 A
Gathering of Days:
A
New England Girl’s Journal, 1830-32
by Joan W. Blos
Newbery Medal 1980
Ages 9–12
This novel is written in the form of
a diary kept for a year by Catherine Cabot Hill, a 13-year-old
girl in New Hampshire. Catherine’s mother has died, and she must
keep house for her father and younger sister. During the year,
Catherine undergoes school discipline, encounters runaway slaves,
loses a friend, and faces new relationships when her father remarries
a woman with children of her own. |
|
 Hate
List
by Jennifer Brown
Ages 15–up
When Val and her boyfriend
Nick wrote the names of people who tormented or annoyed
them on a “Hate List,” Val had no idea
Nick would use the list. When Nick brings a shotgun
to school and begins shooting people on the list before
killing himself, Val is wounded trying to stop him.
But as the co-author of the “Hate List,” Val
is implicated in the shootings. Val’s guilt and her
complicated relationships with her family and the surviving
victims are realistically and hauntingly portrayed. |
|
 All
The Broken Pieces
by Ann E. Burg
Ages 11–up
Two years ago Matt Pin was airlifted
from war-torn Vietnam. Now 12, and living with his loving
adoptive American family, Matt is still haunted by memories
of the family he left behind. Told in first person free
verse, Matt’s present and past are slowly revealed as
he begins to come to terms with the guilt of being the
only survivor. |
|
 Her
Mother’s Face
by Roddy Doyle, Freya Blackwood
Ages 4–8
When Siobhán was three
her mother died. Now 10 years old, she cannot remember
her mother’s face. Then a strange woman in the park tells
her to search her own reflection in the mirror. As time
passes, Siobhán realizes the woman was her mother.
Blackwood’s illustrations mirror Doyle’s optimism that
time heals grief. |
|
 Mockingbird
by Kathryn Erskine
Ages 10–up
Caitlin Smith (10) has Asperger’s syndrome.
She hates recess with all the noise and confusion, and meets
with her counselor, Mrs. Brook, who helps her to understand
the reasons behind her discomfort, while offering advice about
how to make friends and deal with her grief over her older
brother Devon’s death in a recent school shooting. Devon had
always been Caitlin’s interpreter, explaining the grey areas
in the world she sees as black and white. Without him, Caitlin
struggles more than ever. When she hears the term “closure” Caitlin
turns to her dictionary for help and decides to find closure
for both herself and her grieving father. Caitlin’s first person
narration provides insight into her incredible intelligence
and conscientiousness paired with her limited social skills
and her struggles to comprehend figurative language. |
|
 If
I Stay
by Gayle Forman
Ages 14–up
Mia, a talented 17-year-old
cellist, remembers driving on a snowy Oregon road with
her family, and then nothing until she is standing
next to the wrecked car and her parents’ corpses, watching
the paramedics tend to the damaged bodies of herself
and her little brother. Told in flashbacks, this moving
novel explores Mia’s life, the power of friends and
family, and the things that make life worth living. |
|
 Ostrich
Boys
by Keith Gray
Ages 12–up
After their friend Ross is
killed while riding his bike, Blake, Kenny, and Sim
are furious at the fake show of support by previously
uncaring teachers and classmates. So the three boys
decide to steal his ashes and travel from London to
the village of Ross in Scotland for a proper funeral.
Along the way they get thrown off a train, chased by
police, and meet some flirtations Scottish girls. They
also confront their own relationships with Ross and
face some hard truths about his death. |
|
 Out
of the Dust
by Karen Hesse
Newbery Medal 1998
Ages 11–up
Billie Jo (14) records the grim realities
of living in the Oklahoma dust bowl during the Depression. In
her free verse journal, she reveals her mother’s death and her
own burns in a fire and her father’s grief. Billie Jo’s hope
for a better future shines through all the pain and struggle
to survive. |
|
 The
Beginner’s Guide to Living
by Lia Hills
Ages 14–up
When his mother dies in a traffic
accident, Will (17) is numb and can’t feel anything
until he meets Taryn at the wake. Confused by love
and grief, Will begins to question the meaning of life.
His quest for answers leads him to read philosophy,
experiment with drugs, and explore sexuality with Taryn.
