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  What the Night Sings

  Vesper Stamper

  Liberated from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in 1945, Gerta has lost her family and everything she knew. Without her Papa, her music, or even her true identity, she must move past the task of surviving and onto living her life. Gerta meets Lev, a fellow teen survivor, and Michah, who helps Jews reach Palestine. With a newfound Jewish identity she never knew she had, and a return to the life of music she thought she lost forever, Gerta must choose how to build a new future.

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  What Would Joey Do?

  Jack Gantos

  Joey's dad just roared into town on a motorcycle, his mom is chasing her ex-husband away with a broomstick, and his grandma's camped out on the couch behind a plastic shower curtain. What's more, Joey's chihuahua has been dognapped, and his mom insists that he be homeschooled with a mean blind girl and her super-religious mother. Welcome to Joey's world. With his new self-assumed role as "Mr. Helpful," Joey's on a mission to make everything and everyone better. Can Joey accomplish all this or will his wild, wired behavior spin him out of control all over again?

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  When Dad Killed Mom

  Julius Lester

  When Jenna and Jeremey's father kills their artistic mother, they struggle to slowly rebuild a functioning family.

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  When Friendship Followed Me Home

  Paul Griffin

  Ben Coffin has never felt like he fits in. A former foster kid, he keeps his head down at school to avoid bullies and spends his afternoons reading sci-fi books at the library. But all that changes when he finds a scruffy abandoned dog named Flip and befriends the librarian's daughter, Halley. For the first time, Ben starts to feel like he belongs in his own life. Then everything changes, and suddenly Ben is more alone than ever. But with a little help from Halley's magician father, Ben discovers his place in the world and learns to see his own magic through others' eyes.

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  When She Was Good

  Norma Fox Mazer

  The death of her abusive, manipulative older sister prompts seventeen-year-old Em to remember their unpleasant life together, with their parents and then later on their own.

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  When We Were Good

  Suzanne Sutherland

  The year 2000 isn't starting out too well for Toronto high school senior Katherine Boatman. Not only has her oldest friend ditched her for yet another boyfriend, her beloved grandmother died on New Year's Eve, leaving a void of goodness in her life that Katherine's not sure how to fill. While overwhelmed with sadness and self-doubt, Katherine unexpectedly finds new love, both for Toronto's underground music scene and for her would-be savior: a straight-edge, loudmouthed misfit named Marie.

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  Will

  Maria Boyd

  Seventeen-year-old Will's behavior has been getting him in trouble at his all-boys school in Sydney, Australia, but his latest punishment, playing in the band for a musical production, gives him new insights into his fellow students and helps him cope with an incident he has tried to forget.

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  Wonder

  R. J. Palacio

  Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.

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  Wonders of the Invisible World

  Christopher Barzak

  Seventeen-year-old Aiden has been living like a ghost since his mother tried to stop a family curse by causing him to forget his psychic experiences but when Jarrod, a childhood friend, returns, so do the memories and Aiden is compelled to seek the truth and release them all from the story that has trapped them.

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  Zayde Comes to Live

  Sheri Sinykin

  When Rachel's beloved grandfather, Zayde, comes to spend his last days with her family, she worries what will happen when he dies, especially after friends tell her the Christian and Muslim beliefs about the afterlife.

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  Zenobia July

  Lisa Bunker

  Zenobia July is starting a new life. She used to live in Arizona with her father; now she's in Maine with her aunts. She used to spend most of her time behind a computer screen, improving her impressive coding and hacking skills; now she's coming out of her shell and discovering a community of friends at Monarch Middle School. People used to tell her she was a boy; now she's able to live openly as the girl she always knew she was. When someone anonymously posts hateful memes on her school's website, Zenobia knows she's the one with the abilities to solve the mystery, all while wrestling with the challenges of a new school, a new family, and coming to grips with presenting her true gender for the first time. Timely and touching, Zenobia July is, at its heart, a story about finding home.