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Tearjerkers
Books to make you cry, just a little
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Courage : My Story of Persecution
by Freshta Tori Jan
Continuing this propulsive middle grade nonfiction series, a young woman once persecuted by the Taliban shares her journey to becoming a community activist. 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. Her journey through poverty, terrorism, and other forms of injustice has enabled her to be a voice for those unable to share their stories and those unable to receive the opportunities she has sought. She believes in empowering youth in order to bring about change and be the leaders of today and tomorrow. 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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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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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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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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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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Bluefish
by
Pat Schmatz
Everything changes for thirteen-year-old Travis, a new student who is trying to hide a learning disability, when he meets a remarkable teacher and a sassy classmate with her own secrets.
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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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The Night Diary
by Veera Hiranandani
Shy twelve-year-old Nisha, forced to flee her home with her Hindu family during the 1947 partition of India, tries to find her voice and make sense of the world falling apart around her by writing to her deceased Muslim mother in the pages of her diary. (Found in Juvenile)
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Beyond the Bright Sea
by Lauren Wolk
Set adrift on the ocean in a small skiff as a newborn, twelve-year-old Crow embarks on a quest to find the missing pieces of her history.
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The Secret Hum of a Daisy
by Tracy Holczer
After twelve-year-old Grace's mother's sudden death, Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she's never met, and discovers clues in a mysterious treasure hunt--one that will help her find her true home.
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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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Fadeaway
by
Maura Ellen Stokes
Fourteen-year-old Sam is struggling to get by without her best friend, Reagan, who died suddenly the summer before high school, but Regan's "reappearance" only helps temporarily.
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Get Reading Recommendations
Forsyth County Public Library | #WeKnowBooks
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