Sherman Alexie.  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Laurie Halse Anderson.  Twisted

After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.

Ibtisam Barakat.  Tasting the Sky:  A Palestinian Childhood

A memoir of a Palestinian woman's childhood experiences during the Six-Day War and its aftermath.

Ishmael Beah.  A Long Way Gone:  Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

In A Long Way Gone Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a riveting story in his own words: how, at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.

Kelly Bingham.  Shark Girl

After a shark attack causes the amputation of her right arm, fifteen-year-old Jane, an aspiring artist, struggles to come to terms with her loss and the changes it imposes on her day-to-day life and her plans for the future.

Kevin Brooks.  Being

At a routine medical exam, young Robert Smith is discovered to have moving metal parts by the doctor, and now he's on the run determined to find out who or what he is.

Rachel Caine.  Glass Houses

College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation. When Claire heads off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new roommates don't show many signs of life, but they'll have Claire's back when the town's deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood.

Deb Caletti.  The Nature of Jade

Seattle high school senior Jade's life is defined by her anxiety disorder and dysfunctional family, until she spies a mysterious boy with a baby who seems to share her fascination with the elephants at a nearby zoo.

Cecil Castellucci.  Beige

Katy, a quiet French Canadian teenager, reluctantly leaves Montréal to spend time with her estranged father, an aging Los Angeles punk rock legend.

Cecil Castellucci.  The Plain Janes

When Jane moves to the suburbs, she thinks her life is over, but she meets three friends who form a club P.L.A.I.N., but can art really save a group of misfits from high school?

Stephen Cole.  Thieves Like Us

A mysterious benefactor hand-picks a group of teen geniuses to follow a set of clues leading to the secrets of everlasting life, secrets which they must steal and for which they risk being killed.

Linda Collison.  Star-crossed

Having been discovered as a stowaway as she tries to reach Barbados in 1760 to claim her father's estate, teenaged English orphan Patricia Kelley struggles to survive by learning to be a ship's doctor and by disguising herself as a man when necessary. Includes glossary of nautical terms.

Ying Change Compestine.  Revolution is Not a Dinner Party

Starting in 1972 when she is nine years old, Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the communists' Cultural Revolution, which empties stores of food, homes of appliances deemed "bourgeois," and people of laughter.

Caroline B. Cooney.  Enter Three Witches

Lady Mary's life is forever changed when her father, Lord Cawdor, betrays the Scottish king and is hanged as a traitor. Now a ward of Lord and Lady Macbeth, she's trapped in a castle with a power-hungry couple who will do anything to get what they want in this retelling of Shakespeare's tragedy.

Chris Crutcher.  Deadline

Given the medical diagnosis of one year to live, high school senior Ben Wolf decides to fulfill his greatest fantasies, ponders his life's purpose and legacy, and converses through dreams with a spiritual guide known as "Hey-Soos."

Deborah Davis.  Not Like You

When she and her mother move once again in order to make a new start, fifteen-year-old Kayla is hopeful that her mother will be able to stop drinking and begin a better life, as she has been promising for years.

James DeVita.  The Silenced

Consigned to a prison-like Youth Training Facility because of her parents' political activities, Marena organizes a resistance movement to combat the restrictive policies of the ruling Zero Tolerance party.

Loretta Ellsworth.  In Search of Mockingbird

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Erin receives her long-dead mother's diary, which reveals that she too revered Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" and wanted to be a writer, and Erin impulsively decides to take the Greyhound bus from St. Paul, Minnesota to Monroeville, Alabama, to visit the reclusive author.

Helen Frost.  The Braid

Two Scottish sisters, living on the western island of Barra in the 1850s, relate, in alternate voices and linked narrative poems, their experiences after their family is forcibly evicted and separated with one sister accompanying their parents and younger siblings to Cape Breton, Canada, and the other staying behind with other family on the small island of Mingulay.

Alma Fullerton.  Walking on Glass

A teenage boy recounts, in a free verse journal, his attempts to come to terms with the realities of his mother's near-death coma.

Marian Hale.  Dark Water Rising

While salvaging and rebuilding in the aftermath of the Galveston flood of 1900, sixteen-year-old Seth proves himself in a way that his previous efforts never could, but he still must face his father man-to-man.

S. A. Harazin.  Blood Brothers

With his best friend on life-support after taking drugs at a party, seventeen-year-old Clay, a medical technician, recalls their long friendship, future plans, and recent disagreement, and tries to figure out who is responsible for the accidental overdose.

