Cummings, Priscilla – Red Kayak 2007
Living near the water on Maryland's Eastern Shore, thirteen-year-old Brady and his best friends J.T. and Digger become entangled in a tragedy which tests their friendship and their ideas about right and wrong.
Paolini, Christopher - Eragon 2006
In Aagaesia, a fifteen-year-old boy of unknown lineage called Eragon finds
a mysterious stone that weaves his life into an intricate tapestry
of destiny, magic, and power, peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters.
Farmer, Nancy - The
House of the Scorpion 2005
In a future where humans despise clones,
Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patron, the 142-year-old
leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.
Brashares, Ann - Sisterhood
of the Traveling Pants 2004
The pants were magic--worn, thrift-shop
jeans that made each of the four best friends look absolutely fabulous.
Obviously they were life-changing pants. Thus the plan: route them to each
of the four at their various summer destinations, with appropriate rules
attached, of course, and watch wonderful things happen.
Peters, Julie Ann - Define
Normal 2003
When she agrees to meet with Jasmine as a peer counselor
at their middle school, Antonia never dreams that this girl with the black
lipstick and pierced eyebrow will end up helping her deal with the serious
problems she faces at home and become a good friend.
Anderson, Laurie Halse - Speak 2002
Having broken up an end-of-summer party by calling the police, high-school
freshman Melinda Sordino begins the school year as a social outcast.
She's the only person who knows the real reason behind her call: she was
raped at the party by Andy Evans, a popular senior at her school. Slowly,
with the help of an eccentric and understanding art teacher, she begins to
recover from the trauma, only to find Andy threatening her again.
Sachar, Louis – Holes 2001
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a
curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional
camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure,
and a new sense of himself.
Bitton-Jackson, Olivia - I
Have Lived a Thousand Years 2000
In a graphic present-tense narrative,
this Holocaust memoir describes what happens to a Jewish girl who is 13
when the Nazis invade Hungary in 1944. She tells of a year of roundups,
transports, selections, camps, torture, forced labor, and shootings, then
of liberation and the return of a few.
Klass, David - Danger
Zone 1999
When he joins a predominantly African-American "Teen
Dream Team" that
will be representing the United States in an international basketball
tournament in Rome, Jimmy Doyle makes some unexpected discoveries about
prejudice, racism, and politics.
Haddix, Margaret Peterson - Running
Out of Time 1998
When a diphtheria epidemic hits her 1840 village,
thirteen-year-old Jessie discovers it is actually a 1996 tourist site under
unseen observation by heartless scientists, and it's up to Jessie to escape
the village and save the lives of the dying children.
Creech, Sharon - Walk
Two Moons 1997
After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old
Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route.
Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother
also left.
Lowry, Lois - The
Giver 1996
Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve,
Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his
community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he
lives.
Cooney, Caroline B. - Flight
#116 is Down 1995
Teenager Heidi Landseth helps rescue people from a
plane crash on her family's property, and the experience changes her life
forever.
Shusterman, Neal - What
Daddy Did 1994
A boy tries to answer the question, "How can you
forgive your father for killing someone...when that someone was your mother?" Based
on true events.
Klause, Annette Curtis - The
Silver Kiss 1993
One evening, when 17-year-old Zoe is sitting in the
park contemplating her mother's imminent death due to cancer, her father's
lack of support , and her best friend's move, she meets Simon. Simon is
startlingly handsome and strangely compelling. As their friendship grows
over time, Simon reveals to Zoe his true identity: he is a vampire, trying
to kill his younger vampire brother.
Thesman, Jean - Appointment
with a Stranger 1992
Deeply self-conscious about her severe asthma
attacks, high school student Keller Parrish finds solace in the company
of an attractive but mysterious boy at a remote pond, unaware that he is
an insubstantial echo of a forty-year-old tragedy.
Bunting, Eve - A
Sudden Silence 1991
Jesse Harmon searches for the hit and run driver
who killed his brother Bry.
Paulsen, Gary - Hatchet 1990
After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the
wilderness, learning to survive initially with only the aid of a hatchet
given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.
Nixon, Joan Lowery - The
Other Side of Dark 1989
Seventeen-year-old Stacy awakens from a four-year
coma ready to identify, locate, and prosecute the young man who murdered
her mother and wounded her.
Irwin, Hadley - Abby
My Love 1988
In love since junior high, Chip and Abby finally share
Abby's secret, her father is sexually abusing her.