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Stuck in a family overflowing with lawyers, Ivy Breedlove longs to be understood, to break free ofunfair expectations, and to find the truth about the mysterious hermit aunt who broke the family mold-the relative no one will talk about. With an outrageous mountain guide leading the way, Ivy sets out on the journey of a lifetime to find the missing link in the Breedlove family. But is she too late?
 

Set in Victorian England, this is the story of an epileptic child who must surmount fearsome odds to achieve some kind of life for himself.   Albert Edward suffers from bouts of unexplained seizures and lapses into unconsciousness.  As a result he is labeled a “freak” and “madman”.  Albert is brought to a succession of quack doctors whose experimental treatments result in despair.  Finally Albert learns he must rely on his own talent and determination to life himself out of the darkness of superstition and ignorance.
 

I wanted, more than anything," says Mia, tired of living in Beirut, "to walk to school in an American town where I looked like everybody else." Her wish comes true partially: her parents disappear while on a sailing trip and she, along with her two older half-sisters (who soon depart for their father's home in Boston), are sent to a little town in Tennessee, to live with her mother's sister. Small-town America in 1962, however, is not tolerant of outsiders, and Mia finds fitting in difficult despite her longing to conform and fit in.
 

Fourteen-year-old Tara Sullivan has always been a worrier. On the surface, she has been able to behave like a normal girl. But when she is 11 years old, she hears a phrase that changes her life: Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Now, everywhere she goes, Tara must count every crack in the sidewalk. If she gets interrupted or loses her place, she has to go home and start all over again. As she gets older, her "habits" don't get better--they change and increase. She has to arrange her meals, recite prayers, and chat with her dolls, over and over again. Tara does not know why she has these habits, she just knows that she has no choice: she has to complete the rituals. Then one day, before leaving the house, she finds herself kissing her fingertips and touching the doorknob . . . A funny and sensitive story about a girl with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
 

Through the mail, Mandy and Tracey become fast friends. They share news
about their boyfriends, their siblings, and their pets. They trade stories
about school and home. They confide their every hope and fear. Or do they?
What are the secrets hidden between the lines of their cheerful letters?
 

When their parents are killed in a car accident, Scott and Gregg are sent to live with an uncle they never even knew they had.   Rocky runs a white-water rafting company in Colorado, and the brothers, used to a comfortable life in the suburbs, have to start working there right away.  Scott is determined to make the best of it and Gregg is just as determined to self-destruct.  But you can’t do that on the rapids, where it’s a matter of survival or death…
 

Sixteen-year-old Denn Doyle is an industrious guy. After his father deserts him and his mother, Denn starts his own landscaping business and saves an impressive amount of money for his future.  Then he discovers gambling and everything changes.  Quickly he graduates from friendly hands with his buddies to high-stakes tournaments at the casinos. Denn soon grows addicted to the game, alienates his family and friends, and starts to lose big.  Is Denn mature enough to overcome his addiction?
 

In the village of Bishop Mayne there is a magical Wishing Well where a person may make one wish in a lifetime. But the Well can create problems for those who use its power, for wishes often go wrong. It was just such a wish that took all the children in the town away. Only eleven-year-old Nuria, who lives with her grandfather up on the mountain, remains.  Then one child returns -- Catty Winter. Catty's legs are mysteriously crippled, and Catty desperately wants Nuria to make a wish so she can walk again. Nuria makes the wish for her friend. But once again, the wish does not come out in the way anyone expected
 

Summer in the tiny Texas town of Antler is traditionally a time for enjoying Wylie Womack's Bahama Mama snow cones and racking up the pins at Kelly's Bowl-a-Rama, but this year it's not going well for Toby Wilson. His 13-year-old heart has been broken twice: once by his mother, who left him and his father to become a country singer in Nashville, and then again by his crush Scarlett Stalling, the town beauty who barely acknowledges Toby's existence. But when Zachary Beaver, "The World's Fattest Boy," comes to Antler as part of a traveling sideshow, Toby begins to realize that there might just be people who have it worse than him. 
 

Zack Lane knows about his father's side of the family -- they are descendants of Romanian Jews --but his black mother broke all ties with her family before Zack was born. Why she did so is the "Family Mystery."  Uprooted by his parents' move to the outskirts of a small town, Zack is friendless and at the lowest point in his life. He undertakes a research project into the life of Richard Pierpoint, former African slave, soldier in the War of 1812, and the pioneer farmer who cleared the land on which Zack's house now stands. Pierpoint's story inspires Zack to go to Mississippi to look for his maternal grandfather. What he discovers shakes the foundations of all he has believed in. 

An excellent story about a group of four students representing their school in an Academic Bowl. These four sixth graders were not from the “popular group” but became friends through the efforts and choices of their teacher.
 

Scarred from their recent encounter, Jamie and his family hole up in a trailer provided by Patty's good friend Earl. A chance encounter with someone who looks like Van, is enough to convince Patty to call in sick to work and Jamie to skip school, until a visit from Jamie's teacher convinces both Jamie and his mother that hiding out isn't the answer. A very unwelcome visit from the dreaded Van shows both Jamie and his mother that they have the strength they need to go on.

