coming of age fiction

Spunky eleven-year-old Wadjda lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with her parents. She desperately wants a bicycle so that she can race her friend Abdullah, even though it is considered improper for girls to ride bikes. Wadjda earns money for her dream bike by selling homemade bracelets and mixtapes of banned music to her classmates. But after she's caught, she's forced to turn over a new leaf (sort of), or risk expulsion from school. Still, Wadjda keeps scheming, and with the bicycle so closely in her sights, she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

"The youngest of three brothers, K just wants to be an all-American boy--shooting hoops with his buddies and riding his Huffy around the San Fernando Valley. But K understands there's something different about himself, a longing that draws him closer to his friends while making him feel more and more alienated. At home, K must navigate another confusing identity: that of the faithful son of Iranian immigrants struggling to survive in the United States. To make his mother proud, he tries to do well in school and help around the apartment, but he worries he is disappointing her. On Friday nights K dutifully attends prayers at the Mosque with his remote and unknowable Baba, whose love and violence will distort K's understanding of what it means to be a man"--Provided by publisher.

Charlie, a freshman in high school, explores the dilemmas of growing up through a collection of letters he sends to an unknown receiver.

Sixteen-year-old Mary Davies always does what she's told and gets good grades in school, so much so, that it's how she identifies herself. However, when one of her homework assignments goes missing with few if any consequences, Mary has an epiphany and decides to take other risks, like asking out cute Mitch who is a bad boy with pink hair and getting to know snarky co-worker Elyse, who is gay. As she discovers newness in both relationships, she comes to understand more about herself and what she wants for her future.

Camille, seventeen, gives up her spot at a prestigious theater camp to drive from Texas to New Mexico to get an abortion, accompanied by her friends Annabelle and Bea.

The story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal, a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

The story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal, a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

Two boys' lives are changed forever when a sinister travelling carnival stops at their Illinois town.

The orphan Pip's terrifying encounter with an escaped convict and his mysterious summons to the house of the wealthy Miss Havisham form the prelude to his "great expectations." How Pip comes into a fortune, what he does with it, and what he discovers through his secret benefactor are the ingredients of his struggle for moral redemption.

Burdened with the dark, dangerous, and seemingly impossible task of locating and destroying Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes, Harry, feeling alone and uncertain about his future, struggles to find the inner strength he needs to follow the path set out before him.