LibraryAware Teens around the World

Books for Teens

Does my head look big in this?
by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Year eleven at an exclusive prep school in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, would be tough enough, but it is further complicated for Amal when she decides to wear the hijab, the Muslim head scarf, full-time as a badge of her faith--without losing her identity or sense of style.

City of the beasts
by Isabel Allende

While his mother struggles with cancer, fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold goes on an expedition to the Amazon with his reporter grandmother where he comes to learn a great deal about his own strengths while also developing a special bond with Nadia, the daughter of their local guide.

Before we were free
by Julia Alvarez

Noticing that nearly all of her family has left the Dominican Republic for the United States, twelve-year-old Anita begins to question why and quickly comes to understand when her uncle suddenly disappears and her family becomes terrorized by the secret police.

Graffiti knight
by Karen Bass

In post-war Leipzig, teen Wilm feels justified in spray painting messages at night on police buildings in order to voice his displeasure, until one night his actions go too far

The shepherd's granddaughter
by Anne Carter

Having always admired her grandfather's stories, a young Palestinian girl looks to the meadows of the Firdoos to get her sheep the food they need, but when outside forces refuse her passage, Amani turns to her new American friend for help in achieving a peaceful solution to the problem at hand.

Stolen
by Lucy Christopher

Kidnapped from a Bangkok airport by an oddly familiar man, Gemma is carried away to the Australian Outback, where in the sand, heat and isolation she learns that she has been the object of her abductor's long obsession and that he expects her to now fall in love with him.

Alchemy and Meggy Swann
by Karen Cushman

Sent to live with an alchemist father who doesn't want her, physically challenged Meggy is appalled by the noise, dirt and crime of Elizabethan London and works to establish a life for herself and a pet goose with the aid of a pair of walking sticks. By the Newbery-winning author of The Midwife's Apprentice.

Hurricane dancers : the first Caribbean pirate shipwreck
by Margarita Engle

Quebrado has been a slave on captain Bernadino de Talavera's pirate ship for years, but when a hurricane sinks the ship and kills most of the crew, Quebrado escapes to safety and finds acceptance and refuge in a nearby village

A girl named disaster
by Nancy Farmer

Prior to her twelfth birthday, Nhamo, a young orphan, is told she must marry a cruel man in the village and, desperate to escape, runs away in a stolen boat, in which she must struggle to survive the harsh elements of the great lake. Reprint. Newbery Honor Book.

The carnival at Bray
by Jessie Ann Foley

Uprooted from Chicago to rural Ireland, Maggie searches for her place in the country she now calls home before enduring a tragedy that sends her on a pilgrimmage to fulfill her uncle's request

Wanting Mor
by Rukhsana Khan

Based on a true story, Jameela, a young girl living in war-torn Afghanistan, must struggle to find her place in the world after her mother dies and she is moved to Kabul with her drunken father where she clashes with her mean stepmother and ends up in an orphanage run by the same army who was responsible for killing members of her family.

In darkness
by Nick Lake

Trapped in the ruins of a Haitian hospital after a devastating earthquake, young Shorty is terrified by the bodies of victims and dwindling supplies before finding inspiration to rescue himself through the example of revolutionary leader Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Saving Francesca
by Melina Marchetta

Sixteen-year-old Francesca could use her outspoken mother's help with the problems of being one of a handful of girls at a parochial school that has just turned co-ed, but her mother has suddenly become severely depressed. Reprint.

Never fall down : a novel
by Patricia McCormick

Separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp when soldiers invade his home in Cambodia, young Arn volunteers to become a musician for the army and uses his wits to survive and steal food for other child prisoners before he is conscripted as a boy soldier. By the National Book Award finalist author of Sold. 75,000 first printing.

Shizuko's Daughter
by Kyoko Mori

While excelling as a student and athlete, twelve-year-old Japanese girl Yuki Okuda struggles to come to terms with her mother's suicide, her father's coldness, and her stepmother's outright hostility.

A monster calls : a novel
by Patrick Ness

Thirteen-year-old Conor awakens one night to find a monster outside his bedroom window, but not the one from the recurring nightmare that began when his mother became ill, but an ancient, wild creature that wants him to face truth and loss.

Habibi : Naomi Shihab Nye
by Naomi Shihab Nye

When fourteen-year-old Liyana Abboud moves with her family from St. Louis to Jerusalem, she encounters an entirely new life, exploring Jerusalem, making mischief with her brother, and building a relationship with a Jewish boy.

A long walk to water : a novel
by Linda Sue Park

When the Sudanese civil war reaches his village in 1985, 11-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. By a Newbery Medal-winning author.

Monsoon summer
by Mitali Perkins

Forced to accompany her mother to India during summer vacation, Jasmine "Jazz" Gardner, homesick and missing her best friend Steve, unexpectedly discovers the magic of monsoon season when she befriends a troubled girl and volunteers at a local orphanage.

West of the moon
by Margi Preus

Combines original fiction with folktale themes in the story of a young Norwegian girl who makes a desperate escape from slavery and arms herself with magical talismans so that she and her sister can join their father in America.

Beneath my mother's feet
by Amjed Qamar

When her father is injured, fourteen-year-old Nazia is pulled away from school, her friends, and her preparations for an arranged marriage, to help her mother clean houses in a wealthy part of Karachi, Pakistan, where she finally rebels against the destiny that is planned for her.

A girl called Problem
by Katie Quirk

In 1967 Tanzania, when President Nyerere urges his people to work together as one extended family, the people of Litongo move to a new village which, to some, seems cursed, but where thirteen-year-old Shida, a healer, and her female cousins are allowed to attend school. Includes glossary and author's note

The Queen of Water
by Laura Resau

Living in a village in Ecuador, a Quechua Indian girl is sent to work as an indentured servant for an upper class "mestizo" family

Threatened
by Eliot Schrefer

Escaping his jailer by fleeing into the forest with a scientist who is not entirely what he seems, an African street youth helps the scientist with his studies of chimpanzees and must join the chimps to save their habitat from unwelcome intruders. By the author of Endangered.

Keeping corner
by Kashmira Sheth

In India in the 1940s, thirteen-year-old Leela's happy, spoiled childhood ends when her husband since age nine, whom she barely knows, dies, leaving her a widow whose only hope of happiness could come from Mahatma Ghandi's social and political reforms.

Jasper Jones : a novel
by Craig Silvey

In small-town Australia, teens Jasper and Charlie form an unlikely friendship when one asks the other to help him cover up a murder until they can prove who is responsible

Climbing the stairs
by Padma Venkatraman

In India, in 1941, when her father becomes brain-damaged in a non-violent protest march, fifteen-year-old Vidya and her family are forced to move in with her father's extended family and become accustomed to a totally different way of life

The book of blood and shadow
by Robin Wasserman

Her happy life shattered by a nightmarish evening that leaves a friend in a catatonic state, another dead and her boyfriend accused of murder, Nora resolves to prove her boyfriend's innocence and follows a violent trail to Prague, where she discovers a mysterious manuscript that purportedly offers the secret to ultimate knowledge and the ability to communicate with the divine. By the author of the Skinned trilogy.

I rode a horse of milk white jade
by Diane Lee Wilson

In early fourteenth-century China, Oyuna tells her granddaughter of her girlhood in Mongolia and how love for her horse enabled her to win an important race and bring good luck to her family