Insightful and thought-provoking, this coming-of-age
novel celebrates life, companionship, and love. |
|
 The
Snowball Effect
by Holly Nicole Hoxter
Ages 12–up
Lainey (18) has a lot to deal
with—her mother commits suicide, leaving Lainey
in charge of her challenging 5-year-old adopted brother
Collin. Then her estranged older step-sister Vallery
arrives to take charge. Lainey’s long-time boyfriend
tries to help out, but she takes her anger out on him
and breaks up. Lainey’s efforts to deal with her grief
as she and Vallery try to work together to raise Collin
are honestly and effectively portrayed. |
|
 Paper
Covers Rock
by Jenny Hubbard
Ages 14–up
Alex (16) is devastated when
he fails to save his boarding school friend Thomas from
drowning in the river. When questioned, Alex and Glen,
another friend from Birch School, don’t tell the whole
truth. Plagued by guilt, Alex tries to explain what really
happened to Thomas in his secret journal, but the more
he writes, the more complicated the story grows. Alex’s
English teacher, Miss Dovecott, suspects that Alex is
hiding something, and encourages his poetic talent. Stimulated
by her encouragement, Alex realizes that he needs to
make a choice between his own voice, and the code of
Birch School embodied in Glen. |
|
 The
Heart and the Bottle
by Oliver Jeffers
Ages 4–up
When a small girl loses her father,
her only parent, she decides that the best thing is to
put her heart in a bottle and hang it around her neck.
All the wonder, curiosity, and delight in the world they
shared together vanishes, but the girl believes her heart
at least is safe from further pain. When the girl is
older, her heart is restored when she meets someone smaller
who still delights in the world. This gentle book is
a quietly moving portrait of grief. |
|
 Kira-Kira
by Cynthia Kadohata
Newbery Medal 2005
Ages 11–14
In the 1950s, when Katie is five, her
family moves from Iowa to Georgia, where there are few Japanese-Americans.
Katie’s older sister Lynn takes care of her while their parents
work long hours in the chicken-processing plant. Their roles
reverse when Lynn develops lymphoma. Through the illness and
Lynn’s death, Katie struggles to remember her sister as kira-kira,
glittering and shining. Narrated by Katie, this beautifully written
book tells a poignant story of love and loss. |
|
 Dangerous
Neighbors
by Beth Kephart
Ages 12–up
Katherine is still consumed
by grief over the death of her identical twin sister
Anna in a skating accident months ago. Feeling responsible
for her sister’s death, Katherine has decided to take
her own life, but is continually drawn to the wonders
of the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Among
the crowds of strangers, Katherine loses herself in
memories of the past and her sister’s secret romance
with a “dangerous neighbor” that precipitated
the sequence of events leading to Anna’s death. Set
against a detailed background of America’s first World’s
Fair, this engrossing novel presents themes of love
and loss, guilt and betrayal, despair and hope. |
|
 Nothing
but Ghosts
by Beth Kephart
Ages 12–up
Katie (16) and her father are
grieving the recent death of her mother. Her father,
an artist who restores paintings, tries to lose himself
in his work while pondering what color would be used
to paint regret. Katie takes a summer job gardening
for Miss Martine, the town recluse, and stumbles over
clues about the mystery of Miss Martine’s abrupt withdrawal
from the world. With her fellow teen worker Danny,
and the help of the town librarian, Katie researches
town history to solve the mystery and distract herself
from her own grief. |
|
 Please
Ignore Vera Dietz
by A.S. King
Ages 13–up
Vera has spent her whole life
in love with her best friend and neighbor Charlie Kahn
until he betrayed her and ruined everything. But now
Charlie is dead, suspected of being involved in a crime,
and only Vera knows the truth. Vera has decided to
live at home with her father, a recovering alcoholic,
while delivering pizzas to earn money for community
college. The relationship between Vera and her father,
and her struggle to deal with her memories of Charlie,
form the heart of this darkly comic novel. |
|
 The
Last Invisible Boy
by Evan Kuhlman
Ages 10–14
In his notebook, Finn Garrett
(12) explains that after his father died unexpectedly
a few months ago, an eraser fell from the sky and has
gradually been erasing him day by day. This painful yet
funny novel explores coping with loss in a way middle
schoolers can empathize with. |
| |
|
 Hold
Still
by Nina Lacour
Ages 14–up
Caitlin begins her high school
junior year stunned by the suicide of her best friend
Ingrid, a talented photographer and artist. Unable to
make new friends or work on her own art, Caitlin is emotionally
paralyzed until she discovers Ingrid’s journal, which
is addressed to Caitlin. As Ingrid reveals her chronic
depression and the thoughts of her final days, Caitlin
begins to feel again, and to reach out to others. |
|
 Hothouse
by Chris Lynch
Ages 12–up
The fathers of both Russell and his
childhood friend DJ are firefighters who die in a fire. The
two high school boys had drifted apart, but the tragedy, and
the fact that the town treats the grieving sons as heroes,
brings them back together. An investigation into the fire changes
the town’s feeling, and Russell struggles to understand who
his father really was. First person narration reveals Russell’s
internal struggles to come to terms with his grief and begin
the healing process. |
|
 Sarah,
Plain and Tall
by Patricia Maclachlan
Newbery Medal 1986
Ages 8–12
In the late 19th century, a widowed
midwestern farmer with two children, Anna and Caleb, advertises
for a wife. Sarah responds, saying that she is plain and tall.
