For eighteen-year-old Charlotte, university life is better than she’d ever dreamed a sophisticated and generous roommate, the camaraderie of dorm living, parties, clubs and boyfriends. Most of all, Charlotte is exposed to new ideas, and in 1981 Ghana, this may be the most exciting and most dangerous adventure of all.
Young Adult (ages 14-18)
Material appropriate for young adults
Balcony On The Moon
Balcony on the Moon follows Ibtisam Barakat through her childhood and adolescence in Palestine from 1972-1981 and chronicles her desire to be a writer.
Blood Red Snow White
A novel based on the life of children’s book author Arthur Ransome, who left his home, his wife, and daughter and fell in love with Russia and a Russian woman and was suspected, by both sides, of being a spy.
Dream On
Things seem to be going well for Liv Silver: she’s adjusting to her new home (and her new family) in London; she has a burgeoning romance with Henry Harper, one of the cutest boys in school; and the girl who’s been turning her dreams into nightmares, Anabel, is now locked up. But serenity doesn’t last for long.
Golden Boys
Colt Jenson and his younger brother, Bastian, have moved to a new, working-class suburb. The Jensons are different. Their father, Rex, showers them with gifts toys, bikes, all that glitters most and makes them the envy of the neighborhood. To the local kids, the Jensons are a family out of a movie, and Rex a hero successful, attentive, attractive, always there to lend a hand. But to Colt he’s an impossible figure: unbearable, suffocating.
Every Hidden Thing
Somewhere in the Badlands, embedded deep in centuries-buried rock and sand, lies the skeleton of a massive dinosaur, larger than anything the late nineteenth century world has ever seen. Some legends call it the Black Beauty, with its bones as black as ebony, but to seventeen-year-old Samuel Bolt it’s the “rex”, the king dinosaur that could put him and his struggling, temperamental archaeologist father in the history books (and conveniently make his father forget he’s been kicked out of school), if they can just quarry it out.
Girl In The Blue Coat
In 1943 Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, teenage Hanneke–a ‘finder’ of black market goods–is tasked with finding a Jewish girl a customer had been hiding, who has seemingly vanished into thin air, and is pulled into a web of resistance activities and secrets as she attempts to solve the mystery and save the missing girl.
The Art Of Being Normal
David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth: David wants to be a girl. On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal: to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in his class is definitely not part of that plan. When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long, and soon everyone knows that Leo used to be a girl.
The Castrato
It is Florence, 1698, and Angelo Montegne has discovered the cost of having a beautiful voice. Soon, the young castrato is at the center of court intrigue as he struggles with his new reality and those who wish to use him and his soaring soprano singing for their own purposes. As he comes to terms with his altered future, Angelo must choose between a life of fame as the protege of the Prince de Medici or a very different, far humbler destiny with the lovely daughter of the court composer.
The Hill
Jared’s plane has crashed in the Alberta wilderness, and Kyle is first on the scene. When Jared insists on hiking up the highest hill in search of cell phone reception, Kyle hesitates; his Cree grandmother has always forbidden him to go near it. There’s no stopping Jared, though, so Kyle reluctantly follows.