Social Issues Books in the Redwood Library (Aug. 2007)
Story Collections
The color of absence: 12 stories about loss and hope. A collection of stories dealing with different kinds of loss experienced by young people.
From one experience to another: award-winning authors share real-life experiences through fiction. My brother's keeper / by Jay Bennett -- The truth about shrks / by Joan Bauer -- A game of war / by Herb Karl -- Hamish Mactavish is eating a bus / by Gordon Korman -- Sunrise over Manaus / by Walter Dean Myers -- No matter what / by Joan Lowery Nixon -- The most important night of Melanie's life / by Richard Peck -- Young blue eyes / by Susan Beth Pfeffer -- A blue moon in a white sky / by Nancy Springer -- Dozens of roses : a story for voices / by Virginia Euwer Wolff -- Klesmer / by Suzanne Fisher Staples -- "White" real estate / by Sharon Dennis Wyeth -- The wedding cake in the middle of the road / by Judith Gorog -- Blue diamond / by Neal Shusterman -- Bikerbiks don't cry / by Avi -- About the authors. A collection of fifteen short stories in which writers including Avi, Jay Bennett, Gordon Korman, Joan Lowery Nixon, and Suzanne Fisher Staples draw upon their own childhood experiences.
Places I never meant to be: original stories by censored writers. Introduction /Judy Blume -- Meeting the mugger / Norma Fox Mazer -- Spear/ Julius Lester -- Going sentimental / Rachel Vail -- Baseball camp / David Klass -- The red dragonfly / Katherine Paterson -- July Saturday / Jacqueline Woodson -- Love and centipedes / Paul Zindel -- Lie, no lie / Chris Lynch -- You come, too, a-ron / Harry Mazer -- Ashes / Susan Beth Pfeffer -- The beast is in the labyrinth / Walter Dean Myers -- Something which is non-existent / Norma Klein. A collection of short stories accompanied by short essays on censorship by twelve authors whose works have been challenged in the past.
Time capsule: short stories about teenagers throughout the twentieth century. Ten stories by such notable authors as Richard Peck, Chris Crutcher, and Chris Lynch, each of which presents the life of a teenager in a different decade of the twentieth century, accompanied by a brief description of the historical and culturalhighlights of that decade.
Novels
Adoff, Jaime. Names will never hurt me. Several high school students relate their feelings about school, themselves, and events as they unfold on the fateful one-year anniversary of the killing of a fellow student.
Agee, James, 1909-1955. A death in the family. The enchanted childhood summer of 1915 suddenly becomes a baffling experience for Rufus Follet when his father dies.
Alcock, Vivien. The trial of Anna Cotman. New to town, Anna is happy to find a friend, even if it is the bossy and quarrelsome Lindy, and is pleased to be allowed to join the secret society run by Lindy's older brother until she commits a "crime" that the society won't forgive.
Alexie, Sherman, 1966-.Reservation blues. Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in 1931, and was murdered seven years later. He reappears in 1992 on the Spokane Indian Reservation and meets Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who starts Coyote Springs, an all-Indian Catholic rock-and-roll band.
Allison, Dorothy. Bastard out of Carolina. Bone confronts poverty, the troubled marriage of her mother and stepfather, and the stigma of being considered "white trash" as she comes of age in South Carolina.
Almagor, Gila. Under the domim tree.Chronicles the joys and troubles experienced by a group of teenagers, mostly Holocaust survivors, living at an Israeli youth settlement in 1953.
Alvarez, Julia. How the García girls lost their accents. Interrelated stories describe the experiences of the four Garcia sisters before and after their family's exile from the Dominican Republic. The novel is set in New York in the 1960s.
Alvarez, Julia. Finding miracles. Fifteen-year-old Milly Kaufman is an average American teenager until Pablo, a new student at her school, inspires her to search for her birth family in his native country.
Anderson, Jodi Lynn. Peaches : a novel. Three teenaged girls from very different backgrounds, thrown together to pick peaches in a Georgia orchard, spend a summer in pursuit of the right boy, the truest of friends, and the perfect peach.
Anderson, Jodi Lynn. The secrets of peaches. Three very different friends, Murphy, Leeda, and Birdie, struggle to cope with the joys and sorrows of love, family, and destiny as their friendship is tested beyond its limits.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year in high school.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Catalyst. Eighteen-year-old Kate, who sometimes chafes at being a preacher's daughter, finds herself losing control in her senior year as she faces difficult neighbors, the possibility that she may not be accepted by the college of her choice, and an unexpected death.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Prom. Eighteen-year-old Ash wants nothing to do with senior prom, but when disaster strikes and her desperate friend, Nat, needs her help to get it back on track, Ash's involvement transforms her life.
Anderson, M. T. Burger Wuss. Hoping to lose his loser image, Anthony plans revenge on a bully which results in a war between two competing fast food restaurants, Burger Queen and O'Dermott's.
