Tearjerkers
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Before I Die A terminally ill teenaged girl makes and carries out a list of things to do before she dies. subjects:Terminally Ill |
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Broken Soup A photographic negative and two surprising new friends become the catalyst for healing as fifteen-year-old Rowan struggles to keep her family and her life together after her brother's death. subjects: Grief, Problem Families, London (England) |
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The Book Thief Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors. subjects: Books and Reading, Death, Storytelling, Jews-Germany-History-1933-1945, World War |
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Cold Hands, Warm Heart After sixteen-year-old Tyler convinces his parents to donate the organs of his fourteen-year-old sister, who died during a gymnastics meet, he writes letters to the recipients, including Dani, who finally has a chance at normalcy after living fifteen years with a congenital heart defect. subjects: Transplantation of organs-tissues-etc., Medical Care, Hospitals, Interpersonal Relations, Death, Brothers and Sisters |
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Cures for Heartbreak As she navigates adolescence, ninth-grader Mia must deal with her mother' s recent death and her father's illness while she searches for friendship and love in the world around her. subjects: Parent and Child, Death, Interpersonal Relations, New York (N.Y.) |
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Dear Zoe Already acutely aware of her odd place in a home where her mother and stepfather now have children of their own, Tess begins her letter as a means of figuring out her own life—from her two-hour-a-day hair and makeup ritual to her complicity in Zoe’s death. subjects:Teenage Girls, Sisters-Death, Loss (Psychology), Fathers and Daughters, Grief |
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Dreamland After her older sister runs away, sixteen-year-old Caitlin decides that she needs to make a major change in her own life and begins an abusive relationship with a boy who is mysterious, brilliant, and dangerous. subjects: Dating Violence, Interpersonal Relations, Identity, Runaways, Sisters |
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If I Stay While in a coma following an automobile accident that killed her parents and younger brother, seventeen-year-old Mia, a gifted cellist, weighs whether to live with her grief or join her family in death. subjects: Coma, Death, Medical Care, Violoncellists, Oregon |
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Red Glass Sixteen-year-old Sophie has been frail and delicate since her premature birth, but discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain. subjects: Self-Confidence, Automobile Travel, Orphans, Illegal Aliens, Mexico, Guatemala |
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Shark Girl After a shark attack causes the amputation of her right arm, fifteen-year-old Jane, an aspiring artist, struggles to come to terms with her loss and the changes it imposes on her day-to-day life and her plans for the future. subjects: Amputees, Artists, People With Disabilities, Self-Acceptance, Interpersonal Relations, Novels in Verse |
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Sweethearts After losing her soul mate, Cameron, when they were nine, Jennifer, now seventeen, transformed herself from the unpopular fat girl into the beautiful and popular Jenna, but Cameron's unexpected return dredges up memories that cause both social and emotional turmoil. subjects: Love, Popularity, Schools, Family Problems, Weight Control, Self-Esteem, Psychological Abuse, Utah |
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Would You When her beloved sister, Claire, steps in front of a car and winds up in a coma, Nat's anticipated summer of working, hanging around with friends, and seeing Claire off to college is transformed into a nightmare of doctors, hospitals, and well-meaning neighbors. subjects: Sisters, Medical Care, Coma, Traffic Accidents, Family Life |
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Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath The author interprets the people, events, influences and art that made up the brief life of Sylvia Plath.—"On a bleak February day in 1963 a young American poet died by her own hand, and passed into a myth that has since imprinted itself on the hearts and minds of millions." subjects: Sylvia Plath, Poetry |
List updated January 2010—Patti Cook
