Laurie Halse Anderson.  Speak

A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year in high school.

Bruce Brooks.  All That Remains

Three novellas explore the effects of death on young lives.

Kevin Brooks.  Lucas

On an isolated English island, fifteen-year-old Caitlin McCann makes the painful journey from adolescence to adulthood through her experiences with a mysterious boy, whose presence has an unsettling effect on the island's inhabitants.

Edwidge Danticat.  Behind the Mountains

Writing in the notebook which her teacher gave her, thirteen-year-old Celiane describes life with her mother and brother in Haiti as well as her experiences in Brooklyn after the family finally immigrates there to be reunited with her father.

James Deem.  3 NB's of Julian Drew

The journals of a troubled fifteen-year-old boy who lives with his father and emotionally and physically abusive stepmother and her children after the death of his own mother years ago.

Alex Flinn.  Breathing Underwater

Sent to counseling for hitting his girlfriend, Caitlin, and ordered to keep a journal, sixteen-year-old Nick recounts his relationship with Caitlin, examines his controlling behavior and anger, and describes living with his abusive father.

Betsy Franco, ed.  Things I Have to Tell You:  Poems and

Writings by Teenage Girls   A collection of poems, stories, and essays written by girls twelve to eighteen years of age and revealing the secrets which enabled them to overcome the challenges they faced.

Betsy Franco, ed.  You Hear Me?  Poems and Writings by

Teenage Boys   An anthology of stories, poems, and essays by adolescent boys on issues that concern them.

John Green.  Looking for Alaska

Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.

Margaret Haddix.  Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey

In the journal she is keeping for English class, sixteen-year-old Tish chronicles the changes in her life when her abusive father returns home after a two-year absence.

John Halliday.  Shooting Monarchs

Macy and Danny, two teenage boys who have both grown up under difficult circumstances, turn out very differently--one becomes a hero, the other a murderer.

Kevin Henkes.  Olive's Ocean

On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.

Francisco Jimenez.  Breaking Through

Having come from Mexico to California ten years ago, fourteen-year-old Francisco is still working in the fields but fighting to improve his life and complete his education.

Angela Johnson.  The First Part Last

Bobby's carefree teenage life changes forever when he becomes a father and must care for his adored baby daughter.

David Klass.  You Don't Know Me

Fourteen-year-old John creates alternative realities in his mind as he tries to deal with his mother's abusive boyfriend, his crush on a beautiful, but shallow classmate and other problems at school.

Carolyn Mackler.  The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round

Things    Feeling like she does not fit in with the other members of her family, who are all thin, brilliant, and good-looking, fifteen-year-old Virginia tries to deal with her self-image, her first physical relationship, and her disillusionment with some of the people closest to her.

Patricia McCormick.  Cut

While confined to a mental hospital, thirteen-year-old Callie slowly comes to understand some of the reasons behind her self-mutilation, and gradually starts to get better.

Kelly McWilliams.  Doormat

Fourteen-year-old Jaime has always been a doormat, but her diary reveals how getting the lead in a school play, finding her first boyfriend, discovering her dream, and helping her best friend cope with being pregnant transform her life.

Walter Dean Myers.  Monster

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.

Blake Nelson.  Rock Star Superstar

When Pete, a talented bass player, moves from playing in the high school jazz band to playing in a popular rock group, he finds the experience exhilarating even as his new fame jeopardizes his relationship with girlfriend Margaret.

Linda Sue Park.  When My Name Was Keoko:  A Novel of Korea

in World War II   With national pride and occasional fear, a brother and sister face the increasingly oppressive occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II, which threatens to suppress Korean culture entirely.

Randy Powell.  Three Clams and an Oyster

During their humorous search to find a fourth player for their flag football team, three high school juniors are forced to examine their long friendship, their individual flaws, and their inability to try new experiences.

Karen Rivers.  The Healing Time of Hickeys

Enter the diary of 16-year-old Haley, who is in her last year of high school. Partway through the year, disaster strikes: Haley gets chickenpox; her best friend won't speak to her; and the object of her affections won't even look at her.