Angelou, Maya. I know why the caged bird sings.The author tells of her painful childhood and adolescence, of her growth out of a childhood fantasy that she was an enchanted white girl, and of her self-acceptance. This book contains mature situations and adult language. Abusive human rights violations are portrayed.
Anonymous. Almost lost: the true story of an anonymous teenager's life on the streets. The story of a young man's recovery from depression after leaving home, becoming a member of a gang, and finally being overwhelmed with his seemingly no-way-out situation.
---. Go ask Alice. The purportedly anonymous diary of a girl destroyed by drugs--still relevant after all these years.
---. It happened to Nancy. This is Nancy's own story, taken from her diary. It reveals her personal feelings--from the wonderful romantic fantasies of first love to the nightmare of AIDS.
---. Treacherous love: the diary of an anonymous teenager. Fourteen-year-old Jennie's life's loneliness is temporarily assuaged by her growing relationship with one of her teachers which turns out badly.
Armstrong, William. Sounder. Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage andunderstanding with the help of the devoted dog Sounder.
Arnow, Harriette. The dollmaker. A novel showing a strong human spirit tragically defeated by modern society.
Arrick, Fran. Tunnel vision. After 15-year-old Anthony hangs himself, his family, friends, girlfriend, and a teacher must deal with their feelings of guilt and bewilderment.
Arrick, Fran. Chernowitz! A boy who suffers anti-Semitic abuse at the hands of a classmate during his ninth and tenth grade years plots revenge against his tormentor.
Atkins, Catherine. When Jeff comes home. Sixteen-year-old Jeff, returning home after having been kidnapped and held prisoner for three years, must face his family, friends, and school and the widespread assumption that he engaged in sexual activity with his kidnapper.
Atwood, Margaret. The handmaid's tale. In Gilead, a Christian fundamentalist dystopia, fertile lower-class women serve as birth-mothers for the upper class.
Atwood, Russell. East of A. Detective Payton Sherwood is drawn into a dusk-to-dawn nightmare when he hits the streets of New York City's EastVillage in search of a sixteen-year-old runaway who stripped him of his Rolex watch after he tried to save her from a bunch of bullies.
Auel, Jean M. The clan of the cave bear. An orphaned Cro-Magnon child, adopted into a clan of Neanderthal hunter-gatherers, grows into womanhood and into gradual awareness that her survival is linked to that of humankind.
Auseon, Andrew. Funny little monkey. Arty, an abnormally shortfourteen-year-old boy, enlists the help of a group of students, known at school as the "pathetic losers," to take revenge against his abusive, tall fraternal twin brother.
Averett, Edward. The rhyming season. A senior basketball-player shoulders the hopes of a dying mill town and her bereaved family when she and an eccentric English teacher-coach try to lead their team to state basketball history.
Avi. Nothing but the truth. In ever-widening circles of cause and effect, the story of a ninth-grader who is suspended for humming "The Star-Spangled Banner" when told to remain silent unfolds from multiple perspectives. The story, told through letters, memos, diaries, and news releases, explores the subtle and shifting nature of the "truth." Radical Change.
---. Wolf rider: a tale of terror. After receiving an apparent crank call from a man claiming to have committed murder, fifteen-year-old Andy finds his close relationship with his father crumbling as he struggles to make everyone believe him.
Baldwin, James. If Beale Street could talk. A powerful love story of survival in spite of prejudice and injustice.
Bambara, Toni Cade. Gorilla, my love. Presents fifteen stories with a wide range of characters and scenes shifting between uptown New York and rural North Carolina.
Banks, Russell. Rule of the bone. “Rule of the Bone is Huckleberry Finn transposed to Upstate New York in the ‘90s, the tale of a white boy fleeing his depressed, small-minded hometown. He travels to Jamaica, where he finds emotional sustenance in the company of a ganja-smoking Rastafarian.” People weekly.
Barker, Pat. The man who wasn’t there. Twelve-year-old Colin knows very little about his father, except that he served in the war, so the young boy begins watching every war film he can find to learn more about the man his father might have been.
Bauer, Joan. Rules of the road. Sixteen-year-old Jenna gets a job driving the elderly owner of a chain of successful shoe stores from Chicago to Texas to confront the son who is trying to force her to retire, and along the way Jenna hones her talents as a saleswoman and finds the strength to face her alcoholic father.
---. Backwater. While compiling a genealogy of her family of successful attorneys, sixteen-year-old history buff Ivy Breedlove treks into the mountain wilderness to interview a reclusive aunt with whom she identifies and who in turn helps her to truly know herself and her family.
---. Hope was here. When sixteen-year-old Hope and the aunt who has raised her move from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as waitress and cook in the Welcome Stairways diner, they become involved with the diner owner's political campaign to oust the town's corrupt mayor.
---. Best foot forward. Between school and Al-Anon meetings, Jenna helps Mrs. Gladstone cope with escalating problems that result from the merger of Gladstone Shoes with Shoe Warehouse Corporation, while managing a new employee with a shoplifting record.
