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Black Box by Julie Schumacher Elena and her older sister Dora are opposites. Elena is quiet and stoic; Dora is funny and unpredictable, but they are still best friends. After Dora is hospitalized for depression, Elena can't understand why she didn't confide in her. While her parents spend their nights arguing, Elena does her best to cope, finally striking up a quirky relationship with the school bad boy, Jimmy, who says his older brother went through the same thing. Dora returns from the hospital a different person, one who skips class, hoards her pills, and lies to her parents. Elena can't reconcile this new sister with the one she's always known, especially when glimpses of the old Dora surface, but she's determined to save her, even if that means taking responsibility for Dora upon herself. Booklist Starred Review |
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Divergent by Veronica Roth In a future Chicago, 16 year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all. |
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Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires... The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning ... along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames... never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think... and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do! (Summary from author's site) |
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Ghosts of War by Ryan Smithson Smithson experienced the events of 9/11 while in high school and responded by enlisting in the Army Reserve after graduation. Once there, he worked as an equipment operator, and while mortar fire was a regular occurrence, the missions he describes were all about bulldozing berms, filling craters created by IEDs, and convoying lumber. One gruesome section describes salvaging parts from Humvees in which soldiers died. Some of the author's most poignant passages are his descriptions of interactions with Iraqi children. Where he was expecting rock-throwing, he encountered barefoot, dirty children grateful for the water the soldiers gave them. It is these children and the villagers he met that help explain for him the purpose of the war. (Summary from School Library Journal) |
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Harmless by Dana Reinhardt One Friday night, Emma, Anna and Mariah, three best friends are out doing something they shouldn't. They make up a story so they won't get in trouble at home. It seems like the easy way out. What happens next challenges their friendship, their community, their relationships with families, and their sense of themselves. What happens next shows the harm one lie can do. Told in the voices of three girls who must learn
to live with the lies they tell, Harmless is a gripping and provocative novel full of startling turns and surprises. (Summary from author's website.) |
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Never Die Easy by Walter Payton with Don Yaeger "Never die easy. Why run out of bounds and die easy? Make that linebacker pay. It carries into all facets of your life. It's okay to lose, to die, but don't die without trying, without giving it your best." His legacy is towering. Walter Payton—the man they called Sweetness, for the way he ran—remains the most prolific running back in the history of the National Football League, the star of the Chicago Bears' only Super Bowl Championship, eleven times voted the most popular sports figure in Chicago's history. Off the field, he was a devoted father whose charitable foundation benefited tens of thousands of children each year, and who—faced with terminal liver disease—refused to use his celebrity to gain a preferential position for organ donation. Walter Payton was not just a football hero; he was America's hero. Never Die
Easy is Walter Payton's autobiography, told from the heart. Growing up poor in Mississippi, he took up football to get girls' attention, and went on to become a Black College All-American at tiny Jackson State (during which time he was also a finalist in a Soul Train dance contest). Drafted by the Bears in 1975, he predicted that he would last only five years but went on to play thirteen extraordinary seasons, a career earning him regular acknowledgment as one of the greatest players in the history of professional football. And when his playing days were over, he approached business and charity endeavors with the same determination and success he had brought to the football field, always putting first his devotion to friends and family. His ultimate battle with illness truly proved him the champion he always had been and prompted a staggering outpouring of love and support from hundredsof thousands of friends and admirers. (Summary from Follett) |
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Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar Starting high school is never easy. Seniors take your lunch money. Girls you’ve known forever are suddenly beautiful and unattainable.The guys you grew up with are drifting away. And you can never get enough sleep. Could there be a worse time for Scott’s mother to announce she’s pregnant? Scott decides high school would be a lot less overwhelming if it came with a survival manual, so he begins to write down tips for his new sibling. Scott’s chronicle of his first year of bullies, romance, honors classes, and brotherhood is both laugh-out-loud funny and touchingly wise. |
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Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman Most kids have to worry about acne, studying and trying to find a way to get a car-- high school isn't an easy time for anybody! But what would you do if you've not only got to worry about high school, but a father who is a mobster, as well? Trust me, complicated doesn't even begin to cover it! Vince Luca is as straght as they come, a positive throwback in a family of mobsters. He and his dad get along great, when his father is able tot keep the family business away from the family...unfortunately, that isn't an easy thing to do! So Vince is actually sort of used to having to worry about the police and the FBI causing him minor inconveniences. But it isn't the worry of mobsers showing up at his school, or teachers afraid to give him low marks for fear of a contract being put out on them that causes Vince the most headaches, but trying to figure out how to keep the Feds out of his lovelife, especially when the firl he wants to date is the Daughter of an FBI agent! (Summayr from author's website) |
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The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han Some summers are just destined to be pretty. Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer -- they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along. (Summary from Follett TitlePeek) |
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The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima Before he knew about the Roses, fourteen-year-old Jack lived an unremarkable life in the small Ohio town of Trinity. Only the medicine he has to take daily and the thick scar above his heart set him apart from the other high-schoolers.Then one day Jack skips his medicine. Suddenly, he is stronger, fiercer, and more confident than ever before. And it feels great until he loses control of his own strength and nearly kills another player during soccer team tryouts. Soon, Jack learns the startling truth about himself: he is part of the Weirlind, an underground society of magical people who live among us. At the head of this magical society sit the feuding houses of the Red Rose and the White Rose, whose power is determined by playing The Game, a magical tournament in which each house sponsors a warrior to fight to the death. The winning house
rules the Weir. As if his bizarre magical heritage isn't enough, Jack finds out that he's not just another member of Weirlind, he's one of the last of the warriors at a time when both houses are scouting for a player. Jacks performance on the soccer field has alerted the entire magical community to the fact that he's in Trinity. And until one of the houses is declared Jack's official sponsor, there are no limits to what they'll do to get Jack to fight for them. (Summary from Follett Title Peek) |
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What Happened to Cass McBride? by Gail Giles Kyle Kirby has planned a cruel and unusual revenge on Cass McBride, the most popular girl in school, for the death of his brother David. He digs a hole. Drugs Cass. Kidnaps her. Puts her in a box -- underground. He buries her alive. But Kyle makes a fatal error: Cass knows the power of words. She uses fear as her weapon to keep her nemesis talking—and to keep herself breathing during the most harrowing 48 hours of her life. (Summary from Hachette Book Group USA) |