The Tragedy Paper
Tim Macbeth, a seventeen-year-old albino and a recent transfer to the prestigious Irving School, where the motto is “Enter here to be and find a friend.” A friend is the last thing Tim expects or wants—he just hopes to get through his senior year unnoticed. Yet, despite his efforts to blend into the background, he finds himself falling for the quintessential “It” girl, Vanessa Sheller, girlfriend of Irving’s most popular boy. To Tim's surprise, Vanessa is into him, too, but she can kiss her social status goodbye if anyone ever finds out. Tim and Vanessa begin a clandestine romance, but looming over them is the Tragedy Paper, Irving’s version of a senior year thesis, assigned by the school’s least forgiving teacher.
Jumping between viewpoints of the love-struck Tim and Duncan, a current senior about to uncover the truth of Tim and Vanessa, The Tragedy Paper is a compelling tale of forbidden love and the lengths people will go to keep their love
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that The Tragedy Paper has some of the hallmarks of boarding school tales: There's a little drinking, some kissing, a fair amount of social stratification, and a lot of breaking school rules. But it's a pretty gentle book overall, and the much-hyped tragedy revealed at the book's end is more thought-provoking than shocking.
Wintergirls
Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know this is a very, very intense book about the mental and physical pain endured by teens with eating disorders. The two main characters, the "wintergirls" of the title, both have emotional problems that lead to and exacerbate their disorders. The book starts with Cassie dying from repetitive vomiting. The very graphic detail about their physical deterioration as the girls starve themselves is painful to read. Parents may find this award-winning book educational -- not only about the pressures today's teens feel, but also about the way these girls maintain their lies and how others enable them to do so.
Catalyst
Meet Kate Malone-straight-A science and math geek, minister's daughter, ace long-distance runner, new girlfriend (to Mitchell "Early Decision Harvard" Pangborn III), unwilling family caretaker, and emotional avoidance champion. Kate manages her life by organizing it as logically as the periodic table. She can handle it all-or so she thinks. Then, things change as suddenly as a string of chemical reactions; first, the Malones' neighbors get burned out of their own home and move in. Kate has to share her room with her nemesis, Teri Litch, and Teri's little brother. The days are ticking down and she's still waiting to hear from the only college she applied to: MIT. Kate feels that her life is spinning out of her control-and then, something happens that truly blows it all apart. Set in the same community as the remarkable Speak, Catalyst is a novel that will change the way you look at the world.
What Parents Need to Know
This novel serves as a sequel to Speak only because it takes place in the same town. The characters are not the same. There is mild profanity.
The Impossible Knife of Memory
For the past five years, Hayley Kincain and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own.
Will being back home help Andy’s PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over? The Impossible Knife of Memory is Laurie Halse Anderson at her finest: compelling, surprising, and impossible to put down.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that The Impossible Knife of Memory is about a girl living with her father, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq who suffers intense post-traumatic stress disorder. He recalls the horrors of war, including seeing a woman with no face after an explosion and bombing a house full of women and children by mistake. An alcoholic, he's also violent at home, punching the wall, stabbing the furniture, getting in bar fights, and attempting suicide. His daughter, Hayley, remembers him shooting a TV set in a hotel room. There is some profanity and drug experimentation.The bookcould spark thoughtful discussions about veterans and how to best support them and their families.
13 Reasons Why
Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers thirteen cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush who committed suicide two weeks earlier. On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this bestselling novel is about a teen girl's reasons for committing suicide, which she articulates in audio tapes she sends to 13 people, mailing them on the day of her death. The book includes discussion of rape, voyeurism, underage drinking, sexism, revenge, and survivor's guilt. There are messages here about the importance of treating people with kindness -- and of the price of inaction -- that parents and teachers may want to help teen readers think and talk about.
I am the Messenger
Meet Ed Kennedy—underage cabdriver, pathetic cardplayer, and useless at romance. He lives in a shack with his coffee-addicted dog, the Doorman, and he’s hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That’s when the first Ace arrives. That’s when Ed becomes the messenger. . . .
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this book has moderate profanity and some characters drink and smoke excessively. But this well-written book, the winner of the 2003 Australian Children's Book Award for Older Readers, has a sweet message: When the slacker protagonist begins helping others, he finds new meaning in life -- and his relationships with his friends and relatives change. Teens may have fun discussing the book's themes (Is it possible to change otherpeople's lives for the better with simple acts? Is it possible to change your own?).
Looking for Alaska
Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more.
Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.
After. Nothing is ever the same.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this has some controversial points includingprofanity, sex, and smoking, and drug use. However, Michael Cart, former president of the Young Adult Library Services Association and former chair of the Michael L. Printz committee, says in the publisher's discussion guide, "There is nothing gratuitous in this book. Everything in it serves to define character, give style to voice, and develop theme." Indeed, this award-winning book is on many high school reading lists and can help both teachers and parents talk about loss, friendship, and the importance of self-discovery.