Meg Rosoff.  how i live now

To get away from her pregnant stepmother in New York City, fifteen-year-old Daisy goes to England to stay with her aunt and cousins, with whom she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks out and rips apart the family while devastating the land.

Sonya Sones.  One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother

Dies   Fifteen-year-old Ruby Milliken leaves her best friend, her boyfriend, her aunt, and her mother's grave in Boston and reluctantly flies to Los Angeles to live with her father, a famous movie star who divorced her mother before Ruby was born.

Allan Stratton.  Leslie's Journal

In this novel, Stratton takes us into a teen world that reverberates with the emotion and tension of a relationship gone wrong. Here is a book that examines the adolescent girl's deep need for affirmation as a sexually attractive being and how the drive for that affirmation can lead to unimaginable consequences.

Allan Stratton.  Chanda's Secrets

A girl's struggle amid the African AIDS pandemic, Chanda, is an astonishingly perceptive girl living in the small city of Bonang, a fictional city in Southern Africa. When her youngest sister dies, the first hint of HIV/AIDS emerges, Chanda must confront undercurrents of shame and stigma. Not afraid to explore the horrific realities of AIDS, Chanda's Secrets also captures the enduring strength of loyalty, friendship and family ties. Above all, it is a story about the corrosive nature of secrets and the healing power of truth.

Ellen Emerson White.  The Journal of Patrick Seamus Flaherty,

United States Marine Corps   An eighteen-year-old Marine records in his journal his experiences in Vietnam during the siege of Khe Sanh, 1967-1968. Includes a history of Vietnam, war timeline, glossary, and related military information.

Caroline Alexander.  The Endurance:  Shackleton's Legendary

Antarctic Expedition   In August 1914, the renowned explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton & a crew of 27 set sail for Antarctica, hoping to be the first to cross its icy vastness on foot. Eighty miles short of their destination their ship, Endurance, was trapped, then crushed in the freezing Weddell Sea. The party would be stranded on the floes for 20 months. They would make two near-death attempts to escape by open boat.

Thomas B.  Allen.  George Washington, Spymaster:  How the

Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War    A biography of Revolutionary War general and first President of the United States, George Washington, focusing on his use of spies to gather intelligence that helped the colonies win the war.

Susan Campbell Bartoletti.  Black Potatoes:  The Story of the

Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850   Black Potatoes is the compelling story of men, women, and children who defied landlords and searched empty fields for scraps of harvested vegetables and edible weeds to eat, who walked several miles each day to hard-labor jobs for meager wages and to reach soup kitchens, and who committed crimes just to be sent to jail, where they were assured of a meal. It's the story of children and adults who suffered from starvation, disease, and the loss of family and friends, as well as those who died.

Ann Bausum.  With Courage and Cloth:  Winning the Fight for a

Woman's Right to Vote   It may be hard now to believe that there was ever a day in the United States when women weren't allowed to vote. But winning this right was part of a 72-year struggle on the part of thousands of women that finally culminated with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Ann Bausum gets inside this gripping story with an overview of the larger fight for women's voting rights, from Seneca Falls to state-by-state ballot battles.

Melba Pattillo Beals.  Warriors Don't Cry:  A Searing Memoir of

the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High   Using the diary she kept as a teenager and through news accounts, Melba Pattillo Beals relives the harrowing year when she was selected as one of the first nine students to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.

David Bodanis.  The Secret Family:  Twenty-four Hours Inside

the Mysterious Worlds of Our Minds and Bodies   Extraordinary photography and fascinating text observe what goes on in our minds and bodies through a day of ordinary activities.

Tonya Bolden.  Wake Up Our Souls:  A Celebration of Black

American Artists   Presents a history of African American visual arts and artists from the days of slavery to the present.

James Bradley.  Flags of Our Fathers:  Heroes of Iwo Jima

Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America. In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima-and into history. The son of one of the flag raisers has written a powerful account of six very different men who came together in the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island.

