Young Adult (ages 14-18)

Material appropriate for young adults

Crazy Diamond

That’s Mira M. And this is the story of her unforgettable life — as a kid alone in a junkyard tire swing, to her escape from Croatia at age 9 in a Marshall amp road case in the rear of her uncle Lou’s van. A musician, he hands her the key to her future: a guitar. When she’s 14, Mira meets Melody, Rosa and Jackson, three teens who stow away from Ghana in a ship-ping container and end up — to their surprise — in Hamburg, Germany. What stories they have! And what a story the four of them, plus Kralle (a little older and wiser) and Zucka (the record producer’s son), share on the way to the fame that all of them covet — except Mira, even after the MTV Awards show in Barcelona. Her song lyrics tell her truth. But are they her lyrics? Her music? She swears so. But who listens, now that she’s 18 — and dead?

The Boy Who Dared

When 16-year-old Helmuth Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he’s tried for treason. Sentenced to death and waiting in a jail cell, Helmuth’s story emerges in a series of flashbacks that show his growth from a naive child caught up in the patriotism of the times, to a sensitive and mature young man who thinks for himself.

Theories of Relativity

Sixteen-year-old Dylan Wallace is living on the streets not through any choice of his own, unlike some of the teenagers he meets in the same situation. He’s been cut loose by his unstable mother, and lost most contact with his two younger brothers. He has nothing but his backpack stuffed with a few precious belongings and the homeless kids he meets. At least he has his theories. No one can take those away from him. Like how every fourth person throws him spare change; how no one does anything for anyone without a price; and how he just might be able to find a place in this complicated world.

The Inferior

Stopmouth and his family know of no other life than the daily battle to survive. To live, they must hunt rival species, or negotiate flesh-trade with those who crave meat of the freshest human kind. It is a savage, desperate existence. And for Stopmouth, considered slow-witted hunt-fodder by his tribe due in part to his stutter, the future looks especially bleak. But then, on the day he is callously betrayed by his brother, a strange and beautiful woman falls from the sky. It is a moment that will change his destiny, and that of all humanity, forever.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.

Frida: Viva La Vida! Long Live Life!

Frida Kahlo, a native of Mexico, is described here in biographical poems accompanied by her own artwork. Both text and images reveal the anguish and joy of her two marriges to muralist Diego Rivera, her life-long suffering from a crippling bus accident, and her thrist for life, even as she tasted death. Carmen T. Bernier-Grand’s powerful poems and Frida Kahlo’s extraordinary painting capture the intensity and passion that make Frida stand out as an important twentieth century painter.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 5, Issue 3

The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio

Carlo discovers a book with a map to a treasure. With a little money from his uncle, Carlo takes off on his adventure. With a camel-puller, Baksheesh and Shira, Carlo follows a treasure map through the deserts and cities of the infamous Golden Road. Carlo risks his life for a treasure that may not even exist.

William Blake: The Gates Of Paradise

Journey back to the 1700s to meet one of the most fascinating people in history. Dreamer, craftsman, poet, madman, and genius — William Blake. Born in 1757 in London, as a boy he apprenticed as an engraver and began a career that would include masterpieces of art.Blake lived during times of incredible change and upheaval, including the Gordon Riots and the French Revolution. Spiritualism and the allure of magic were being replaced by a belief in rationalism. Blake celebrated the beauty of small things. His work showed, “…a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower….” [William Blake] Yet, with the noise and dirt of mills (factories), the Industrial Revolution was drowning out a quiet, rural way of life. The value of things made carefully by hand was being lost.At the same time, the printing press was making it possible for more and more people to read. The rise of printed books and book illustration was revolutionary and Blake was part of it.On the 250th anniversary of Blake’s birth, master storyteller Michael Bedard brings this Renaissance man and his times to vivid life in this biography that is lavishly illustrated with Blake’s work.