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Tearjerkers
Books to make you cry, just a little
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Mixed Up
by Gordon Korman
Plagued by strange flashes of memory that don't belong to them while, at the same time, their own memories begin to fade, Reef, who is trying to remember his late mother, and Theo, who discovers a newfound sense of freedom, must discover what's happening before it's too late.
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Farther Than the Moon
by Lindsay Lackey
While attending the Junior Astronaut Recruitment Program, 13-year-old Houston Stewart struggles to meet the program's rigorous demands but is determined to honor the dream of his brother, who has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, even if it seems like an impossible mission.
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Remember Us
by Jacqueline Woodson
During the summer before seventh grade, Sage meets Freddy, a new kid who truly gets her, and together they reflect on missing the things that get left behind as time moves on, living in the moment and supporting each other in times of need.
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Repairing the World
by Linda Epstein
With the help of a new perspective from Hebrew school and supportive new friends, 12-year-old Daisy grapples with her grief over the tragic loss of her best friend, in this heartfelt middle grade novel about learning to look forward.
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Show Us Who You Are
by Elle McNicoll
A neurodivergent twelve-year-old girl is shown an amazing new technology that gives her another chance to talk to the best friend she lost. But she soon discovers the corporation behind the science hides dark secrets that only she can expose in this heartwarming and heroic sophomore novel from the award-winning author of A Kind of Spark.
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Shot Clock
by Caron Butler
When the police officer who killed his best friend, a hoops phenom, is back on the job, Tony, the statistician for the AAU basketball team, must deal with his own grief and help his community heal while leading his team to victory.
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Black Bird, Blue Road
by Sofiya Pasternack
To save her sick twin brother from the Angel of Death by taking him to find doctors who can cure him, Ziva accidentally frees a half-demon boy instead, who leads them to a fabled city where no one dies.
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Jennifer Chan is Not Alone
by Tae Keller
When Jennifer Chan, a new girl who believes she can find aliens, goes missing, Mallory Moss sets out to find her and must figure out why Jennifer might have run and face the truth inside herself.
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Courage: My Story of Persecution
by Freshta Tori Jan
As a girl and as part of an ethnic minority in Afghanistan, Freshta Tori Jan was persecuted relentlessly. Her family faced kidnappings and daily murder attempts on the bus, on the way to school, in the workplace, and beyond. Freshta's school was shut down by the Taliban, and many of her friends were murdered and shot. With a voice that is both accessible and engaging, Freshta brings forward a captivating first-person account of strength, resilience, and determination, and delivers compelling narrative nonfiction by young people, for young people.
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Caprice
by Coe Booth
Offered a place at the school of her dreams, Caprice, plagued by internal doubt and family drama, is pulled back towards the past and to an abuse shes never told anyone about.
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Carry Me Home
by Janet S. Fox
When their father goes missing, 12-year-old Lulu and her younger sister must take care of themselves until they learn that trusting new friends and the community will help them find their true home.
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Just Like That
by Gary D. Schmidt
Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students from wealthy backgrounds. In a parallel story, Matt Coffin has wound up on the Maine coast near St. Elene's with a pillowcase full of money lifted from the leader of a criminal gang.
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Trowbridge Road
by Marcella Fleischman Pixley
Struggling with her mother’s advancing mental illness in the months after her father’s death from complications of AIDS, a girl in the 1983 Boston suburbs befriends an imaginative boy with his own troubles before threats to her safety force her to make a difficult choice.
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Kaleidoscope
by Brian Selznick
Two people are bound to each other through time and space, memory and dreams, as they try to solve a mystery of grief and love.
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A Story about Cancer (with a Happy Ending)
by India Desjardins
When she is ten years old, a girl is diagnosed with leukemia and describes her journey through the next five years, including her medical treatments, her relationships with nurses and other patients, and falling in love.
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The Ghost Collector
by
Allison Mills
In a debut inspired by Cree tradition, a girl from a family that can see ghosts decides to hoard the ghosts that approach her for help when her own mother passes away suddenly.
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The Bridge Home
by
Padma Venkatraman
Facing daunting prospects on the streets of Chennai, two runaway sisters finds shelter and friendship on an abandoned bridge with two homeless boys before an illness forces them to choose between survival and freedom.
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All of Me
by
Chris Baron
Thirteen-year-old Ari faces what it is to be a man while dealing with a cross-country move, his parents' separation, being bullied for his weight, and belatedly starting bar mitzvah preparations.
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The Line Tender
by Kate Allen
When a Great White shark appears in the water near in her sleepy Rockport community, triggering a devastating tragedy, a 12-year-old girl must pick up the work of her late marine-biologist mother to lift the cloud of grief hanging over her community.
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When Friendship Followed Me Home
by Paul Griffin
Seventh-grader Ben, always an outsider, is led into a deep friendship with Halley, who is being treated for cancer, by the special dog he and his adoptive mother take in.
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