Rick Bragg.  All Over but the Shoutin'

It is the story of a war-haunted, hard-drinking father and a strong-willed, loving mother who struggled to protect her sons from the effects of poverty and ignorance that had constricted her own life. It is the story of the life Bragg was able to carve out for himself on the strength of his mother's encouragement and belief. And it is the story of his attempts to both atone for and avenge the mistakes and cruelties of his past.

David Breashears.  High Exposure:  An Enduring Passion for

Everest and Unforgiving Places   Breashears's passion for climbing began on the cliffs of Boulder, Colorado--and nearly ended on the south side of Everest in 1996.From childhood, Breashears felt irresistibly drawn to the Himalayas' promise of adventure and unforgiving demands on body, mind, and soul. Readers learn of his turbulent early years and his training on the rock before he was dubbed the Kloberdanz Kid.

Michael Capuzzo.  Close to Shore:  The Terrifying Shark Attacks

of 1916

Larry Colton.  Counting Coup:  A True Story of Basketball and

Honor on the Little Big Horn   This work by freelance journalist Colton is a brilliant account of a teenage Native American girl who fought for honor on and off the basketball courts.

Rebecca Carroll.  Sugar in the Raw:  Voices of Young Black Girls

in America   With raw candor, elicited by Rebecca Carroll's perceptive questioning, 15 black women between the ages of 11 and 18, from places as diverse as Brooklyn and Seattle, Alabama and Vermont, speak out about their inner and outer lives. What they say about identity, self-esteem, the role of race in their perceptions and treatment, personal values, and their hopes for the future is both enlightening and moving.

Pat Conroy.  My Losing Season

In My Losing Season Pat Conroy has written an American classic about young men and the bonds they form, about losing and the lessons it imparts, about finding one's voice and one's self in the midst of defeat. And in his trademark language, we see the young Conroy walk from his life as an athlete to the writer the world knows him to be.

Esme Raji Codell.  Educating Esme:  Diary of a Teacher's First

Year   Presents a teacher's humorous yet poignant account of her first year of teaching at an inner-city school in Chicago. She finds herself challenged by incompetent administrators, abusive parents, gangs, and her own insecurities.

Terri Crisp.  Out of Harm's Way:  The Extraordinary True Story

of One Woman's Lifelong Devotion to Animals   Driven to rescue animals from disaster, Terri Crisp has saved the lives of thousands

Chris Crowe.  Getting Away with Murder:  The True Story of the

Emmett Till Case   Presents a true account of the murder of fourteen-year-old, Emmett Till, in Mississippi, in 1955.

Chris Crutcher.  King of the Mild Frontier:  An Ill-Advised

Autobiography    Chris Crutcher, author of young adult novels such as "Ironman" and "Whale Talk," as well as short stories, tells of growing up in Cascade, Idaho, and becoming a writer.

Jim Defede.  The Day the World Came to Town:  9/11 in

Gander, Newfoundland   When thirty-eight jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001, due to the closing of United States airspace, the citizens of this small community were called upon to come to the aid of more than six thousand displaced travelers.

Andie Dominick.  Needles

All her life, Andie Dominick adored her older sister, Denise. She wanted to look like her, talk like her, be her. Unfortunately, she got part of her wish when, at age nine, she was diagnosed with the same disease from which Denise had suffered since age two: juvenile diabetes. In this beautifully written, revelatory, and profoundly affecting memoir, Dominick recounts her transformation from a free-spirited kid who enjoyed giving shots to her stuffed animals with her sister's castaway needles to a life-long patient who must learn to inject herself twice a day.

William Doyle.  An American Insurrection:  James Meredith and

the Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962   In 1962, James Meredith tried to integrate the University of Mississippi and ignited an armed white rebellion. This riveting book recreates the day the country went to war against itself.

Lois Duncan.  Who Killed My Daughter?

The riveting, gut-wrenching story of Duncan's search for her daughter's killer.

Phyllis Raybin Emert.  Mysteries of People and Places:  Strange

Unsolved Mysteries

Barbara Ehrenreich.  Nickel and Dimed:  On (Not) Getting by in

Boom-Time America   Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts.