Alice Hoffman.  Incantation

During the Spanish Inquisition, sixteen-year-old Estrella, brought up a Catholic, discovers her family's true Jewish identity, and when their secret is betrayed by Estrella's best friend, the consequences are tragic.

Khaled Hosseini.  A Thousand Splendid Suns

Mariam and Laila are born a generation apart but are brought together by war and fate. Together they endure the dangers surrounding them and discover the power of both love and sacrifice.

Hanna Jansen.  Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You

Smoothly translated, this hard-hitting book chronicles the experiences of Jansen's adopted daughter, Jeanne d'Arc Umubyeyi, the sole member of her Tutsi family to survive the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Harriet McBryde Johnson.  Accidents of Nature

Having always prided herself on blending in with "normal" people despite her cerebral palsy, seventeen-year-old Jean begins to question her role in the world while attending a summer camp for children with disabilities.

Maureen Johnson.  Devilish

Jane Jarvis, a senior at a Catholic girl's school in Providence, Rhode Island, tries to save her best friend by making a pact with a demon--in the form of a cupcake-eating, very friendly teenage girl.

Melissa Kantor.  The Breakup Bible

Jennifer thinks she and Max are the perfect couple, until he decides he just wants to be friends.

Lisa Klein.  Ophelia:  A Novel

In a story based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia tells of her life in the court at Elsinore, her love for Prince Hamlet, and her escape from the violence in Denmark.

Gretchen Moran Laskas.  The Miner's Daughter

Sixteen-year-old Willa, living in a Depression-era West Virginia mining town, works hard to help her family, experiences love and friendship, and finds an outlet for her writing when her family becomes part of the Arthurdale, West Virginia, community supported by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Martine Leavitt.  Keturah and Lord Death

When Lord Death comes to claim sixteen-year-old Keturah while she is lost in the King's Forest, she charms him with her story and is granted a twenty-four hour reprieve in which to seek her one true love.

Richard Lewis.  The Killing Sea

A powerful fictional tale of survival and cooperation in the wake of the 2004 tsunami that killed nearly a quarter of a million people and devastated much of the Southeast Asian coastline.

Robert Lipsyte.  Raiders Night

Matt Rydeck, co-captain of his high school football team, endures a traumatic season as he witnesses the rape of a rookie player by teammates and grapples with his own use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Barry Lyga.  The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

A fifteen-year-old "geek" who keeps a list of the high school jocks and others who torment him, and pours his energy into creating a great graphic novel, encounters Kyra, Goth Girl, who helps change his outlook on almost everything, including himself.

Melissa Marr.  Wicked Lovely

Seventeen-year-old Aislinn, who has the rare ability to see faeries, is drawn against her will into a centuries-old battle between the Summer King and the Winter Queen, and the survival of her life, her love, and summer all hang in the balance.

Cormac McCarthy.  The Road

America is a barren landscape of smoldering ashes, devoid of life except for those people still struggling to scratch out some type of existence. Amidst the destruction, a father and his young son walk, always toward the coast, but with no real understanding that circumstances will improve once they arrive. Still they persevere, and their relationship comes to represent goodness in a world that is utterly devastated.

Norah McClintock.  Tell

When his Stepfather Phil is shot dead in an apparent robbery, David becomes the prime suspect. Where was David that night, and what does he know about Phil? David has figured out the truth about his stepfather, and the day his kid brother died. What will it take for him to tell? And how did he know?

Laura & Tom McNeal.  The Decoding of Lana Morris

For sixteen-year-old Lana life is often difficult, with a flirtatious foster father, an ice queen foster mother, a houseful of special needs children to care for, and bullies harrassing her, until the day she ventures into an antique shop and buys a drawing set that may change her life.

Perry Moore.  Hero

Thom Creed, the gay son of a disowned superhero, finds that he, too, has special powers and is asked to join the very League that rejected his father, and it is there that Thom finds other misfits whom he can finally trust.

Kate Morgenroth.  Echo

After Justin witnesses his brother's accidental shooting death, he must live with the repercussions, as the same horrific day seems to happen over and over.

Jaclyn Moriarty.  The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie

Class brain Bindy Mackenzie has alienated her entire high school but when she realizes someone is trying to kill her, she has to make friends in order to get help.