When Sarah arrives she is homesick for Maine, and especially
for her beloved ocean. The children fear she will not stay. Narrated
by Anna, this short book gently explores abandonment, loss, and
love. |
|
 The
Sky Is Everywhere
by Jandy Nelson
Ages 14–up
Lennie (17), a shy bookworm
and band geek, has always been content to live in her
older sister Bailey’s shadow. When Bailey dies suddenly
and unexpectedly of an arrhythmia, Lennie is not prepared
to deal with the limelight she is thrust into. Consumed
by grief and unsettled by her attraction to Bailey’s
fiancé, Lennie struggles to deal with her new reality
in this honest portrayal of a teen dealing with tragedy. |
|
 A
Monster Calls
by Patrick Ness, Jim Kay
Ages 12–up
Connor O’Malley (13) is having
nightmares. His mother has cancer, his father has moved
away with his new wife, and the grandmother he lives
with cares more about he antique wall clock than her
grandson. The bullies at school torment Connor, making
fun of his mother’s baldness, a result of her cancer
treatment. So Connor wakes up most nights screaming
because of nightmares. Then one night he awakens to
find a real monster outside his window, ancient and
wild, who seems to want something from Connor. This
moving story of loss and grief was completed by Patrick
Ness from a set of notes by Siobhan Dowd, who died
of cancer before she could complete a first draft. |
|
 Season
of Secrets
by Sally Nicholls
Ages 8–12
When Molly’s mother dies, her
father sends her and her older sister to live with
Grandma and Grandpa in their half-house half-shop.
Uncertain how long their visit will be, Molly and Hannah
try to cope with home-sicknesses while adjusting to
life in a tiny town with a school of only ten kids.
While caught in a storm one night, Molly flees from
a horned horseman and worries about the wounded man
she finds after the hunt. As he heals, Molly realizes
there is something magical about him—he can make things
grow in the middle of winter—and wonders if he can
somehow bring her mother back to life. |
|
 Ways
To Live Forever
by Sally Nicholls
Ages 9–12
Eleven-year old Sam is in the
final stages of leukemia. In his journal he keeps facts,
questions, and lists. As the book progresses, Sam’s friend
Felix dies and Sam begins to decline. Sam and his family
face death with humor and grace in this moving novel. |
|
 The
Sharp Time
by Mary O’Connell
Ages 14–up
When her mother dies, Sandinista
Jones (18) retreats from her friends into grief. When
she is targeted by an abusive teacher, she feels helpless
in her isolation, and simply stops going to school.
On impulse she takes a job at Pale Circus, a vintage
clothing store, that sooths her with color and texture.
But every day her violent urges to take revenge on
her teacher grow stronger and harder to ignore. Finally
she reaches out to her new community for support. This
story of grief and loneliness is told with compassion
and humor. |
|
 Dogtag
Summer
by Elizabeth Partridge
Ages 8–12
Tracy (12) has always felt
different. In Vietnam she was mocked because her father
was an American soldier, and she doesn’t fit in with
her adoptive family in California either. Then Tracy
and her friend Stargazer find a dogtag in her father’s
ammo box, which sets of a chain of reactions causing
painful memories and misunderstandings. Tracy struggles
to balance her memories of her natural mother with
building a relationship with her father’s wife as her
step-mother tries to understand the memories haunting
both her husband and adoptive daughter. Includes an
historical appendix and a teacher's guide for discussing
the book in the context of a unit about Vietnam. |
|
 The
Higher Power of Lucky
by Susan Patron
Newbery Medal 2007
Ages 8–12
Lucky (10) lives in a small town in the
middle of the California desert with her French guardian, who
has been caring for her since her mother died two years ago.
