9-12 Books

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  Forbidden Love

  Gary B. Nash

  Presents accounts of how mainly anonymous Americans have defied the official racial ideology and points out how guardians of the past have written that side of our history out of the record.

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  For Black Girls Like Me

  Mariama Lockington

  Makeda June Kirkland is eleven years old, adopted, and black. Her parents and big sister are white, and even though she loves her family very much, Makeda often feels left out. When Makeda's family moves from Maryland to New Mexico, she leaves behind her best friend, Lena― the only other adopted black girl she knows― for a new life. In New Mexico, everything is different. At home, Makeda’s sister is too cool to hang out with her anymore and at school, she can’t seem to find one real friend. Through it all, Makeda can’t help but wonder: What would it feel like to grow up with a family that looks like me? Through singing, dreaming, and writing secret messages back and forth with Lena, Makeda might just carve a small place for herself in the world. For Black Girls Like Me is for anyone who has ever asked themselves: How do you figure out where you are going if you don’t know where you came from?

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  Forged by Fire

  Sharon M. Draper

  Teenage Gerald, who has spent years protecting his fragile half-sister from their abusive father, faces the prospect of one final confrontation before the problem can be solved. When Gerald was a child he was fascinated by fire. But fire is dangerous and powerful, and tragedy strikes. His substance-addicted mother is taken from him. Then he loses the loving generosity of a favorite aunt. A brutal stepfather with a flaming temper and an evil secret makes his life miserable. The one bright light in Gerald's life is his little half sister, Angel, whom he struggles to protect from her father, Jordan Sparks, who abuses her, and from their mother, whose irresponsible behavior forces Gerald to work hard to keep the family together. As a teenager, Gerald finds success as a member of the Hazelwood Tigers basketball team, while Angel develops her talents as a dancer. Trouble still haunts them, however, and Gerald learns, painfully, that young friends can die and old enemies must be faced. In the end he must stand up to his stepfather alone in a blazing confrontation. Sharon M. Draper has interwoven characters and events from her previous novel, Tears of a Tiger, in this unflinchingly realistic portrayal of poverty and child abuse. It is an inspiring story of a young man who rises above the tragic circumstances of his life by drawing on the love and strength of family and friends

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  Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before

  Karelia Stetz-Waters

  Shy, intellectual, and living in rural Oregon, Triinu Hoffman just doesn't fit in. She does her best to hide behind her dyed hair and black wardrobe, but it's hard to ignore the bullying of Pip Weston and Principal Pinn. It's even harder to ignore the allure of other girls. As Triinu tumbles headlong into first love and teenage independence, she realizes that the differences that make her a target are also the differences that can set her free. With everyone in town taking sides in the battle for equal rights in Oregon, Triinu must stand up for herself, learn what it is to love and have her heart broken, and become her own woman.

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  For Keeps

  Natasha Friend

  For sixteen years, Josie Gardner and her mom, Kate, have been a team. It's been the Gardner Girls against the world, and that's how Josie likes it. Until one day, they find out that Paul Tucci, Kate's high school boyfriend-the father Josie has never met-is back in town. Josie's mom suddenly turns back into the heartbroken teenager she was when Paul moved away. Meanwhile, Josie's on the verge of having her first real boyfriend. And when Josie learns some surprising truths about Paul Tucci and the past, she begins questioning what she thought she knew, and finds out what happens when a girl gets the guy she always wanted and the dad she never knew she needed.

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  Forrest Gump

  Winston Groom

  Six foot six, 242 pounds, and possessed of a scant IQ of 70, Forrest Gump is the lovable, surprisingly savvy hero of this classic comic tale. His early life may seem inauspicious, but when the University of Alabama’s football team drafts Forrest and makes him a star, it sets him on an unbelievable path that will transform him from Vietnam hero to world-class Ping-Pong player, from wrestler to entrepreneur. With a voice all his own, Forrest is telling all in a madcap romp through three decades of American history.

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  Foster Families

  Julianna Fields

  Explores the history of foster care, describes the reasons children enter foster care, and discusses foster parents, caseworkers, and the conditions in foster homes.

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  Freakboy

  Kristin Elizabeth Clark

  Told from three viewpoints, seventeen-year-old Brendan, a wrestler, struggles to come to terms with his place on the transgender spectrum while Vanessa, the girl he loves, and Angel, a transgender acquaintance, try to help.

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  Freaks and Revelations

  Davida Wills Hurwin

  "You can come back when you're done being gay." Jason is a 13-year-old who comes out to his religious and conservative mother, only to be cast out of their home. Homeless, he learns how to survive, eventually turning to hustling as a way to live. Doug is a 17-year-old with an abusive father and a chip on his shoulder. Energized and empowered by violence, he gets mixed up with a group of Neo-Nazis. The lives of these two flawed teens spiral towards each other, and one fateful night their paths cross at a fast-food restaurant in Los Angeles, and a horrendous hate crime is committed. Freaks and Revelations is a raw and gripping novel based on the haunting true story of Timothy Zaal and Matthew Boger. Told in alternating perspectives by Jason (Matthew Boger) and Doug (Timothy Zaal), author Davida Wills Hurwin creates a fictional narrative that traces the tragic - but ultimately inspirational - journeys of two very polarized teens.

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  Freak Show

  James St. James

  Meet Billy Bloom, new student at the ultra-white, ultra-rich, ultra-conservative Dwight D. Eisenhower Academy and drag queen extraordinaire. Actually, ?drag queen? does not begin to describe Billy and his fabulousness. Any way you slice it, Billy is not a typical seventeen-year-old, and the Bible Belles, Aberzombies, and Football Heroes at the academy have never seen anyone quite like him before. But thanks to the help and support of one good friend, Billy?s able to take a stand for outcasts and underdogs everywhere in his own outrageous, over-thetop, sad, funny, brilliant, and unique way.

