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Titles for Teens
Recommended books for juhior high school students
Contemporary Life • Mystery and Suspense • Sports • Humor
• Adventure and Survival • Historical Fiction • Graphic Novels • Nonfiction
Contemporary Life
Red Kayak
by Priscilla Cummings
Living along the Chesapeake Bay, thirteen-year-old Brady and his two best friends become entangled in a tragedy that tests their friendship and their ideas about right and wrong.
Just Another Day in My Insanely Real Life 
by Barbara Dee
With her father "out of the picture" and her mother working long hours, twelve-year-old Cassie describes her anger and confusion in a journal she is writing for school.
Ethan, Suspended
by Pamela Ehrenberg
After a school suspension and his parents' separation, Ethan is sent to live with his grandparents in Washington, D.C., which is worlds apart from his home in a Philadelphia suburb.
Red Glass
by Laura Resau
Sixteen-year-old Sophie discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain.
Mystery & Suspense
Rat Life
by Tedd Arnold
After becoming friends with a young Vietnam War veteran in 1972, Todd discovers his writing talent and solves a murder mystery.
Deep and Dark and Dangerous: A Ghost Story 
by Mary Downing Hahn
When Ali spends the summer with relatives, she stumbles upon a secret that her mother and aunt have been hiding for over thirty years.
The Mysterious Benedict Society
by Trenton Lee Stewart
Four children pass a series of mind-bending tests and are chosen to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened.
Sports
Football Genius 
by Tim Green
Troy tries to use his ability to predict football plays to help his favorite team, the Atlanta Falcons.
The Big Field
by Mike Lupica
Hutch, a promising baseball player, has to confront his feelings when a new teammate gets the attention of his aloof father.
The Off Season 
by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
D. J. must care for her injured brother and fulfill her responsibilities on the family dairy farm while pursuing her athletic goals.
Peak Insert image
by Roland Smith
A fourteen-year-old boy attempts to be the youngest person to reach the top of Mount Everest.
Humor
How Ya Like Me Now
by Brendan Halpin
After his father dies and his mother goes into rehab, Eddie moves from the suburbs into his cousin's Boston loft and gradually adjusts to being one of the few white kids in a progressive private school.
Schooled
by Gordon Korman
Cap lives on a farm commune, but, after his grandmother's accident, he is sent to a public middle school where he is a target of bullying.
Girl, Barely 15, Flirting for England
by Sue Limb
When her family hosts a French foreign exchange student, Jess Jordan’s life gets complicated.
Adventure & Survival
The Killing Sea 
by Richard Lewis
After the 2004 tsunami in Sumatra, a local teenager joins an American girl on an arduous climb inland where the boy hopes to find his father and the girl seeks a doctor for her brother.
Death Mountain
by Sherry Shahan
Erin and another teenage girl become lost in the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Hurricane
by Terry Trueman
A thirteen-year-old boy in Honduras narrates his account of one of the worst storms to hit the Caribbean.
Historical Fiction
Elijah of Buxton 
by Christopher Paul Curtis
In 1859, eleven-year-old Elijah, the first child born free in a Canadian settlement of former slaves, tries to apprehend a man who has stolen money intended to buy a family’s freedom.
The Wednesday Wars
by Gary D. Schmidt
On Wednesday afternoons in 1967, when all of his classmates are at religious education, a seventh grader and his teacher read Shakespeare together.
Red Moon at Sharpsburg
by Rosemary Wells
Thirteen-year-old India struggles to keep the Civil War from destroying her family and her dream of attending college.
Graphic Novels
Redwall: The Graphic Novel 
by Brian Jacques
illustrated by Bret Blevins
Matthias the mouse must find the courage to defend Redwall Abbey when Cluny the rat’s army attacks.
Amulet: Book One: The Stonekeeper
by Kazu Kibuishi
In a dangerous world of man-eating demons and shadowy enemies, Emily and Navin must learn to control a powerful amulet given to them by their inventor grandfather.
Jellaby
by Kean Soo
When Portia moves to a new neighborhood, she befriends a shy, purple monster whose secrets may help explain the disappearance of her father.
Nonfiction
An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming 
by Al Gore
The former Vice-President examines the future of our planet and offers some actions to help with the problem of global warming.
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Several short, one-person plays feature characters that are 10 to 15 years old and live in or near a thirteenth-century English manor.
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain 
by Peter Sís
The author describes his development as an artist while growing up in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War.
Real Food, Real Fast
by Sam Stern
A teenaged chef re-invents the term “fast food” and provides recipes that can be made quickly and easily.