Powerful, riveting, and real. Sixteen celebrated authors bring us raw, insightful stories that explore guns and teens in a fiction collection that is thought provoking and emotionally gripping. For fans of Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock and Give a Boy a Gun, and with an array of YA talent like the late great Walter Dean Myers, the poetic Joyce Carol Oates, the prophetic Elizabeth Wein, and the gritty Chris Crutcher, these are evocative voices that each has a different perspe...

Editorial Advisory Board: Sarah Park Dahlen, Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Marianne Martens, Associate Professor, School of Information, Kent State University; Amy Pattee, Associate Professor and Co-coordinator of Dual-Degree MS LIS/MA Children’s Literature, School of Library and Information Science, Children’s Literature, Simmons University“Comprehensive and ...

Society does not make it easy for young people, regardless of their sexual orientation, to find accurate, nonjudgmental information about homosexuality. It makes it even more difficult for young homosexuals to find positive role models in fiction either written or published expressly for them or-if published for adults-relevant to them and their lives.The Heart Has Its Reasons examines these issues and critically evaluates the body of literature published for young adults ...

Discussions of gender and sexuality have become part of mainstream conversations and are being reflected in the work of more and more writers of fiction, particularly in literature aimed at young adult audiences. But young readers, regardless of their sexual orientation, don’t always know what books offer well-rounded portrayals of queer characters and situations. Fortunately, finding positive role models in fiction that features LGBTQ+ themes has become less problematic, though not withou...

This collection of enlightening and stimulating articles, written by some of the most important figures in school librarianship, demonstrates how teacher-librarians, classroom teachers, and administrators can work together to create a 21st century school library media program. With topics that emphasize student success, leadership, partnerships, curriculum design, collaborative planning and teaching, literacy, 21st century skills, emerging technologies, and so much more, this compendium br...

A National Book Award Finalist offers an intense portrait of an abusive relationship.Johanna is steadfast, patient, reliable; the go-to girl, the one everyone can count on. But always being there for others can’t give Johanna everything she needs—it can’t give her Reeve Hartt.Reeve is fierce, beautiful, wounded, elusive; a flame that draws Johanna’s fluttering moth. Johanna is determined to get her, against all advice, and to help her, against all reason. But love ...

A novel about coming out, finding love, and discovering your place in the world from National Book Award finalist Julie Anne Peters.Seventeen-year-old Alyssa thought she knew who she was. She had her family and her best friends and, most important, she had Sarah. Sarah, her girlfriend, with whom she dreamed with about the day they could move far away and live out and proud and accepted for themselves, instead of having to hide their relationship.Alyssa never ...

A poignant novel about queer identity from National Book Award finalist Julie Anne Peters.Mike (real name: Mary Elizabeth) is gay and likes to pump iron, play softball, and fix plumbing. In addition to her identity, Mike is struggling to come to terms with her father's suicide and her mother's detachment from the family. When a glamorous new girl, Xanadu, arrives in Mike's small Kansas town, Mike falls in love at first sight. Xanadu is everything Mike is not: cool,...

A significant book about one girl's struggle with suicide, from National Book Award finalist Julie Anne Peters.Daelyn is fifteen years old, and in her mind she is a failure. She tried slitting her wrists, and she was rescued. She tried swallowing chemicals, and after burning through her esophagus enough to lose the ability to speak, she was rescued. But this time will be different.As readers see Daelyn's touching friendship with a quirky seventeen-year-old ...

This winner of the first Stonewall Award for Children’s & Young Adult Literature will make you marvel at the beauty of human connection and the irrepressible nature of love.Everyone has that one line they swear they’ll never cross, the one thing they say they’ll never do. We draw the line. Maybe we even believe it.Sage Hendricks was my line.Logan Witherspoon befriends Sage Hendricks at a time when he no longer trusts or believes in...

A National Book Award finalist presents a YA love story between two teen girls—and how one of them copes with bullying and rejection when she comes out.An ALA Stonewall Award Honor BookA Lambda Literary Award FinalistA New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age SelectionWith a steady boyfriend, the position of Student Council President, and a chance to go to an Ivy League college, high school life is just fine for Holland Jaeger. At lea...