Beale, Fleur. I am not Esther. After her mother unexpectedly leaves her with her uncle's family, members of a fanatical Christian cult, Kirby tries to learn what has become of her mother and struggles to cope with the repressiveness of her new surroundings and to maintain her own identity.
Beard, Philip. Dear Zoe. Fifteen-year-old Tess DeNunzio attempts to work through her guilt and grief over the death of her three-year-old half-sister Zoe by writing letters to the child who was struck and killed by a car on September 11, 2001, while Tess was supposed to be watching her.
Beatty, Paul. White boy shuffle. Young poet Gunnar Kaufman becomes the reluctant spokesman of the African-American people when he publishes 1996. Young poet Gunnar Kaufman becomes the reluctant 1996. Young poet Gunnar Kaufman becomes the reluctant spokesman of the African-American people when he publishes his first book "Watermelanin, " and his status is elevated to messiah when he proposes mass suicide as the answer to the plight of all African-Americans.
Beckman, Gunnel. Admission to the feast. Faced with the knowledge that she is dying of leukemia, a nineteen-year-old Swedish girl reviews the important people and events in her life.
Bennett, Cherie. Anne Frank and me. After suffering a concussion while on a class trip to a Holocaust exhibit, Nicole finds herself living the life of a Jewish teenager in Paris during the Nazi occupation.
---. Life in the fat lane. Sixteen-year-old Lara, winner of beauty pageants and Homecoming Queen, is distressed and bewildered when she starts gaining weight and becomes overweight.
Bennett, James W. Plunking Reggie Jackson. High school baseball star Coley Burke tries to deal with an ankle injury, back spasms, a pregnant girlfriend, academic failure, pressure from his father, and the legacy of his dead older brother.
---. Blue Star rapture. While attending a high-profile basketball camp, T.J. begins to re-think both his motivations and his actions in guiding his learning-disabled but athletically-gifted friend through the college recruitment process.
---. The squared circle. Sonny, a university freshman and star basketball player, finds that the pressures of college life, NCAA competition, and an unsettling relationship with his feminist cousin bring up painful memories that he must face before he can decide what is important in his life.
Berg, Elizabeth. Joy school. Katie, still mourning the death of her much-loved mother, is further upset when she must leave her friends to move with her father to Missouri, but then she meets Jimmy, a handsome, decent, married man, and learns about the joys and pain of first love.
---. What we keep. Flying home to visit her mother after thirty-five years out of touch, Ginny Young recalls the summer of 1958 when she and her sisters were girls and the arrival of a mysterious new neighbor sparked dramatic events.
Blacker, Terence. Boy2girl. After the death of his mother, thirteen-year-old Sam comes to live with his cousin; and as a prank, he dresses up as a girl for school.
Blackman, Malorie. Naughts and Crosses. In a world where the pale-skinned Naughts are discriminated against by the politically and socially powerful dark-skinned Crosses, teenagers Callum--a Naught--and Sephy--a Cross--test whether their love is strong enough to survive their society's racism.
Block, Francesca Lia. Echo. Jealous of her perfect mother and ignored by her artist father, Echo seeks attention and healing from a variety of people living in beautiful Los Angeles.
---. The Hanged Man. Having stopped eating after the death of her father, seventeen-year-old Laurel feels herself losing control of her life in the hot, magical world of Los Angeles.
Bloor, Edward. Tangerine. Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives in the shadow of his football hero brother Erik, fights for the right to play soccer despite his near blindness and slowly begins to remember the incident that damaged his eyesight.
Blume, Judy. Tiger eyes. Resettled in the "BombCity" with her mother and brother, Davey Wexler recovers from the shock of her father's death during a holdup of his 7-Eleven store in Atlantic City.
---. Deenie. Deenie's scoliosis ends her mother's modeling dreams for her and both of them must now adjust to the situation.
---. Smart women. Margo and B.B., two divorcees, are friends, and each has a daughter, Sara and Michelle. The story concerns the reactions of these four women when Andrew, B.B.'s ex-husband, hits town.
---. Summer sisters. Victoria Leonard and Caitlin Somers, two girls from very different backgrounds, form a friendship that blooms over the summers spent in Caitlin's privileged world, until heartbreak and betrayal tear them apart.
Bodett, Tom. Norman Tuttle on the Last Frontier : a novel in stories. Episodes in the life of Alaskan teenager, Norman Tuttle, as he grows from ages thirteen to fifteen, falls in love for the first time, and deepens his relationship with his father.
Bohjalian, Christopher A. The buffalo soldier : a novel. Terry and Laura Sheldon lose their 9-year-old twins in a flash flood. After a year of putting their lives back together, the couple, who are unable to have more children, decide to adopt a 10-year-old African American boy.
---. Water witches. In Vermont, dowser Patience Avery is having a busy summer as wells dry up, and conservationists have to fight developers' plans to expand the local ski area and deplete the water table to dangerously low levels.
Bone, Ian. Fat boy saves world Sixteen-year-old Susan Bennett returns home from boarding school to discover her older brother, Neat, who hasn't spoken in eight years, wants to save the world.