Timothy Ferris.  Seeing in the Dark:  How Backyard Stargazers

Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril   Seeing in the Dark is a poetic love letter to the skies and a stirring report on the revolution now sweeping amateur astronomy, in which backyard stargazers linked globally by the Internet are exploring deep space and making discoveries worthy of the professionals.

John Fleischman.  Phineas Gage:  A Gruesome but True Story

about Brain Science   Phineas, a railroad construction foreman, was blasting rock near Cavendish, Vermont, in 1848 when a thirteen-pound iron rod was shot through his brain. Miraculously, he survived to live another eleven years and become a textbook case in brain science.

Candace Fleming.  Ben Franklin's Almanac:  Being a True

Account of the Good Gentleman's   Brings together eighteenth century etchings, artifacts, and quotations to create the effect of a scrapbook of the life of Benjamin Franklin.

Dennis Brindell Fradin and Judith Bloom Fradin.  Fight On!  Mary

Church Terrell's Battle for Integration   Profiles the first black Washington, D.C. Board of Education member, who helped to found the NAACP and organized of pickets and boycotts that led to the 1953 Supreme Court decision to integrate D.C. area restaurants.

Russell Freedman.  In Defense of Liberty:  The Story of

America's Bill of Rights   Describes the origins, applications of, and challenges to the ten amendments to the United States Constitution that comprise the Bill of Rights.

Russell Freedman.  The Voice That Challenged a Nation:  Marian

Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights   In the mid-1930s, Marian Anderson was a famed vocalist who had been applauded by European royalty and welcomed at the White House. But, because of her race, she was denied the right to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. This is the story of her resulting involvement in the civil rights movement of the time.

Barbara Freese.  Coal:  A Human History

She traces the history of coal use in Britain, the U.S., and China, and examines the ongoing tension between its creative and destructive capacities, the role it has played in the urbanization, centralization, industrialization, and mechanization of the world, and the severe environmental threat it poses today.

Jack Gantos.  Hole in My Life

The author relates how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer.

Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan.  Andy Warhol:  Prince of Pop

Andy Warhol, the Pittsburgh-bred son of Eastern European immigrants, is well known for his Pop Art masterpieces. But there is more to Warhol than that: he also made films, launched 'Interview' magazine, and forsaw the convergence of art, Hollywood fashion and business as the trend of the future.

Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan.  Runaway Girl:  The Artist

Louise Bourgeois   Introduces the life of renowned modern artist Louise Bourgeois, who is known primarily for her sculptures.

Wilborn Hampton.  September 11, 2001:  Attack on New York

City   Describes the September 11 attacks in the United States and presents several personal stories of tragedy told by New Yorkers who lived through the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Wilborn Hampton.  Meltdown:  A Race Against Nuclear Disaster

at Three Mile Island:  A Reporter's Story   An hour by hour account of the accident at Three Mile Island by a reporter.

Elva Trevino Hart.  Barefoot Heart:  Stories of a Migrant Child

Autobiographical essays about the child of Mexican immigrants gowing in south Texas.

Phillip M.  Hoose.  The Race to Save the Lord God Bird

Tells the story of the ivory-billed woodpecker's extinction in the United States, describing the encounters between this species and humans, and discussing what these encounters have taught us about preserving endangered creatures.

Paul B. Janeczko.  Worlds Afire:  The Hartford Circus Fire of

1944   In this collection of "eyewitness" poems, the excitement and anticipation of attending the circus on July 6, 1944 in Hartford, Connecticut, turns to horror when a fire engulfs the circus tent, killing nearly 180 people, mostly women and children.

Jon Krakauer.  Into Thin Air:  A Personal Account of the Mt.

Everest Disaster   This is the eye-witness account of the May 1996 tragedy on Mount Everest, in which several climbers were killed in a blizzard.

Kobie Kruger.  The Wilderness Family:  At Home with Africa's

Wildlife

Joe Kubert.  Yossel, April 19, 1943:  A Story of the Warsaw

Ghetto Uprising   With rough pencil sketches, fifteen-year-old Yossel chronicles the horrifying events of the Holocaust in the Warsaw Ghetto, culminating in the ill-fated uprising.

