Social Issues category: 20415 books

Growing up in a picturesque Newfoundland fishing village should be idyllic for sixteen-year-old Kit Ryan, but living with an alcoholic father makes Kit's day-to-day life unpredictable and almost intolerable. When the 1992 cod moratorium forces her father out of a job, the tension between Kit and her...

Award-winning and best-selling author Lois Lowry explores issues surrounding adoption in this poignant novel. Natalie Armstrong has everything: she’s smart and beautiful, has the perfect boyfriend, early acceptance to college, and a loving family. But the summer she turns seventeen, she finally...

Kass, never in a million years, would have pictured herself as someone's groupie, but when Eli and his band score a spot on the hot new reality TV show, Hold That Note, she decides to surprise him in L.A… and hopefully win back his heart. But Eli's gun shy after losing his mom, not to mention...

The Face on the Milk Carton meets The Impossible Knife of Memory in this ripped-from-the-headlines novel that explores the power of being an ally—and a friend—when a kidnapped boy returns to his hometown. Sam Walsh had been missing for three years. His older sister, Beth, thought he was...

It’s jocks vs. nerds as a tween and his cadre of misfits go to hilarious lengths to bring down their enemies in this laugh-out-loud MAX novel. Chub is a short, accidentally bald, middle school outcast with no chance of ever becoming one of the popular kids. With help from his personal band...

Fifteen-year-old Finn has always felt out of place, but suddenly her world is unraveling. It all started with The Party. And Adam Porter. And the night in September that changed everything. The only person who knows about that night is Audrey—Finn's best friend, her witness to everything and the...

Lucy knows that kissing Tom Lemmings behind the ball shed will make her a legend. But she doesn’t count on that quick clap of lips propelling her from coolest to lamest fourth grader overnight. Suddenly Lucy finds herself trapped in Dorkdom, where a diamond ring turns your finger green, where the...

Sam the Man has a new school project. He’s got to “babysit” the—eep!—worst vegetable ever this second hilarious chapter book in a new series from Frances O’Roark Dowell. Sam the Man is back, and he needs a NEW plan. Sam has already solved a chicken problem, but this time, he’s...

I feel like I'm about to pass out, but that won't do much for my new reputation as a non-dork, so I bury my head in the Book instead. There's not much there, really—just the senior portrait of every girl in my class, and below each photo, space for me to record her measurements—once I get her...

Survival is a range of edgy fiction aimed at teenagers with a low reading age. Each story features strong characters and uses simple, crisp language to keep readers engaged. All of the stories cover important contemporary and topical issues such as bullying, binge drinking, gambling, sex, drugs and...

Rosie and Nona are sisters. Yapas. They are also best friends. It doesn’t matter that Rosie is white and Nona is Aboriginal: their family connections tie them together for life. The girls are inseparable until Nona moves away at the age of nine. By the time she returns, they’re in...

In this bestselling true story, one Honduran boy goes in search of his mother, who left to find work in the United States ten years ago—when he was just seven years old. This is the true and heartbreaking story of sixteen-year-old Enrique, who sets off on a journey alone to find his mother,...

An updated look for the classic YA thriller from genre heavyweight Richard Peck Sixteen-year-old Gail is living the upper-class suburban life when she begins receiving terrifying phone calls and notes in her locker. And the calls keep coming. When she's attacked by the town's golden boy everyone...

Survival is a range of edgy fiction aimed at teenagers with a low reading age. Each story features strong characters and uses simple, crisp language to keep readers engaged. All of the stories cover important contemporary and topical issues such as bullying, binge drinking, gambling, sex, drugs and...