Fearing that her guardian will leave her and return to France,
Lucky stocks her survival backpack and searches for her Higher
Power. |
|
 Bone
Dog
by Eric Rohmann
Ages 4–8
Gus doesn’t feel like doing
much of anything after his old dog Ella dies, not even
dressing up for Halloween. But remembering her promise
to be with him always, Gus puts on his skeleton costume
and sets out on Halloween night. When Gus is threatened
by a bunch of graveyard skeletons, Ella, his very own
Bone Dog, comes to his rescue, banishing the skeletons
along with Gus’s grief . Though some may find the bone
dog unsettling, the comforting message that a dog’s
loyalty transcends death is presented with gentle humor. |
|
 Missing
May
by Cynthia Rylant
Newbery Medal 1993
Ages 9–12
When Summer’s foster mother Aunt May
dies suddenly she is overcome with grief. But her foster father
Uncle Ob is so sorrowful that Summer fears he will not be able
to go on living without May. In a quest to find closure, Summer,
Ob, and Cletus, a classmate of Summer’s, search for a spiritualist
who may be able to communicate with May. They can’t find the
spiritualist, but somehow the quest helps them to heal. |
|
 A
Map of the Known World
by Lisa Ann Sandell
Ages 12–up
When 14-year-old Cara’s older brother
dies in a car accident, her parents cannot rouse themselves
from their numbing grief. Cara escapes into her passion
for maps and mapmaking. Her art teacher, a new friend,
and her brother’s best friend all help to slowly revive
Cara’s emotional life and self-confidence. |
|
 The
Way He Lived
by Emily Wing Smith
Ages 14–up
The six teen-aged narrators of this
novel don’t have much in common except a connection with Joel
Espen, who died of dehydration after giving away his water
bottle during a badly planned Boy Scout outing. As the six
teens from Haven, Utah, try to make sense of Joel’s death and
his effect on their lives, their views of themselves and their
community are transformed. |
|
 Irises
by Francisco X. Stork
Ages 14–up
Kate (18) dreams of going to medical
school at Stanford University, and her sister Mary (16) is
a talented painter. When their strict minister father dies,
the two sisters are forced to make some painful decisions.
Their mother has been in a persistent vegetative state after
an accident two years earlier, and the insurance company denies
their father’s policy. Then the church threatens to evict them
from their home. Free of their father’s loving but restrictive
control, the two sisters begin to grow in unexpected ways as
they struggle with supporting themselves and the decision of
maintaining their mother’s life support. |
|
 The
Last Summer of the Death Warriors
by Francisco Stork
Ages 14–up
Pancho Sanchez (17) is sent
to a Catholic orphanage after his father and sister
die within a few months. Pancho is determined to avenge
the death of his sister by killing the man he believes
is responsible. D.Q., a fellow orphan, asks Pancho
to come with him to Albuquerque as support during his
brain cancer treatment. Pancho agrees since that's
where the man he is stalking lives. But D.Q.’s
“Death Warrior Manifesto,” a document
he has composed to help him live out his last days
with purpose, gradually influences Pancho to consider
choosing life over murder. This powerful novel deals
with themes of responsibility, racial and family
tension, and the purpose of life. |
|
 Harry & Hopper
by Margaret Wild, Freya Blackwood
Ages 2–5
Harry and his dog Hopper are constant
companions, sharing adventures, baths, and a bed at night.
When Hopper dies, Harry has a hard time letting go, and refuses
to attend the backyard funeral. Gradually Harry discovers that
his beloved dog lives on in his heart and memories in this
sensitive portrayal of loss and grief. |
|
 Locomotion
by Jacqueline Woodson
Ages 9–12
In 60 poems, 11-year-old Lonnie Collins
Motion tells his story as he explores different forms of poetry.
Called Locomotion because of his constant activity, Lonnie
and his sister were orphaned four years earlier. His younger
sister Lili was adopted, and Lonnie struggles to stay in touch
with her. The poignant poems tell a complex story of loss,
grief, and poverty, while also demonstrating Lonnie’s creativity
and optimism. |
|
 Peace,
Locomotion
by Jacqueline Woodson
Ages 9–12
Now 12, Lonnie Collins Motion,
called Locomotion, writes letters to maintain a bond
with his younger sister Lili who was adopted after the
death of their parents. Miss Edna, Lonnie’s foster mother,
has a son who returns home from the Iraq war, disabled
and traumatized. Though his letters, the kind and sensitive
Lonnie struggles to make sense of his life and to achieve
a sense of peace. (sequel to Locomotion) |
|
 How
to Save a Life
by Sara Zarr
Ages 12–up
When Jill’s father dies unexpectedly,
she and her mother drift apart, each isolated in her
own grief. When her mother decides to adopt a baby,
Jill (17) thinks the idea is crazy, but Mandy, the
pregnant teen giving up her baby, is thrilled to escape
her abusive family and come live with Jill and her
mother. Narrated from the perspectives of both girls,
this compassionate book examines the meaning of family. |
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