1. Alexie, S. (2009). The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. Berlin: Cornelsen.
Blog: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian' tells the story of Junior "Arnold" Spirit, a poor and bullied boy, who lives on the Spokane Indian reservation (´rez´) in Wellpinit, Washington, USA. Born with forty-two teeth, very big hands and feet and water on the brain, his life isn't easy at all. His reservation is very poor, most of the Indians, his dad included, try to forget their pain with the help of alcohol - violence and drugs aren't unusual. Therefore he decides to leave his hopeless home and starts a new life at Reardan High, a school for whites where he is the only Indian. The writing of 'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian' is very fluent. It is easy to understand and the informal and funny style makes the actually sad topic more comfortable. Black humor is used in the same way, which really makes the reader laugh. The book shows the life of Indians from a completely unusual side, because it isn't always the romantic, free, traditional life close to nature. Often, reservations like the Spokane Reservation are poor and full of hopeless Indians. Sherman J. Alexie shows this life without future prospects and illustrates this well with his main character Junior. Junior isn't the typical 'hero' of a book and has many problems, wherefore it is easier to identify with him. Furthermore I like the book because it shows the breakthrough of a destiny and tells the reader that even if your life is horrible, you should never give up. The story seems to be closely related to the story of the author; he grew up on the Spokane rez too and changed school to Reardan High. Consequently the story is very natural and realistic. All in all, I like the story very much because the author writes in a great way and the comics help to understand the book. I think, he did a great job, too, because he dealt with big problems, but wrapped it in a beautiful story.
Summary: Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Native American is the school mascot.
Similar Titles:The hate you give by Angie Thomas; The hired girl by Laura Schlitz; Light it up by Kekla Magoon
2. Anderson, L. H. (2006). Speak. Penguin Group.
Blog: A frightening and sobering look at the cruelty and viciousness that pervade much of contemporary high school life, as real as today's headlines. At the end of the summer before she enters high school, Melinda attends a party at which two bad things happen to her. She gets drunk, and she is raped. Shocked and scared, she calls the police, who break up the party and send everyone home. She tells no one of her rape, and the other students, even her best friends, turn against her for mining their good time. By the time school starts, she is completely alone, and utterly desolate. She withdraws more and more into herself, rarely talking, cutting classes, ignoring assignments, and becoming more estranged daily from the world around her. Few people penetrate her shell; one of them is Mr. Freeman, her art teacher, who works with her to help her express what she has so deeply repressed. When the unthinkable happens--the same upperclassman who raped her at the party attacks her again--something within the new Melinda says no, and in repelling her attacker, she becomes whole again. The plot is gripping and the characters are powerfully drawn, but it is its raw and unvarnished look at the dynamics of the high school experience that makes this a novel that will be hard for readers to forget.
Summary: A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year in high school.
Similar Titles:Fault line by Christa Desir; Speak: The graphic novel by Laurie Anderson; Empty by K.M. Walton
3. Behar, R. (2018). Lucky broken girl. Turtleback Books.
Blog: In this novel based on the author’s childhood, Ruthie is just ten years old in 1966 when she arrives in Queens from Cuba with her little brother and parents. Because she only speaks Spanish, she is placed in the fifth-grade “dumb” class. Over the next eight months Ruthie’s English improves, she becomes the neighborhood hopscotch queen, and she’s ready to move out of the remedial class. Life is looking up, but then everything comes crashing down when she breaks her leg in a car accident, requiring a full-body cast. Immobile in bed for almost a year, Ruthie is dependent on her mother for everything, and as the months pass, feelings of anger, loneliness, and despair fill her heart. When her next-door neighbor introduces her to drawing and painting, her attention refocuses and she begins to heal emotionally. As she attempts to learn how to walk again, Ruthie finds that friends, family, and the ability to look beyond the present into the future can help turn her “brokenness” into wholeness. Through an unflinchingly honest first-person narrative, readers are taken through a traumatic period in the author’s life.
Summary: In 1960s New York, fifth-grader Ruthie, a Cuban-Jewish immigrant, must rely on books, art, her family, and friends in her multicultural neighborhood when an accident puts her in a body cast.
Similar Titles: In the country of Queens by Cari Best; City of orphans by Avi; The dream bearer by Walter Dean Myers
4. Garden, N. (2013). Annie on My Mind. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Blog: Liza first comes across Annie singing in a window at the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing. The two girls fall in love, and though Liza holds back for a while, eventually become lovers. Meanwhile back at Liza's stuffy private school in Brooklyn Heights, where she is student council president, she has a silly run-in with the overstrict headmistress for failing to report another girl's ear-piercing session. These two worlds come together when a pair of women teachers go off on vacation, Liza is hired to feed their cats, she and Annie take to hanging out at their house, and another teacher finds them together there, "practically in flagrante delicto." She also finds the double bed and shelf of books, evidence that the two teachers are lesbians as well. There's a trial at school, and though the board eventually declares Liza's behavior her own business, the two teachers are dismissed. Liza, who has half-lied to her parents about the affair, broods for months as a freshman at MIT, but finally accepts her love for Annie and plans a Christmas-vacation reunion. It's a soupy romance, with corny encounters and less-than-subtle characterization of all concerned.
