bildungsromans

Sixteen-year-old Chelsea has always been overweight, and now in high school she is being unmercifully teased by other students, and even her mother gives her no support--not even to compliment her beautiful singing voice. In film class she is assigned work on a film with Melody and for the first time she finds someone other than her father who does not criticize her, and finally finds the confidence to try out for the school choir.

Paul is the top high school basketball player coming out of Los Angeles, but the pressure of leading his team through his senior season and choosing a college may be enough to break him.

Told entirely through verse, Skyler Wise tries to escape her run-down neighborhood and her family history of only dating bad boys. Then she meets Cole, a sweet boy with a dangerous reputation who makes her rethink her position, and Skyler realizes she'll do anything to help him even if it means sacrificing her own dreams. But in the end, she learns the consequences of being with the bad boy.

As a freshman at one of the best private high schools in Detroit, Isaiah has earned a spot on the varsity basketball team. But at home his family is falling apart, and he struggles with the feeling that he's lost his street-cred by moving to the suburbs.

When Jason Hart is given the opportunity to intern on a horror movie set for the summer, he has to learn how to work as part of a team in order to succeed.

When the Sudanese civil war reaches his village in 1985, eleven-year-old Salva becomes separated from his family and must walk with other Dinka tribe members through southern Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya in search of safe haven. Based on the life of Salva Dut, who, after emigrating to America in 1996, began a project to dig water wells in Sudan.

Closed off and grieving her best friend, fifteen-year-old overachiever Verdad faces prejudices at school and from her traditional mother, her father's distance since his remarriage, and her attraction to a transgender classmate.

Seventeen-year-old Maya Aziz is caught between her India-born parents' world of college and marrying a suitable Muslim boy and her dream world of film school and dating her classmate Phil when a terrorist attack changes her life.

Justice stays out of trouble and spends his time writing rap lyrics and playing chess in the park. Then his teacher's phone and wallet are stolen, and Justice must prove his innocence before he is wrongly convicted of the crime.

Louise dumps her popular jock boyfriend after he makes some insensitive remarks about his brother's Native American fianc?e without regard for the fact that she is also Native American. As a reporter for her school newspaper, she is working on the story of the year alongside Joey--a story that involves racism, blackmail, and bullying among the cast of the school play--a cast that includes Louise's younger brother.