Young Adult (ages 14-18)

Material appropriate for young adults

Paper Hearts

Making a birthday card in Auschwitz was all of those things. But that is what Zlatka did, in 1944, for her best friend, Fania. She stole and bartered for paper and scissors, secretly creating an origami heart. Then she passed it to every girl at the work tables to sign with their hopes and wishes for happiness, for love, and most of all—for freedom.
Fania knew what that heart meant, for herself and all the other girls. And she kept it hidden, through the bitter days in the camp and through the death marches. She kept it always.

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler

At the outset of World War II, Denmark did not resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation’s leaders, fifteen-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults would not. Naming their secret club after the fiery British leader, the young patriots in the Churchill Club committed countless acts of sabotage, infuriating the Germans, who eventually had the boys tracked down and arrested.

Serendipity’s Footsteps

One special pair of shoes, crafted in Germany just before the Nazis came to power, makes its way through time and around the world to connect a string of owners. From Nazi Germany to a modern-day orphanage in the American South, three girls separated by decades and thousands of miles are about to give up when a single pair of shoes binds them all together.

Symphony for the City of the Dead

In September 1941, Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history—almost three years of bombardment and starvation that culminated in the harsh winter of 1943–1944. More than a million citizens perished. Survivors recall corpses littering the frozen streets, their relatives having neither the means nor the strength to bury them. Residents burned books, furniture, and floorboards to keep warm; they ate family pets and—eventually—one another to stay alive. Trapped between the Nazi invading force and the Soviet government itself was composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who would write a symphony that roused, rallied, eulogized, and commemorated his fellow citizens—the Leningrad Symphony, which came to occupy a surprising place of prominence in the eventual Allied victory.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 8, Issue 4

The Last Leaves Falling

Abe Sora is going to die, and he’s only seventeen years old. Diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), he’s already lost the use of his legs, which means he can no longer attend school. Seeking a sense of normality, Sora visits teen chat rooms online and finally finds what he’s been longing for: friendship without pity. As much as he loves his new friends, he can’t ignore what’s ahead. He’s beginning to lose the function of his hands, and soon he’ll become even more of a burden to his mother. Inspired by the death poems of the legendary Japanese warriors known as samurai, Sora makes the decision to leave life on his own terms. And he needs his friends to help him.

Join the discussion of The Last Leaves Falling as well as other books centered around relocation on our My Take/Your Take page.

Prison Boy

Little Kai is brought to the orphanage run by Bell, a fearsome Englishwoman whose dedication to her charges is unflinching. There, an older child, Pax, immediately takes Kai under his wing. It soon becomes apparent that Kai is a brilliant child, and given the right circumstances, could go on to achieve great things. Penniless and living amidst political strife and constant uncertainty, the children are nonetheless taken care of and protected, until Bell dies and they are left on their own. Pax is determined to keep Kai safe, and to make sure he gets the education he deserves. But life on the streets is tough, and dangerous.

Heartache and Other Natural Shocks

When fifteen-year-old Julia Epstein and her Anglophone family flee Montreal in October 1970, she struggles to adjust to a new life in the suburban wasteland of North York, Toronto. Next door lives Carla Cabrielli, who works her “assets” and knows how to get what she wants. Julia and Carla get on a collision course, not only for the same role in the school production of Hamlet, but also for the leading man – sword-wielding bad boy and sex magnet, Ian Slater. Heartache and Other Natural Shocks explores teen rivalry.