was a HUGE plot twist (but not the only plot twist) when it was finally...

Author

Alan Sitomer

Theresa Anderson is every kind of smart: too smart-mouthed for her own good, street smart enough to deal with a neighborhood that gets more dangerous every day, and more book smart than anyone knows. But with the example of her super-achieving older brother towering above her, Theresa hasn't even been...

Author	Lenora Adams
ISBN	1416925120

All I can say is that I never thought it would come to this. I never thought I would run away. For some reason I thought you, of all people, would see and know.

Sheree has always been a tough girl, able to take care of herself. Then she finds herself in a situation where she can't. She needs help. She...

Author	Michael Cart
ISBN	0689832036

"More than thirty years ago a pioneering young adult librarian named Margaret A. Edwards protested that 'many adults seem to think that if sex is not mentioned to adolescents, it will go away.' "As succeeding decades have demonstrated, silence is no arbiter of behavior. Not only has sex not gone away,...

Author	Sharon G. Flake
ISBN	0786814055

The book BEGGING FOR CHANGE, by Sharon G. Flake is about a fourteen year old girl named Raspberry. Raspberry is a girl who was living a normal life with her mom and dad, until the day that her parents separated. When her mom and dad separated from each other, Raspberry stayed living with her mother, while...

Author	Connie Rose Porter
ISBN	0618056785

"With authority and grace" (Essence), Imani All Mine tells the story of Tasha, a fourteen-year-old unwed mother of a baby girl. In her ghettoized world where poverty, racism, and danger are daily struggles, Tasha uses her savvy and humor to uncover the good hidden around her. The name she gives her daughter,...

Author	Kathe Koja
ISBN	0374373825

A powerful drama about self-acceptance
Kit Webster is hiding a secret. Carma, his best friend, has already figured it out, and pushes him to audition for the high school play, Talk. When he's cast as the male lead, he expects to escape his own life for a while and become a different person. What he gets...

Author	Rita Williams-Garcia
ISBN	0140385614

When Gayle gets into trouble with her boyfriend, her mother sends the street-smart 14-year-old-and her baby, José, down to Georgia to live with Uncle Luther and his family. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one around except kneesock-wearing, Jesus-praising cousin Cookie. Then Gayle...

Author	Bil Wright
ISBN	1416939954

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. But when Lahni and her mother attend a local church one...

Author	Cynthia Voigt
ISBN	0590467158

This novel covers one day in the life of a girl who is being sexually abused by her adoptive father. Voigt shows well the manipulation, the mother who refuses to see what is happening, and the teacher who refuses to let Tish tell. She shows the jumbled thoughts of the victim, the way the victim uses all the...

Author

Janet McDonald

Raven never expected to be a mother at sixteen. Is she going to be just another high school dropout, a project girl with few prospects? Could be, except Raven has ambition. Still, when is she going to find the time to finish school? Then her older sister tells her about a spelling bee that promises the winner...

Author	Sheila Cole
ISBN	0380725754

In a flash, Valerie's world comes tumbling down. Talented pretty and popular. She was enjoying life and planing her future. She and Peter, the love of her life, were sharing their dreams. Now she and Peter share a problem...

Except it turns out to be Val's problem. Peter says he loves her, but...

Author	Lori Aurelia Williams
ISBN	1416916180

I always did right by Amina even though it was sometimes major difficult to take care of a daughter that I loved with all my heart, but never wanted in the first place.

China Cup Cameron might miss school or fall asleep in class sometimes, but she's trying hard to be a good mother to Amina, her two-year-old...

Author	Brenda Woods
ISBN	0142404187

Emako Blue was supposed to be a star. She was beautiful and good-hearted. She was Monterey's best friend. She was the only girl Jamal cared about, the one who saw through his player act. She was the one who understood the burden of Eddie's family. She was the best singer anyone had ever heard, with a voice...

Author	Ebony Joy Wilkins
ISBN	0545109280

It is a summer that will change everything . . . .

NaTasha has a wonderful life in affluent Park Adams. She fits in, she has friends, and she's a member of the all-white ballet troupe. Being nearly the only African American in her school doesn't bother NaTasha. But it bothers Tilly, NaTasha's spitfire...

Author	Sharon M. Draper
ISBN	0525477209

Sylvia Patterson is shocked and confused when she is asked to be one of the first black students to attend Central High School, which is scheduled to be integrated in September 1957, whether the citizens or governor of Arkansas like it or not. Before Sylvia makes her final decision, smoldering racial...

Author	Tanita S. Davis
ISBN	0375848150

SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD LAINEY DREAMS of becoming a world famous chef one day and maybe even having her own cooking show. (Do you know how many African American female chefs there aren’t? And how many vegetarian chefs have their own shows? The field is wide open for stardom!) But when her best friend—and...

Author

Kalisha Buckhanon

In the same vein of Kalisha Buckhanon’s critically-acclaimed debut novel Upstate, again she shares an emotionally beautiful story about today’s youth that magnifies the unforgettable power of hope and the human spirit.

Buckhanon takes us to Chicago, 1992, and into the life of fifteen-year-old...

Author	Sylvia Olsen
ISBN	1550391429

You are the same girl that came to school last year. They are the same kids. But nothing was the same and I knew it. I had become the girl with a baby.

Jane has always been the good Williams. Her brothers might be high school dropouts and late-night rowdy partiers, but never Jane. Jane never drinks,...

Author	Grace Octavia
ISBN	0758265379

My sister picked this book up first and I though it sounds interesting and it didn’t appear to be one of those drama for drama’s sake books. Plus the author is attending my Alma Mater, so I had to support Ms. Octavia.

Should have Known Better introduces us to Dawn Johnson a devoted wife,...

Author	ReShonda Tate Billingsley
ISBN	1416525629

The third book in an exciting and inspiring new series from national bestselling author ReShonda Tate Billingsley

Only one girl will be chosen....

In the year since Camille, Alexis, Jasmine, and Angel joined Rachel Jackson's church youth group, the four best friends have bonded...