HOPE WAS HERE
by Joan Bauer
When sixteen-year-old Hope and the aunt who has raised her move from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as a waitress and cook in the Welcome Stairways Diner, they become involved with the diner owner's political campaign to oust the town’s corrupt mayor.

WHO WILL TELL MY BROTHER?
by Marlene Carvell
Evan continues a crusade begun by his late brother to remove the Indian as their high school mascot.

THE PLAIN JANES
by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
When transfer student Jane is forced to move from the confines of Metro City to Suburbia, she thinks her life is over. But there she finds her tribe: three other girls named Jane. The four girls form a secret art gang, but can art really save the hell that is high school?

THE SLEDDING HILL
by Chris Crutcher
Billy, recently deceased, keeps an eye on his best friend, fourteen-year-old Eddie, who has added to his home and school problems by becoming mute, and helps him stand up to a conservative minister and English teacher who is orchestrating a censorship challenge.

BUCKING THE SARGE
by Christopher Paul Curtis
Deeply involved in his cold and manipulative mother's shady business dealings in Flint, Michigan, fourteen-year-old Luther keeps a sense of humor while running the Happy Neighbor Group Home For Men, all the while dreaming of going to college and becoming a philosopher.

LITTLE BROTHER
Cory Doctorow
After being interrogated for days by the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco, California, seventeen-year-old Marcus, released into what is now a police state, decides to use his expertise in computer hacking to set things right.

FOR THE WIN
by Cory Doctorow
A group of teens from around the world find themselves drawn into an online revolution arranged by a mysterious young woman known as Big Sister Nor, who hopes to challenge the status quo and change the world using her virtual connections.

SEEDFOLKS
by Paul Fleischman
A group of inner-city residents start planting small gardens on a trash-filled vacant lot, and bring love and beauty to their lives.

THE YEAR THEY BURNED THE BOOKS
by Nancy Garden
While trying to come to terms with her own lesbian feelings, Jamie, a high-school senior and editor of the school newspaper, finds herself in the middle of a battle with a group of townspeople over the new health education curriculum.

FLUSH
by Carl Hiaasen
This is the story of what happens after Paine Underwood pulls the plug on the Coral Queen, gets arrested for this act, and how this spurs his family and community to take action.

HOOT
by Carl Hiaasen
New to Florida and Trace Middle School, Ray Eberhardt is at the mercy of the local bully but he is intrigued by a strange unschooled kid whose passion for the local wildlife leads them both into a crusade against a new pancake shop that will displace a colony of burrowing owls.

THE MISFITS
by James Howe
Four students who do not fit in at their small-town middle school decide to create a third party for the student council elections to represent all students who have ever been called names.

WIDE AWAKE
by David Levithan
In the not-too-distant future, when a gay Jewish man is elected president of the United States, sixteen-year-old Duncan examines his feelings for his boyfriend, his political and religious beliefs, and tries to determine his rightful place in the world.

COMMITTED: A RABBLE-ROUSER'S MEMOIR
by Dan Mathews
A bold, offbeat, globe-trotting memoir that shows how the most ridiculed punching bag in high school became a crusader for the most downtrodden individuals of all – animals.

THE EVOLUTION OF ETHAN POE
by Robin Reardon
In the space of a few months, sixteen-year-old Ethan Poe's life has become a complicated mix of facts, theories, and hypotheses. Things he knows beyond doubt: his parents are divorcing, his older brother Kyle is exhibiting alarming behavior, and his best friend is turning into a spiritual fanatic. Then there are the shifting uncertainties – including his feelings toward his father and his desire to both blend in and stand out in his rural Maine hometown. Most pressing of all, there's his attraction to Max Modine, a boy he wants to know much better than he does. Despite Ethan's initial reluctance, he gets pulled into a heated and sometimes violent conflict about whether to introduce Intelligent Design into science classrooms. Family and friends are turning against each other, school is a battleground, and Ethan will have to take a stand.

WRINGER
by Jerry Spinelli
As Palmer comes of age, he must either accept the violence of being a wringer at his town's annual Pigeon Day or find the courage to oppose it.

CHANDA'S SECRETS
by Allan Stratton
Sixteen-year-old Chanda loves school and dreams of a scholarship and a life beyond her family's poverty.  But her mother is tired all the time after her little sister's death, and Chanda must fight to keep her dreams alive and conquer her fears in the face of the brutal reality of Africa's AIDS epidemic.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LARRY
by Janet Tashjian
Things spiral out of control for Josh, a loner, who masquerades as "Larry" as he espouses anti-consumerism on his anonymous website.

VOTE FOR LARRY
by Janet Tashjian
Not yet eighteen years old, Josh, a.k.a. Larry, comes out of hiding and returns to public life, this time to run for President as an advocate for issues of concern to youth and to encourage voter turnout.

NO SHAME, NO FEAR
by Ann Turnbull
England in 1662 was a time of great religious upheaval, when the Quakers were forbidden to meet and practice their simpler lifestyle. William, the 17-year-old son of the wealthy mayor, gives up his place in society to follow his heart when he falls in love with Susanna, a 15-year-old Quaker girl who stands by her principles even though she faces persecution and jail.

CROSSING LINES
by Paul Volponi
High school senior Adonis struggles to do the right thing when his fellow football players escalate their bullying of a new classmate, Alan, who is transgendered.

I AM THE MESSENGER
by Markus Zusak
Aimless, amiable 19-year-old cab driver, Ed Kennedy, foils a bank robber and then begins to receive mysterious messages assigning him to intervene in the lives of strangers.

ACTIVISM LINKS