Cooney, Caroline

A Friend at Midnight

Delacorte, 2006

183 pages

5.6, UG

Cooney’s latest effort is targeted at religious teenaged girls and a true page turner. Sixteen year old Lily lives in New York with her teacher mom, step-dad, and two year old half-brother Nathaniel.  Her sister Rebecca has just left for college, and her eight year old brother Michael has recently gone to live in Baltimore with his father, after much begging.  It is clear from the beginning that the family is church-oriented and very close.   Michael is abandoned at the airport by her father and Lily must cope with the situation.  This is a difficult family conflict which requires a young girl to assume adult responsibilities.

 

Cheaney, J.B.

The Middle of Somewhere

Knopf, 2007

218 pages

5.4 MG 

Veronica, otherwise known as Ronnie, is tired of taking care of her younger brother Gerald (Gee) who has a raging case of hyperactivity.  Then her mother breaks a leg and her grandfather (Pop) shows up, a very unusual circumstance.  He is talked into taking Ronnie and Gee on a trip to Kansas, a short trip from their home in Missouri, where he is going in his RV to do a series of experiments on wind power.  However, Ronnie ends up taking care of Gee most of the time and Gee spends his time becoming enamored of a large dog and a daredevil named Cannonball Paul.

 

Creech, Sharon

Replay

Joanna Cotler, 2005

240 pages

Leonardo has an older sister and two younger brothers, so he often feels like a "sardine" between the two age groups. He gets the part of an Old Crone in the school play and matures during the process getting to know himself better while realizing the continuity of life.

 

Crutcher, Chris

Sledding Hill

Greenwillow, 2005

240 pages

Eddie Proffit, 14, has recently lost his father and his best friend in tragic accidents. He's having trouble coping and trouble in school. Enter Billy, recently deceased friend, who decides to keep an eye on Eddie from the beyond. Crutcher has some fun while dealing with serious issues of death, censorship, and fundamentalist religion.

 

Cummings, Priscilla

Red Kayak

Dutton, 2004 

208 pages 

Brady is having serious problem with his conscience.  He and his friends see a Red Kayak going towards dangerous tides and do nothing to warn it because they know that it belongs to a rich man who has recently thrown them off of his property.  Then they find out that the man's wife and young son were in the kayak and were capsized because they didn't warn them.  Brady is consumed with guilt.

 

Curtis, Christopher

Bud, Not Buddy

Delacorte, 1999

256 pages

Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

 

Day, Karen

Tall Tales

Wendy Lamb, 2007

229 pages

3.5 MG

Meg has just moved again to another town because her father is an alcoholic and her family is dysfunctional.  She is tired of hiding her secret from everyone and tired of having no friends.  She tells tall tales about her family to hide her real situation.  Then Grace, a real friend comes along along and finally she begins to feel as if there is someone to whom she can confide.  But can she trust even her best friend?  Can she trust anyone with this dark secret?  This is a fine coming of age story about a girl learning about trust and truth. 

 

DeFelice, Cynthia

The Missing Manatee

Farrarr, Straus and Giroux, 2005

181 pages

4.9 MG

Skeet finds a dead manatee shot through the head and floating in the water while he is riding in his skiff off the Florida coast where he lives.  He knows that a manatee would never hurt anyone and that they are the most gentle of creatures.  He reports the incident to the sheriff, but when he goes back to investigate, the body of the manatee is gone.  Skeet feels he must find out who did this terrible thing.  This is a coming of age book in which a boy learns that things are never as simple as they seem  and that you must always look for the best in people.

 

Deuker, Carl

Runner

Houghton Mifflin, 2005

224 pages

Chance's father is an alcoholic and the two of them live on a boat in Shilshoal Bay near Seattle. He goes to a school where all the kids except him are wealthy, even the girl he would like to date. When he is offered a job running packages from one place to another for lots of money, he takes it, even though he knows it is probably illegal.

 

Gantos, Jack

I Am Not Joey Pigza

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007

216 pages

5.3 MG 

Joey and his mom are doing okay since his day left before he was born, but then dad shows up on the doorstep with a new name and a new personality and lots of money he won on the lottery.  He wants Joey and mom to take new names too.  Joey is confused.  Has dad really changed?  Who is Joey now...Joey Pigza or Freddie Heinz as his father wants him to be?  This is another hilarious novel full of pathos from Gantos.

 

Gantos, Jack

Joey Pigza Loses Control

Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2000

208 pages

Joey has his ADD under control with meds. Dad believes he can kick it just the way he kicked his alcoholism, cold turkey, so he flushes Joey's meds. Then the old Joey, the wired one starts to come back.

 

Giff, Patricia Reilly

Eleven

Wendy Lamb, 2008

165 pages

Sam lives with his Grandfather, Mac, but begins to believe that he might be a missing boy whose picture he finds in an old newspaper clipping.  He tries to solve the mystery of his past with the help of his friend Caroline.

 

Giff, Patricia Reilly

Pictures of Hollis Woods

Wendy Lamb, 2002

176 pages

Hollis Woods runs away from foster homes but finally finds a home with Josie Cahill, a retired art teacher. Josie is becoming more forgetful which worries Hollis, a talented artist who draws her "perfect" family, the ones she stayed with before Josie, in her sketchbook.

