Sooner or Later


Bruce Hart - 1983
    Thirteen-year-old Jessie Walters experiences her first feelings of love when she meets a seventeen-year-old musician but she feels she must lie about her age to him.

The Fortunes of Indigo Skye


Deb Caletti - 2008
     Eighteen-year-old Indigo Skye feels like she has it all - a waitress job she loves, an adorable refrigerator-delivery-guy boyfriend, and a home life that's slightly crazed but rich in love. Until a mysterious man at the restaurant leaves her a 2.5 million-dollar tip, and her life as she knew it is transformed. At first its amazing: a hot new car, enormous flat-screen TV, and presents for everyone she cares about. She laughs off the warnings that money changes people, that they come to rely on what they have instead of who they are. Because it won't happen...not to her. Or will it? What do you do when you can buy anything your heart desires -- but what your heart desires can't be bought? This is the story of a girl who gets rich, gets lost, and ultimately finds her way back - if not to where she started, then to where she can start again.

If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince?


Melissa Kantor - 2005
    Evil stepsisters? Check. Miserable life? Check.Lucy Norton’s life has all the makings of a Cinderella story. Her dad’s always away on business, leaving Lucy with her cruel stepmother and bratty stepsisters. She’s burdened with chores, and has a hard time fitting in at her new school. So when she sees Connor Pearson, the star player on the varsity basketball team, Lucy hopes her destiny has finally changed. With everything else going on in her life, doesn’t she at least deserve to get the handsome prince?Melissa Kantor’s enchanting novel proves that sometimes the happy ending isn’t quite the one you’d expect. Lucy’s about to discover the truth about finding her real Prince Charming… and finding herself.

Stargirl


Jerry Spinelli - 2000
    Ages 12+Leo Borlock follows the unspoken rule at Mica Area High School: don't stand out--under any circumstances! Then Stargirl arrives at Mica High and everything changes--for Leo and for the entire school. After 15 years of home schooling, Stargirl bursts into tenth grade in an explosion of color and a clatter of ukulele music, enchanting the Mica student body.But the delicate scales of popularity suddenly shift, and Stargirl is shunned for everything that makes her different. Somewhere in the midst of Stargirl's arrival and rise and fall, normal Leo Borlock has tumbled into love with her.In a celebration of nonconformity, Jerry Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity--and the thrill and inspiration of first love.

Owl in Love


Patrice Kindl - 1993
    Lindstrom, my science teacher. I found out where he lives and every night I perch on a tree branch outside his bedroom window and watch him sleep. He sleeps in his underwear: Fruit of the Loom, size 34. Owl Tycho, the shape-shifting daughter of "simple witches", is a high school student by day and owl by night. When her nightly vigil over her science teacher is interrupted by the appearance of a mysterious, starving, wild-eyed boy and the inept behavior of a new owl, she soon finds her affections beginning to shift.

April Fools (Point Horror, #7)


Richie Tankersley Cusick - 1990
    When no one appears to have survived, the three friends vow not to admit they were there. Then the sick pranks begin, and Belinda must discover the truth to save their lives!

Elsewhere


Gabrielle Zevin - 2005
    It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It's quiet and peaceful. You can't get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere's museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe's psychiatric practice.Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver's license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she's dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn't want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward?This moving, often funny book about grief, death, and loss will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

The Silver Kiss


Annette Curtis Klause - 1990
    Zoe is wary when, in the dead of night, the beautiful yet frightening Simon comes to her house. Simon seems to understand the pain of loneliness and death and Zoe's brooding thoughts of her dying mother.Simon is one of the undead, a vampire, seeking revenge for the gruesome death of his mother three hundred years before. Does Simon dare ask Zoe to help free him from this lifeless chase and its insufferable loneliness?

My Life in Pink & Green


Lisa Greenwald - 2009
    After the local homecoming queen shows up at her family's struggling drugstore with a beauty disaster that Lucy helps to fix, Lucy has a long line of makeover customers for every school dance and bat mitzvah. But all the makeup tips in the world won't help save the pharmacy. If only she could find a way to make the pharmacy the center of town again, a place where people want to spend time, like in the old days. Lucy dreams up a solution that could resuscitate the family business and help the environment, too. But will Lucy's family stop fighting long enough to listen to a seventh-grader?This book is a funny and sweet debut featuring an unforgettable narrator who knows what she wants, whether it's great makeup, a killer business plan, or a better world.

The Key to the Golden Firebird


Maureen Johnson - 2004
    In spite of their differences, the Gold sisters have always been close.When their father dies, everything begins to fall apart. Level-headed May is left to fend for herself (and somehow learn to drive), while her two sisters struggle with their own demons. But the girls learn that while there are a lot of rules for the road, there are no rules when it comes to the heart. Together, they discover the key to moving on -- and it's the key to their father's Pontiac Firebird..

The Baby-Sitter


R.L. Stine - 1989
    First there is the dark and gloomy Hagen house, filling her with dread and horror. Then the crank phone calls start. When she finds a threatening note in her bag, she realizes that this isn't a harmless game.

Summer of My German Soldier


Bette Greene - 1973
    But she never could have imagined that her summer would be so memorable. German prisoners of war have arrived to make their new home in the prison camp in Jenkinsville. To the rest of her town, these prisoners are only Nazis. But to Patty, a young Jewish girl with a turbulent home life, one boy in particular becomes an unlikely friend. Anton relates to Patty in ways that her mother and father never can. But when their forbidden relationship is discovered, will Patty risk her family and town for the understanding and love of one boy?

Summer of Fear


Lois Duncan - 1976
    Everyone else is enchanted by her - including Rachel's boyfriend. But what does Julia really want?

Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood


Meredith Ann Pierce - 2001
    Then, when she challenges the magician who holds her captive, she becomes Green Hannah. Next, she is Golden Hannah traveling through the land, with talking animals and birds by her side. And, finally, Russet Hannah, when she makes the long journey back to where she first grew, and learns her true story. This eagerly anticipated novel, Meredith Ann Pierce's first in five years, is well worth the wait.

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway


Robert Cormier - 1983
    He knows he's different--he's the control subject. Then he uncovers a terrible secret about himself, a secret that drives him to fulfill his and his fellow subjects' ultimate dream. The Bumblebee must fly!