Recommended Reading for Family

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Recommended Reading for Family Consumer
Sciences
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The Torn Skirtby Rebecca Godfrey
At Mt. Douglas (a.k.a. Mt. Drug) High, all the
girls have feathered hair, and the sweet scent of
Love's Baby Soft can't hide the musk of raw
teenage anger, apathy, and desire.. This
challenging novel is not for the timid language
and situations are not sugarcoated.
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Kissing DoorknobsTerry S. Hesser
Fourteen-year-old Tara describes how her
increasingly strange compulsions begin to take
over her life and affect her relationships with
her family and friends.
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Harley, Like A PersonBy Cat Bauer
Fourteen-year-old Harley, an artistic teenager
living with her alcoholic father and angry
mother, suspects that she is adopted and begins a
search for her biological parents.
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Hanging on to Max Margaret Bechard
When his girlfriend decides to give their baby
away, seventeen-year-old Sam is determined to
keep him and raise him alone.
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VanishingBruce Brooks
Eleven-year-old Alice is unwilling to return to
live with her alcoholic mother and her stern
stepfather, so she refuses to eat to the point of
slowly starving herself, in order to remain in
the hospital.
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The House on Mango StreetSandra Cisneros
Here is Sandra Cisnero's greatly admired and
best-selling novel of a young girl growing up in
the Latino section of Chicago.
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Family A NovelJ. California Cooker
In this wise, beguiling, beautiful novel set in
the era of the Civil War, an award-winning
playwright and author paints a haunting portrait
of a woman named Always, born a slave, and four
generations of her African-American family.
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Life is FunnyE.R. Frank
The lives of a number of young people of
different races, economic backgrounds, and family
situations living in Brooklyn, New York, become
intertwined over a seven year period.
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The White Horse Cynthia D. Grant
In her writing for a concerned teacher,
sixteen-year-old Raina reveals her troubles with
a disfunctional family, life on the streets, drug
abuse, and finally an unplanned pregnancy.
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Stoner SpazRonald Koertge
A troubled youth with cerebral palsy struggles
toward self-acceptance with the help of a
drug-addicted young woman.
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The First Part Last
With powerful language and keen insight, Johnson
tells the story of a young man's struggle to
figure out what "the right thing" is and then to
do it. The result is a gripping portrayal of a
single teenage parenthood from the point of view
of a young on the threshold of becoming a man.
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The Blue MirrorKathe Koja
Seventeen-year-old loner Maggy Klass, who
frequently seeks refuge from her alcoholic
mother's apartment by sitting and drawing in a
local cafe, becomes involved in a destructive
relationship with a charismatic homeless youth
named Cole.
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With irreverent humor, insight, and surprising
gravity, Carolyn Mackler creates an endearingly
blunt heroine whose story will speak to every
teen who struggles with family expectations --
and serve as a welcome reminder that the most
impressive achievement is to be true to yourself.

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While confined to a mental hospital,
thirteen-year-old Callie slowly comes to
understand some of the reasons behind her
self-mutilation, and gradually starts to get
better.
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A high school boy comes to terms with his drug
addiction, life with an alcoholic father, and a
younger brother who looks up to him.
Bottled Upby Jay Murray
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Define NormalJulie Anne Peters
When she agrees to meet with Jasmine as a peer
counselor at their middle school, Antonia never
dreams that this girl with the black lipstick and
pierced eyebrow will end up helping her deal with
the serious problems she faces at home and become
a good friend.
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The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
The details of the crime are laid out in the
first few pages from her vantage point in
heaven, Susie Salmon describes how she was
confronted by the murderer one December afternoon
on her way home from school. Lured into an
underground hiding place, she was raped and
killed. But what the reader knows, her family
does not. Anxiously, we keep vigil with Susie,
aching for her grieving family, desperate for the
killer to be found and punished.
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Stuck in NeutralTerry Trueman
Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers
from severe cerebral palsy and cannot function,
relates his perceptions of his life, his family,
and his condition, especially as he believes his
father is planning to kill him.
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Hard LoveEllen Wittlinger
After starting to publish a zine in which he
writes his secret feelings about his lonely life
and his parents' divorce, sixteen-year-old John
meets an unusual girl and begins to develop a
healthier personality.
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The House You Pass on the WayJacqueline Woodson
As the daughter of biracial parents,
fourteen-year-old Staggerlee already feels like
an outsider in her largely African-American
community, and a summer with her cousin Trout
during which both girls question their sexuality,
allows Stagerlee to think about the type of
person she can become.
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I Hadnt Meant to Tell You ThisJacqueline Woodson
Marie, the only black girl in the eighth grade
willing to befriend her white classmate Lena,
discovers that Lena's father is doing horrible
things to her in private.
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Kim Empty InsideBeatrice Sparks
Seventeen-year-old Kim, feeling the pressure of
maintaining an A average to stay on her college
gymnastics team, becomes obsessive about her
weight and develops anorexia.
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Leslies JournalAllan Stratton
In this novel, Stratton takes us into a teen
world that reverberates with the emotion and
tension of a relationship gone wrong. Here is a
book that examines the adolescent girl's deep
need for affirmation as a sexually attractive
being and how the drive for that affirmation can
lead to unimaginable consequences.
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Petey by Ben Mikaelsen
In 1922 Petey, who has cerebral palsy, is
misdiagnosed as an idiot and institutionalized
sixty years later, still in the institution, he
befriends a boy and shares with him the joy of
life.
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