 

Hite, Sid

Hole in the World

Scholastic, 2001

208 pages

Paul tells a lie and is sent to live with relatives on a rural farm in Virginia for the summer. He comes to know himself better through intense physical labor, the haunting soul of a former employee who had died of cancer, and the simple honesty of the people around him.

 

Holm, Jennifer

Penny from Heaven

Random House, 2007

256 pages

4.0 MG

Penny lives with her mom and her mom's parents, whom she calls Pop-Pop and Me-Me.  Her dad died when she was little and she doesn't remember him.  Her father's family is a huge Italian one, and she loves to spend time with them because them laugh, eat, are boisterous, and seem like more fun than her mom's small family.  But there is a secret about her father's death that no one will talk about.

 

Johnson, Angela

First Part Last

Simon & Schuster, 2003

144 pages

Bobby at 16 was told by Nia that he was going to be a father. This story of teen pregnancy is told in the words of the father. It is for that reason, and for its heartbreaking ending, very unique in the field.

 

Key, Watt

Alabama Moon

Farrar Straus Giroux, 2006

294 pages

It is 1980 and ten year old Moon Blake has always lived deep in the forest with Pap ever since he can remember. Now Pap has died, Moon has put him in the old wheel barrow they use for carrying things, transported him to the top of the bluff, and buried him next to his mother.  Will Moon survive on his own with the wilderness skills Pap taught him?

 

Konigsburg, E. L.

Silent to the Bone

Atheneum, 2000

272 pages

Branwell stopped speaking on 11/25 at 2:43 p.m. He called 911 to report that his baby sister was not breathing, but could not speak. The au pair came on the line and said that Branwell had dropped the baby and shaken her. He was sent to the juvenile behavior center while Nikki, his baby sister lay in a coma in the hospital.

 

Lord, Cynthia

Rules

Scholastic, 2006

200 pages

Catherine just wants to live a normal life, but her autistic brother David makes that nearly impossible.  How can she balance her love for him on the one side with her frustration and embarrassment on the other?  David needs constant rules to remember what to do in life.  What are the rules by which Catherine can run her own life?

 

Lupica, Mike

Miracle on 49th Street

Philomel, 2006

246 pages

4.7, MG

Molly's mom has just died and she wants her dad, whom she has never known, to accept her.  However, he is a very famous basketball player and appears to have no room in his life for anything except fame and basketball.

 

Mikaelsen, Ben

Touching Spirit Bear

HarperCollins, 2001

256 pages

Cole is an angry teen whose parents are wealthy and usually able to get him out of his scrapes. He beats in the face of a fellow student doing brain damage and comes before the "Circle of Justice" as a last resort. He is sent to a remote island off the coast of Alaska where he meets and is mauled by a legendary white bear.

 

Mourlevat, Jean-Claude (Translated from the French by Y. Maudet)

The Pull of the Ocean

Delacorte, 2006

190 pages

4.4, MG

Yann and his six brothers (three sets of twins) leave an abusive home heading west for the ocean.  Along the way they meet many kind (and some not so kind) people.  This book is based on the fable of Tom Thumb by Charles Perrault.

 

Nolan, Han

Summer of Kings

Harcourt, 2006

352 pages

It is 1963 and Esther and her family live in NYC. They take in a young 18 year old African American, the son of her mother's old childhood friend. He has been accused of murdering a white man in the South, and he's a supporter of Malcolm X and the nation of Islam. Esther tries to understand him by reading James Baldwin, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King. She persuades her family to take part in the 1963 march on Washington.

 

Nuzum, K.A.

Small White Scar, A

Joanna Cotler, 2006

180 pages

Will and Denny are twins but Denny is retarded.  Will has always had to take care of him.  Now that Will is 17, he wants a life of his own and is starting to resent his slower brother's attachment to him.  He wants to compete in a rodeo and work on a ranch.  The setting is 1940 Colorado.

 

Pearsall, Shelley

All of the Above

Little, Brown, 2006

256 pages

5.3 MG

Four inner city kids and their math teacher attempt to build a tetrahedron big enough to get them into the Guinness Book of World Records.  As they work on the project, they learn about themselves, goals, team work, and perseverance.  

 

Philbrick, Rodman

Young Man and the Sea

Blue Sky, 2004

192 pages

4.5 MG

Skiff's dad has been lying on the couch drinking since his mom died.  All he wants is to go fishing on their boat off the Maine coast.  But then the boat sinks from lack of repair.  Can Skiff repair the boat and land the big one that will save his family?

 

Stauffacher, Sue

Harry Sue

Knopf, 2005

281 pages

Eleven year old Harry Sue is trying to become a criminal so she can get thrown into prison and find her mother.  Her father threw her out of a window when she was five, so he is long gone into the prison system.  Mom is in for making meth in the home.  Harry sue is entrusted to the miserable care of her grandmother who runs a terrible daycare center.  She is a survivor with an alarmingly soft heart, too soft for a criminal.

 

Tolan, Stephanie

Surviving the Applewhites

HarperCollins, 2002

224 pages

Jake Semple is thirteen and has been thrown out of school in Rhode Island.  He is in the care of his grandfather because his parents are in prison for selling marijuana to an undercover agent.  After being thrown out of school in South Carolina, the only place that will take him is Wit's End, the farm run by the Applewhites who are sure there is good inside him somewhere.