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Liza puts aside her feelings for Annie after the disaster at school, but eventually she allows love to triumph over the ignorance of people.
Similar Titles: The rules for hearts: a family drama by Sara Ryan; Ricochet by Kathryn Berla; Crush by Carrie Mac
5. Klein, L., Leff, C., & Brennan, C. (2019). Celebrate your body. the ultimate puberty book for preteen and teen girls. Emeryville, CA: Rockridge Press.
Blog: Puberty comes with a lot of changes. Celebrate Your Body (And Its Changes, Too ) will help girls understand (and love) their bodies now and as they continue to grow. For many girls, puberty can be an uncertain time. Celebrate Your Body (And Its Changes, Too ) includes everything girls need to know about breasts and bras, their period, hair here and there, feelings and friends, and so much more. This book will guide them as they learn about (and celebrate) their amazing, changing, one-of-a-kind bodies--during puberty and beyond. Among puberty books for girls, Celebrate Your Body offers encouraging support while answering real questions that girls have about puberty. Positive, judgment-free, and medically accurate, this book discusses puberty in a way to which young girls can relate. Celebrate Your Body offers essential insight such as: An overview of puberty that explains what happens, when it happens, and how she'll know. Explanations of changes in body, mood, and relationships--and how to confidently approach these changes that occur in puberty. Practical advice for navigating new situations during puberty--from understanding growth spurts to managing overwhelming emotions to staying safe on social media. Complete with current, accessible medical information, Celebrate Your Body offers a fresh take on this whole "puberty" thing that will leave girls feeling informed, empowered, and ready for the changes that lie ahead.
Summary: Puberty is one of the first signs that you’re growing up―and that’s something to be celebrated. If you’re looking for body-positive puberty books for girls but aren’t sure where to start―Celebrate Your Body 2 provides the support needed to navigate this whole puberty thing with confidence. From bras and braces to budding romantic feelings, this guide stands out among puberty books for girls as you become an expert on everything from pimples to peer pressure. Of all the puberty books for girls, this one will help you discover how your changing body is beautiful, special, and simply on the way to becoming the number one you
Similar Titles:Girl talk by Lizzie Cox; Helloflo: The guide, period by Naama Bloom; Ready, set, grow!: a "what's happening to my body?" book for younger girls by Lynda Madaras
6. Myers, W. D., & Myers, C. (2020). Monster. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press.
Blog: Arrested and charged with murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is writing a screenplay of his ordeal. Interspersed with his handwritten journal entries, Steve's script makes up a novel that in both form and subject guarantees a wide teen audience. Balancing courtroom drama and a sordid jailhouse setting with flashbacks to the robbery that resulted in a shopkeeper's murder, Myers adeptly allows each character to speak for him or herself, leaving readers to judge for themselves the truthfulness of the defendants, witnesses, lawyers, and, most compellingly, Steve himself. Did Steve serve as a lookout for the robbery? Was he in the store at all? Through all the finessing and obfuscation of the trial process, readers will find plenty of evidence for a variety of conflicting opinions. Even Steve's journal leaves plenty of room for interpretation: "I didn't do nothing! I didn't do nothing!" Tailor-made for readers' theater, this book is a natural to get teens reading-and talking.
Summary: While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.
Similar Titles: Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers;Jude by Kate Morgenroth; Monster: a graphic novel by Guy Sims
7. Ness, P. (2008). The knife of never letting go. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.
Blog: Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they can hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him -- something so awful that Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the other females on New World? Propelled by Todd's gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is.
Summary: Todd, one month away from an important birthday, learns all the tough lessons of adulthood when he is forced to flee after discovering a secret near the town where he lives.
Similar Titles:Monsters of men by Patrick Ness; A beautiful friendship by David Weber; Glow by Kathleen Ryan
8. Quintero, I. (2015). Gabi, a girl in pieces. New York: Listening Library.
Blog: Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez has a lot to deal with during her senior year. Her best friend Cindy is pregnant; her other best friend Sebastian just got kicked out of his house for coming out to his strict parents; her meth addict dad is trying to quit, again; and her super religious Tia Bertha is constantly putting a damper on Gabi's love life. In lyrical diary entries peppered with the burgeoning poet's writing, Spanglish, and phone conversations, Quintero gives voice to a complex, not always likable but totally believable teen who struggles to figure out her own place in the world. Believing she's not Mexican enough for her family and not white enough for Berkeley, Gabi still meets every challenge head-on with vulgar humor and raw honesty. In moments, the diary format may come across as clunky, but the choppy delivery feels purposeful. While the narrative is chock-full of issues, they never bog down the story, interwoven with the usual teen trials, from underwhelming first dates to an unabashed treatment of sex, religion, and family strife. The teen isn't all snark; there's still a naivete about whether her father will ever kick his addiction to meth, especially evident in her heartfelt letters to him. When tragedy strikes, readers will mourn with Gabi and connect with her fears about college acceptance and her first sexual experience.