Other Great Books For Grades 7, 8 & 9

Harry Crewe is an orphan girl who comes to live in Damar, the desert country shared by the Homelanders and the secretive, magical Hillfolk. Her life is quiet and ordinary-until the night she is kidnapped by Corlath, the Hillfolk King, who takes her deep into the desert. She does not know the Hillfolk language; she does not know why she has been chosen. But Corlath does. Harry is to be trained in the arts of war until she is a match for any of his men. Does she have the courage to accept her true fate?

Six months after Luke's younger brother Marius dies, their mother decides to hold a symbolic bonfire, where she plans to burn all of Marius’s possessions. Upset by the finality of her gesture, Luke takes Marius’s diary and starts to fill the second half of it with the thoughts that he cannot share with his parents. As the story progresses Luke, overcome by curiosity, begins to read the first part of the diary and discovers that he and Marius had more in common than he could have imagined.  Luke’s entries become his way of communicating to his brother the things they never said when they were both alive. As he learns more about his brother, Luke begins to accept his own sexuality and comes closer to finding an answer to the question that tortures him: is he still a brother if there is no longer anyone left for him to be a brother to?

Set in 1967, in rural Texas, before the legalization of abortion, Anne Harper, seventeen, pregnant, and living in a home for unwed mothers, is determined not to care.  She will have the baby, give it up for adoption, go back to school and forget that this mistake ever happened. But as she experiences rejection by her family and shares the devastating insults and the most intimate secrets with a wild collection of other unwed mothers in the group home, everything changes. 

Recently acquitted of murder, 17-year-old David has moved to Massachusetts to complete his senior year of high school. His aunt and uncle have offered him shelter--escape from the media's incessant questions and from the uncertain glances of his neighbors and ex-friends.   His attic apartment doesn't feel much like a shelter, though. He sees ghostly shadows at night, his aunt is strangely cold, and his 11-year-old cousin Lily is downright hostile. And as Lily's behavior becomes more and more threatening, David can't help but wonder what ugly secrets lurk within the walls of Lily's home.

One day, Robbie takes a .44 from his father's sock drawer, climbs on the new bike he's been given for his thirteenth birthday, pedals a few blocks to Main Street, and shoots an elderly Korean shopkeeper. Robbie, found cowering in a tree, confesses to the murder but does not explain. Other people try to find a reason: his parents, teachers, the cops, psychologists, the girl Robbie "liked.", Robbie’s best friend, there must, after all, be some explanation…mustn’t there?

The year 2010.  More than a century of ecological damage, industrial and technological expansion, and unchecked population growth has left the Earth on the brink of devastation.  As the world’s governments turn inward, one man dares to envision a bolder, brighter future.   That man, Reid Malenfant, has a very different solution to the problems plaguing the planet: the exploration and colonization of space.

This novel combines elements of mystery, science fiction, and the horror of domestic violence. When his grandfather Skoro dies, teenage Jack Lund and his mother journey to the old man's mansion in a town called Memory. Jack discovers a hidden doorway that transports him back fifty years, and he travels back and forth in time easily. Following the murder of his mother at the hands
of his alcoholic father, Jack flees permanently into the past, vowing to live through the years leading up to his mother's death and prevent it. Jake discovers that time is not something that is easy to manipulate and before he can change his future, he must face his past.

Since the beginning of grade 9, Melinda has found that it's been getting harder and harder for her to speak out loud.  What could have caused Melinda to suddenly fall mute? Could it be due to the fact that no one at school is speaking to her because she called the cops and got everyone busted at the seniors' big end-of-summer party? Maybe it's because her parents' only form of communication is with Post-It notes. Or maybe the reason why she's been struck mute is Andy Evans. Melinda hasn't been able to speak clearly since he raped her at the senior party last August. A frightening look at the cruelty that pervades high school life.

It happens just like that, in the blink of an eye. An older sister has a mental breakdown and has to be hospitalized. A younger sister is left behind to cope with a family torn apart by grief and friends who turn their backs on her. In the tradition of The Bell Jar, and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, comes Stop Pretending, inspired by the true story of the author's life.

In the walled city state of Aramanth, exams are everything.  When Kestrel Hath dares to rebel, the Chief Examiner humiliates her father and sentences the whole family to the harshest punishment.  Desperate to save them, Kestel learns the secret of the wind singer, and she and her twin brother, Bowman, set out on a terrifying journey to the true source of evil that grips Aramanth.

Other Great Books For Grades 9, 10 & 11

• 100 Best Books for Teens 
• 2000 Alex Awards the top 10 adults books for teenagers published during a calendar year
• Children's Book Awards North American and International award-winning books
• From the Seattle Public Library :

Booktastic Voyages Includes brief summaries. For grades 7 & 8

Opening Worlds Includes brief summaries. For grades 9 & 10

Feed Your Head Includes brief summaries. For grade 11+

• Oprah's Book Club 
• TeenLink The New York Public Library's selections of Books for the TeenAge 2001. Includes summaries