Forever by Judy Blume

New Year, new beginnings, new love…for Katherine and Michael who meet for the first time on New Year’s Eve in the 1970s. Over the following months Katherine changes everything for Michael. Nothing matters but being with him. Then comes summer and separation…will their love last Forever?

Blume, Judy. Forever: A Novel. Scarsdale, N.Y: Bradbury Press, 1975. Print.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

"Do I disturb the universe?"

Jerry learns that every action has its consequences, when he dares to defy the powers that control Trinity Prep. Searching for meaning in his life after his mother's death, Jerry must summon every ounce of courage to say "no" to Brother Lean and the Vigils when forced to sell Brother Leon’s chocolates and finds himself in the middle of a battle of The Chocolate War.

Cormier, Robert. The Chocolate War: A Novel. New York: Pantheon Books, 1974. Print.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

"I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy." (p. 1)

So says Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye as he begins the tale of his descent into a nervous breakdown that goes almost completely unnoticed by the people around him who are supposed to care about the 16 year old boy dealing with the death of his younger brother in 1950s NYC. See if you would miss the signs of inevitable mental collapse as you read The Catcher in the Rye.

Salinger, J D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951. Print.

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Ponyboy is a 14 year old orphan from the wrong side of the tracks. He and his brothers are part of a gang called the Greasers who arch nemeses are a rival gang of rich kids called the Socs. One night Ponyboy and a friend have a run-in with the Socs and things go too far. Will Ponyboy be able to rectify things or will he forever be one of The Outsiders?

Hinton, S E. The Outsiders. New York: Viking Press, 1967. Print.

Weetzie Bat by Francesca L. Block

Weetzie Bat and Dirk are joined at the hip. But, Dirk and Weetzie Bat don’t want to be each other’s one and only. They each want their own “duck”. Find out what a “duck” is and how Weetzie Bat and Dirk find theirs in this engaging story of love and friendship.

Block, Francesca L. Weetzie Bat. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Print.

Beowulf by Seamus Heaney

Like a myth out of legend comes Beowulf to avenge the kingdom out of King Hrothgar and save his men from the nightly ravages of a beast called Grendel. Many have tried and all have failed to bring this terrible creature to justice. Will Beowulf be the one to save King Hrothgar’s kingdom and triumph where do many have failed or will he lay down his life as so many brave men before him did. Read Beowulf and find out!

Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000. Print.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Meg Murray, her brother Charles Wallace, and her friend Calvin O’Keefe are transported on an voyage through time and space to rescue her father, an atomic physicist, who is being held by an evil brain called IT on a planet far away. What is the one thing that Meg has that IT doesn’t have that will help her save her family? Find out in A Wrinkle in Time.

L'Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1962. Print.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Esperanza lives in the poorest corner of her city and she dreams of escaping it. As Esperanza grows from childhood to young womanhood in her dangerous Latin-American neighborhood she learns about herself by learning about the members of her community, from Gil who runs the used junk store to Sally, Esperanza’s role model. Once she knows herself will she still want to escape The House on Mango Street?

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Print.

Rapunzel's Revenge by Hale, Hale, and Hale

Once upon a time there lived a little girl named Rapunzel and her mother or at least the woman that she thought was her mother. The little girl and her mother lived in a beautiful house surrounded by a great wall. The only things that bothered the little girl were a dream that she had about another family that loved and missed her…and the wall.

Find out what happens when Rapunzel uses her hair as a lasso to get to the other side of the wall and see if she has to take Rapunzel’s Revenge.

Hale, Shannon, Dean Hale, and Nathan Hale. Rapunzel's Revenge. New York, N.Y: Bloomsbury, 2008. Print.

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

Streetwise, smart, and tough Winter Santiaga is the daughter of a Brooklyn drug kingpin. She and her sisters have grown up used to a life of luxury afforded by her father's protective but lavish attentions on them. The life all comes crashing down around them when her father is arrested and locked up and the government takes all the family's money and possessions. How will they all survive The Coldest Winter Ever?

Souljah, Sister . The Coldest Winter Ever: A Novel. New York: Pocket Books, 1999. Print.

Gossip Girl by C. Von Ziegesar

“She was the girl every boy wants and every girl wants to be” and most of the girls aren’t glad when Serena Van Der Woodsen is kicked out of her boarding school and comes back an elite private school in Manhattan. She starts tongues wagging with gossip about why she’s back and soon finds out that the friends she thought she had she doesn’t have. All anyone cares about is “What’s the Gossip Girl?”

Von, Ziegesar C. Gossip Girl. New York, NY: Warner Books, 2002. Print.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Bella has to leave sunny Phoenix. Her mother has remarried and travels a lot with her new husband. So Bella picks up and moves to Forks, Washington, one of the rainiest places on earth. She doesn't really expect too much from the town. She’s spent a lot of time there growing up. But when she begins school, she is drawn to a handsome, almost too handsome, and pale young man. Things might be looking up after all. But Edward and his family have secrets and it is up to Bella to figure out what they are so that she and Edward can spend their Twilight years together.
Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2005. Print.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

America as we know it and its fifty states are gone. In its place is Panem and its twelve districts. Each year one boy and one girl from each of the districts are nominated and sent to the Capitol to participate in a fight to the death. In the competition, known as the Hunger Games, the competitors must kill off each other until only one person is left alive. When Katniss’s sister is selected for the Hunger Games Katniss refuses to let her go and volunteers to take her place. But what Katniss doesn't expect is to become a contender in the games herself. Together with fellow District 12 tribute Peeta, Katniss becomes the one to watch. But who will survive when there can only be one winner? Find out in the Hunger Games.