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  Freak the Mighty

  Rodman Philbrick

  At the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.

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  Free to Be...You and Me

  Marlo Thomas

  This is the book we all know and love by Marlo Thomas and her friends—brought to new life with brand new illustrations to captivate and inspire a new generation of readers on a journey of the heart. Whether you are opening Free to Be . . . You and Me for the first time or the one hundredth time you will be engaged and transformed by this newly beautifully illustrated compilation of inspirational stories, songs, and poems. The sentiments of thirty-five years ago are as relevant today as when this book was published. Celebrating individuality and challenging stereotypes empowers both children and adults with the freedom to be who they want to be and to have compassion and empathy for others who may be different. Working closely with Marlo and co-creator Carole Hart, Peter H. Reynolds, the New York Times Best Selling Children’s Book Author/Illustrator, conjured his whimsical drawings throughout the book bringing a new sense of unity and warmth to the pages. You will find yourself marveling at the illustrations, nodding in agreement with the stories and poems, and singing the words to all the classic songs! It is wonderful that the thoughts, ideas, and emotions the creators envisioned so many years ago can still have a magical effect on children today.

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  From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun

  Jacqueline Woodson

  Almost-fourteen-year-old Melanin Sun's comfortable, quiet life is shattered when his mother reveals she has fallen in love with a woman.

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  Gay in America

  Scott Pasfield

  A photographic survery of gay men in America. The photographer traveled across all fifty states to document the lives of 140 gay men from all walks of life.

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  Gay Power! The Stonewall Riots and the Gay Rights Movement, 1969

  Betsy Kuhn

  Explores the decades of discrimination and abuse that gay people endured in earlier eras. Also learn how gay people continue to fight for equal rights and recognition.

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  Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit

  Jaye Robin Brown

  Joanna Gordon has been out and proud for years, but when her popular radio evangelist father remarries and decides to move all three of them from Atlanta to the more conservative Rome, Georgia, he asks Jo to do the impossible: to lie low for the rest of her senior year. And Jo reluctantly agrees. Although it is (mostly) much easier for Jo to fit in as a straight girl, things get complicated when she meets Mary Carlson, the oh-so-tempting sister of her new friend at school. But Jo couldn't possibly think of breaking her promise to her dad. Even if she's starting to fall for the girl. Even if there's a chance Mary Carlson might be interested in her, too. Right?

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  Get It Together, Delilah

  Erin Gough

  Seventeen-year-old Delilah Green is doing her best to deal with a chaotic life--she is running the family cafe, The Flywheel, by herself because her father is on a vacation trying to get over his wife deserting him; she is getting flack at school because she is a lesbian, and one of the "in-girls" has started to come on to her, and she is hopelessly attracted to a girl named Rosa, who dances the flamingo outside the café every evening.

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  Getting It

  Alex Sanchez

  Hoping to impress a sexy female classmate, fifteen-year-old Carlos secretly hires gay student Sal to give him an image makeover, in exchange for Carlos's help in forming a Gay-Straight Alliance at their Texas high school.

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  Ghost

  Jason Reynolds

  Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team -- a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Ghost has a crazy natural talent, but no formal training. If he can stay on track, literally and figuratively, he could be the best sprinter in the city. But Ghost has been running for the wrong reasons -- it all starting with running away from his father, who, when Ghost was a very little boy, chased him and his mother through their apartment, then down the street, with a loaded gun, aiming to kill. Since then, Ghost has been the one causing problems -- and running away from them -- until he meets Coach, an ex-Olympic Medalist who blew his own shot at success by using drugs, and who is determined to keep other kids from blowing their shots at life.

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  Ghost Boys

  Jewell Parker Rhodes

  Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation unleashed on his family and community. This gripping story is about how children, families--and one boy--grow to understand American blackness.

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  Giraffe People

  Jill Malone

  In the 1990s military brat Cole Peters, daughter of a chaplain, must face the obstacles of figuring out her persona while being bounced between religion and military and multiple transitional homes. She meets Meghan, whose ambition is directed toward West Point. Cole's parent's eyes see the relationship as a good influence for their rebellious daughter...until Cole and Meghan become lovers.

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  Girl from Mars

  Tamara Bach

  Miriam dreams of escaping from her boring small-town life and going to the big city to start her own life, especially when she develops romantic feelings for a girl named Laura and forms a new outlook after a weekend in the city.

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  Girl in Pieces

  Kathleen Glasgow

  As she struggles to recover and survive, seventeen-year-old homeless Charlotte "Charlie" Davis cuts herself to dull the pain of abandonment and abuse.

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  Girl in the Shadows

  V. C. Andrews

  After the death of her parents, April Taylor flees north to take a job looking after Mrs. Westington's deaf granddaughter, Echo, until the arrival of the girl's mother and her drug-dealing boyfriend puts both girls' lives in deadly danger.

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  Girl Made of Stars

  Ashley Herring Blake

  Mara and Owen are as close as twins can get, so when Mara’s friend Hannah accuses Owen of rape, Mara doesn't know what to think. Can her brother really be guilty of such a violent act? Torn between her family and her sense of right and wrong, Mara feels lost, and it doesn’t help that things are strained with her ex-girlfriend, Charlie. As Mara, Hannah, and Charlie come together in the aftermath of this terrible crime, Mara must face a trauma from her own past and decide where Charlie fits into her future. With sensitivity and openness, this timely novel confronts the difficult questions surrounding consent, victim blaming, and sexual assault.