James M. McPherson.  Fields of Fury:  The  American Civil War

Examines the events and effects of the American Civil War.

Diane McWhorter.  A Dream of Freedom:  The Civil Rights

Movement from 1954 to 1968   In this history of the modern Civil Rights movement, the author focuses on the monumental events that occurred between 1954 (the year of Brown v. the Board of Education) and 1968 (the year that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated).

Jim Murphy.  An American Plague:  The True and Terrifying

Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793   It's 1793, and there's an invisible killer roaming the streets of Philadelphia. The city's residents are fleeing in fear. This killer has a name--yellow fever --but everything else about it is a mystery. Its cause is unknown and there is no cure. This [book] traces the devastating course of the epidemic.

Jim Murphy.  Inside the Alamo

An overview of the struggle between the Texan settlers and Mexico's General Santa Anna for control of Texas, with a detailed description of the 1836 siege of the Alamo . Includes biographical sketches and quotations of some of those involved.

Walter Dean Myers.  Here in Harlem:  Poems in Many Voices

Acclaimed writer Walter Dean Myers celebrates the people of Harlem with these powerful and soulful first-person poems in the voices of the residents who make up the legendary neighborhood: basketball players, teachers, mail carriers, jazz artists, maids, veterans, nannies, students, and more. Exhilarating and electric, these poems capture the energy and resilience of a neighborhood and a people.

Peter Nelson.  Left for Dead:  A Young Man's Search for Justice

for the USS Indianapolis   Recalls the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis at the end of World War II, the navy cover-up and unfair court martial of the ship's captain, and how a young boy helped the survivors set the record straight fifty-five years later.

Naomi Shihab Nye.  19 Varieties of Gazelle:  Poems of the

Middle East   Naomi Shihab Nye has been writing about being Arab-American, about Jerusalem, about the West Bank, about family all her life. These new and collected poems of the Middle East -- sixty in all -- appear together here for the first time.

Gary Paulsen.  How Angel Peterson Got His Name and Other

Outrageous Tales about Extreme Sports   Author Gary Paulsen relates tales from his youth in a small town in northwestern Minnesota in the late 1940s and early 1950s, such as skiing behind a souped-up car and imitating daredevil Evel Knievel.

Mary Roach.  Stiff:  The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers-some willingly, some unwittingly-have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.

Sharon Robinson.  Promises to Keep:  How Jackie Robinson

Changed America   A biography of baseball legend Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in the major leagues, as told by his daughter.

Elizabeth Partridge.  This Land Was Made for You and Me:  The

Life & Songs of Woody Guthrie   A biography of Woody Guthrie, a singer who wrote over 3,000 folk songs and ballads as he traveled around the United States, including "This Land is Your Land " and "So Long It's Been Good to Know Yuh."

Nathaniel Philbrick.  Revenge of the Whale:  The True Story of

the Whaleship Essex   Recounts the 1820 sinking of the whaleship "Essex" by an enraged sperm whale and how the crew of young men survived against impossible odds.

Ted Rall.  To Afghanistan and Back:  A Graphic Travelogue

When U.S. bombs started raining on the Taliban, Rall jumped on a plane straight to the war zone to get the real story for himself. He provides a decidedly different take on this gritty war. Featuring, as its centerpiece, a 50-page graphic novel travelogue of his experience as a war correspondent, it also includes Rall's articles, cartoons and photos as filed from the front for the Village Voice and syndicated throughout America.

Mark Salzman.  True Notebooks

Chronicles the author's first years teaching at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for Los Angeles's most violent teenage offenders.

Esmeralda Santiago.  Almost a Woman

A poignant coming-of-age tale and a heartfelt immigrant's story, this is Santiago's account of her own triumphant journey from the barrios of Brooklyn to the theaters of Manhattan, into womanhood.

Marjane Satrapi.  Persepolis:  The Story of a Childhood

In graphic novel format, the author describes her youth in revolutionary Iran.  From the overthrow of the Shah to the establishment of the new regime, she witnesses heartbreak and struggle as life changes in her country.