An Na.  Wait for Me

As her senior year in high school approaches, Mina yearns to find her own path in life but working at the family business, taking care of her little sister, and dealing with her mother's impossible expectations are as stifling as the southern California heat, until she falls in love with a man who offers a way out.

Linda  Newbery.  Set in Stone

The alternating narratives of art tutor Samuel Godwin and governess Charlotte Agnew, who work for the wealthy Farrow family in 1898 England, reveal the secrets that almost everyone in the household is hiding.

Gudrun Pausewang.  Dark Hours

Set in the closing days of WWII Germany this is the story of Gisel's 16th birthday. Separated from their pregnant mother while fleeing the Allies' advance Gisel and her younger siblings are trapped in an air raid shelter.

Mal Peet.  Tamar

In England in 1995, fifteen-year-old Tamar, grief-stricken by the puzzling death of her beloved grandfather, slowly begins to uncover the secrets of his life in the Dutch resistance during the last year of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and the climactic events that forever cast a shadow on his life and that of his family.

Jodi Picoult.  Nineteen Minutes

New superior court judge Alex Cormier is assigned to preside over the case of the alleged Sterling High School shooter. Lawyer Jordan McAffee represents Peter--the boy who, on the day of the shooting, was found in the corner of the gymnasium holding a gun to his head with a shaky hand.

Margo Rabb.  Cures for Heartbreak

As she navigates adolescence, ninth-grader Mia must deal with her mother' s recent death and her father's illness while she searches for friendship and love in the world around her.

Laura Resau.  Red Glass

Sixteen-year-old Sophie has been frail and delicate since her premature birth, but discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain.

Darlene Ryan.  Saving Grace

Evie is determined to care for her baby--even if it means kidnapping her.

Lisa Ann Sandell.  Song of the Sparrow

In fifth-century Britain, nine years after the destruction of their home on the island of Shalott brings her to live with her father and brothers in the military encampments of Arthur's army, seventeen-year-old Elaine describes her changing perceptions of war and the people around her as she becomes increasingly involved in the bitter struggle against the invading Saxons.

Lisa Ann Sandell.  The Weight of the Sky

A sixteen-year-old girl travels to Israel to spend the summer on a kibbutz and discovers who she is and what she wants out of life.

Diane Setterfield.  The Thirteenth Tale

A compelling emotional mystery about family secrets and the magic of books and storytelling. A dying writer bids a young bookshop assistant to write her biography.

Nadia Shivack.  Inside Out:  Portrait of an Eating Disorder

In this book the author gives readers a harrowing look inside her battle with anorexia and bulimia through pictures and captions.

Cynthia Leitich Smith.  Tantalize

When multiple murders in Austin, Texas, threaten the grand re-opening of her family's vampire-themed restaurant, seventeen-year-old, orphaned Quincie worries that her best friend-turned-love interest, Keiren, a werewolf-in-training, may be the prime suspect.

Jordan Sonnenblick.  Notes From the Midnight Driver

After being assigned to perform community service at a nursing home, sixteen-year-old Alex befriends a cantankerous old man who has some lessons to impart about jazz guitar playing, love, and forgiveness.

Tim Tharp.  Knights of the Hill Country

In his senior year, high school star linebacker Hampton Greene finally begins to think for himself and discovers that he might be interested in more than just football.

Paul Volponi.  Rucker Park Setup

While playing in a crucial basketball game on the very court where his best friend was murdered, Mackey tries to come to terms with his own part in that murder and decide whether to maintain his silence or tell J.R.'s father and the police what really happened.

Adrienne Maria Vrettos.  Skin

When his parents decide to separate, eighth-grader Donnie watches with horror as the physical condition of his sixteen-year old sister, Karen, deteriorates due to an eating disorder.

Ellen Yeomans.  Rubber Houses

A novel in verse that relates seventeen-year-old Kit's experiences as her younger brother is diagnosed with and dies of cancer and as she withdraws into and gradually emerges from her grief.

Sara Zarr.  Story of a Girl

In the three years since her father caught her in the back seat of a car with an older boy, sixteen-year-old Deanna's life at home and school has been a nightmare, but while dreaming of escaping with her brother and his family, she discovers the power of forgiveness.

Gabrielle Zevin.  Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

After a nasty fall, Naomi realizes that she has no memory of the last four years and finds herself reassessing every aspect of her life.