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008. Print.

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Brown, Jennifer. Hate List. New York: Little, Brown, 2009. Print.

On May 2nd, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, released a barrage of bullets into their school’s Commons. Valerie stopped the massacre and was shot in the process, but with Nick gone she is the only one left to blame for the list she helped Nick create and that he used to kill—a list of all the people that Valerie and Nick hated.

After spending her summer in seclusion Valerie must learn how to navigate alone the world that she and Nick abhorred and figure out how to get off the top of everyone else’s Hate List.

Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger

Wittlinger, Ellen. Parrotfish. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2011. Print.

Angela Katz-McNair is a Boy! Oh, boy! Never comfortable as a girl Angela Katz-McNair decides to cut her hair short, buy some boy’s clothes, and ask everyone to start calling her Grady. Grady never expects his transformation to be as easy as that of the Parrotfish, a species of fish that naturally changes its gender over the span of its life, but he also didn’t think that anyone would be quite as cruel as some of the kids at school. Despite the taunts that Grady faces he manages to come out on top with the help of an initially befuddled family and best friend and the love of the hottest girl in school.

Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks

Go Ask Alice is a controversial 1971 work credited to Beatrice Sparks who claimed that the book was the true diary of one of her troubled, drug-addicted female patients. In the first pages of the book the protagonist, who is never named, is presented as a typical teenager, concerned with her appearance, school, and boys. Soon, though, the girl is introduced to LSD at a party and her journey into the drug world begins. Both sober and straight episodes for the girl follow and the reader is taken along for the wild ride that her life becomes. The story culminates in the girl getting off the drug roller coaster only to overdose and die three weeks after writing her final diary entry.

Go Ask Alice was one of my favorite books as both a preteen and as a teenager and continues to be one of my favorite stories to this day. Although I realize that the book was probably not the diary of one of Beatrice Sparks’ patients but the work of Beatrice Sparks, herself, Go Ask Alice is still a story that sucks you in and makes you hold your breath until it is done. The logic of two sixteen year old girls opening their own store or the rationality of the main character holding on to scraps of paper and keeping her diary intact during her cross country trials seem irrelevant while you read it and become caught up in the train wreck that is the protagonist’s life.

A Child Called It by David Pelzer

Written by David Pelzer, “A Child Called ‘It” chronicles the brutal childhood of its author. Once the loved and cared for child of doting parents, for reasons never fully explained, David Pelzer becomes the family pariah, abused unmercifully both physically and emotionally by his mother and in turns ignored and shunned by his father and his brothers. At first David Pelzer sees his elementary school as his shelter from the storm of his mother’s physical and emotional abuse, but, forced to wear the same worn clothing year after year and to steal food from his fellow classmates to feed his starving belly, he soon becomes an outcast in the classroom as well as at home. Finally, when he is in the fifth grade, concerned teachers, a school nurse, and the principal finally come to David Pelzer’s aid and call the police to rescue him from his own private hell.

“A Child Called ‘It” is both heartbreaking and disturbing. How could a mother force her child to eat his own vomit, attempt to burn him on a gas stove, ignore the stab wound she inflicted upon him, and force him to steal and eat food that even the dogs did not want to touch? It is unfathomable, but, according to David Pelzer his mother did all this and more. One of David Pelzer’s brother’s has spoken out and said that the abuse was never as horrible as his brother claims, but child abuse is inexcusable no matter the extent of it.

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli

Milkweed, authored by Jerry Spinelli, is the first-person narrative of a young, orphaned Gypsy boy in Warsaw, Poland, during World War II. First calling himself “Stoptheif” and on his own in the streets of Warsaw stealing bread from rich ladies with fox-fur stoles the boy is soon adopted by a band of orphans headed by a red-headed Jew named Uri. Uri takes “Stoptheif” under his wing and teaches him how to survive in the treacherous times they find themselves in and renames the boy “Misha”. Time passes and Misha and the other orphans, minus Uri, are moved into the Jewish ghetto. With his protector gone, Misha soon earns his place in another family, the Milgroms, by using his “Stoptheif” skills to escape the ghetto in the night and forage for food in war-torn Warsaw.

Milkweed is unique in the historical Young Adult novel genre in that the history is hidden behind the story. The timeline of Milkweed is fluid and references to the specific facts of World War II are few and far between. Instead it is the personal affect on Misha— his run-ins with the Flops, his fright when he cannot squeeze back through the wall and into the ghetto after a night of ransacking the rich homes of Warsaw for rotten food, his frustration with his adopted sister Janina Milgrom who follows in his every footstep, even becoming a smuggler like her brother—that tell the true story of the suffering in Warsaw, Poland during World War II.