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez chronicles her senior year in high school as she copes with her friend Cindy's pregnancy, her friend Sebastian's coming out, her father's meth habit, her own cravings for food and cute boys, and especially, the poetry that helps forge her identity.
Similar Titles: Plan B by Charnin Symon; Juanita fights the school board by Gloria Velasquez; November blues by Sharon Draper
9. Satrapi, M., & Ripa, M. (2004). Persepolis. New York: Pantheon Books.
Blog: Satrapi's autobiography is a timely and timeless story of a young girl's life under the Islamic Revolution. Descended from the last Emperor of Iran, Satrapi is nine when fundamentalist rebels overthrow the Shah. While Satrapi's radical parents and their community initially welcome the ouster, they soon learn a new brand of totalitarianism is taking over. Satrapi's art is minimal and stark yet often charming and humorous as it depicts the madness around her. She idolizes those who were imprisoned by the Shah, fascinated by their tales of torture, and bonds with her Uncle Anoosh, only to see the new regime imprison and eventually kill him. Thanks to the Iran-Iraq war, neighbors' homes are bombed, playmates are killed and parties are forbidden. Satrapi's parents, who once lived in luxury despite their politics, struggle to educate their daughter. Her father briefly considers fleeing to America, only to realize the price would be too great. "I can become a taxi driver and you a cleaning lady?" he asks his wife. Iron Maiden, Nikes and Michael Jackson become precious symbols of freedom, and eventually Satrapi's rebellious streak puts her in danger, as even educated women are threatened with beatings for improper attire. Despite the grimness, Satrapi never lapses into sensationalism or sentimentality. Skillfully presenting a child's view of war and her own shifting ideals, she also shows quotidian life in Tehran and her family's pride and love for their country despite the tumultuous times.
Summary: Contains black-and-white comic strip images in which the author shares the story of her life in Tehran, Iran, where she lived from ages six to fourteen while the country came under control of the Islamic regime.
Similar Titles: Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi; An Iranian metamorphosis by Mana Nayastani; Tomboy by Liz Prince
10. Reynolds, J., & Kendi, I. X. (2020). Stamped: Racism, antiracism, and you. New York: Little, Brown.
Blog: This is “not a history book,” it chronicles racist ideology, specifically anti-blackness in the U.S., from its genesis to its pernicious manifestations in the present day. In an open, conversational tone, Reynolds makes it clear that anti-black racist ideology in the U.S. has consistently relied on the erronious belief that African people (and black people in general) are “dumb” and “savage,” ideas perpetuated through the written word, other media, and pseudo-science. Using separationist, assimilationist, and anti-racist historical figures, a direct line is drawn throughout U.S history from chattel slavery through the Civil War, Jim Crow, the civil rights era, the war on drugs, and #BlackLivesMatter, with plenty of little-known, compelling, and disturbing details inserted. Readers who want to truly understand how deeply embedded racism is in the very fabric of the U.S., its history, and its systems will come away educated and enlightened. It’s a monumental feat to chronicle in so few pages the history of not only anti-black racism in the U.S., but also assimilationist and anti-racist thought as well. In the process it succeeds at connecting “history directly...to our lives as we live them right this minute.” Worthy of inclusion in every home and in curricula and libraries everywhere. Impressive and much needed
Summary: A timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism--and antiracism--in America This is NOT a history book. This is a book about the here and now. A book to help us better understand why we are where we are. A book about race. The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future. It takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited. Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative written by beloved award-winner Jason Reynolds, this book shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas--and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.
Similar Titles: Howard Zinn on race by Howard Zinn; The N word: who can say it, who shouldn't, and why by Jabari Asim; Bind us apart: how enlightened Americans invented racial segregation by Nicholas Guyatt
11. Thomas, A. (2017). The hate U give. New York, NY: Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Blog: At home in a neighborhood riven with gang strife, Starr Carter, 16, is both the grocer's daughter and an outsider, because she attends private school many miles away. But at Williamson Prep, where she's among a handful of black students, she can't be herself either: no slang, no anger, no attitude. That version of herself-"Williamson Starr"-"doesn't give anyone a reason to call her ghetto." She's already wrestling with what Du Bois called "double consciousness" when she accepts a ride home from Khalil, a childhood friend, who is then pulled over and shot dead by a white cop. Starr's voice commands attention from page one, a conflicted but clear-eyed lens through which debut author Thomas examines Khalil's killing, casual racism at Williamson, and Starr's strained relationship with her white boyfriend. Though Thomas's story is heartbreakingly topical, its greatest strength is in its authentic depiction of a teenage girl, her loving family, and her attempts to reconcile what she knows to be true about their lives with the way those lives are depicted-and completely undervalued-by society at large.
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does-or does not-say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Similar Titles: Rebound by Bob Krech; Light it up by Kekla Magoon; All American boys by Jason Reynolds
