FICTION

SIGN LANGUAGE
by Amy Ackley
Teenaged Abby must deal with her feelings about her father's cancer and its aftermath while simultaneously navigating the difficult problems of growing up.

FREAK MAGNET
by Andrew Auseon
Two teenagers, both burdened by grief and loss, find each other and gradually develop a strong connection to one another.

SWIMMING TO CHICAGO
by David-Matthew Barnes
Reeling from his mother's suicide, seventeen-year-old Alex Bainbridge retreats from the world around him, often finding solace on a secluded island behind his house. As an Armenian-American living in a small Southern town, Alex struggles to fit in. His close friendship with the outspoken Jillian Dambro is his only saving grace, until he meets and falls in love with Robby LaMont – an introverted new student at school. As the year unfolds and the lives of the adults around them unravel, the three teens form an unbreakable bond, vowing to do anything to stay together – even if it means leaving everything behind.

FEELS LIKE HOME
by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo
Following the death of their father, seventeen-year-old Michelle's older brother — who had disappeared six years earlier — returns to their small Texas town where, with the help of S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, the two siblings try to find a way to move beyond a past tragedy.

THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREVER
by Sarah Dessen
The summer following her father's death, Macy plans to work at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where she makes new friends and finally faces her grief.

FAR AND BEYON’
by Unity Dow
A Tswana mother, grieving the loss of two sons to AIDS, embraces traditional magic, while her remaining son and daughter increasingly reject her beliefs.

FRANNIE IN PIECES
by Delia Ephron
When fifteen-year-old Frannie's father dies, only a mysterious jigsaw puzzle that he leaves behind can help her come to terms with his death.

WRECKED
by E.R. Frank
After a car accident seriously injures her best friend and kills her brother's girlfriend, sixteen-year-old Anna tries to cope with her guilt and grief, while learning some truths about her family and herself.

CHOICES
by Deborah Lynn Jacobs
Overcome with guilt over her brother's death, a teenaged girl shifts between multiple universes in an attempt to find one in which he is alive.

LOOKING FOR RED
by Angela Johnson
A thirteen-year-old girl struggles to cope with the loss of her beloved older brother, who disappeared four months earlier off the coast of Cape Cod.

DEADVILLE
by Ron Koertge
While visiting an injured classmate in the hospital, sixteen-year-old Ryan, who is trying to come to terms with his sister's death from cancer, meets a young patient who claims to be able to see into the world where the dead live.

LOST FOR WORDS
by Alice Kuipers
Sixteen-year-old Sophie struggles to find normalcy after an incident she chooses not to remember took her sister's life, and by keeping a journal, making a new friend, and seeing a therapist she finally begins to recover.

HOLD STILL
by Nina LaCour
Ingrid didn't leave a note. Three months after her best friend's suicide, Caitlin finds what she left instead: a journal, hidden under Caitlin's bed.

PIPER'S SON
by Melina Marchetta
After his favorite uncle's violent death, Tom Mackee watches his family implode, quits school, and turns his back on music and everyone who matters, and while he is in no shape to mend what is broken, he fears that no one else is, either.

AMY & ROGER'S EPIC DETOUR
by Morgan Matson
After the death of her father, Amy, a high school student, and Roger, a college freshman, set out on a carefully planned road trip from California to Connecticut, but wind up taking many detours, forcing Amy to face her worst fears and come to terms with her grief and guilt.

MY TIKI GIRL
by Jennifer McMahon
Fifteen-year-old Maggie, still grieving the loss of her mother in an accident that also gave her a limp, has turned her back on old friends but connects with a new student, Dahlia, who makes Maggie part of her unconventional family and plans their future together as roving musicians and lovers.

ALL WE KNOW OF HEAVEN
by Jacquelyn Mitchard
When Maureen and Bridget, two sixteen-year-old best friends who look like sisters, are in a terrible car accident and one of them dies, they are at first incorrectly identified at the hospital, and then, as Maureen achieves a remarkable recovery, she must deal with the repercussions of the accident, the mix-up, and some choices she made while she was getting better.

SAVING ZOË
by Alyson Nöel
Instead of a fresh start, high school provides more grief and isolation to Echo, whose older sister died a year earlier, but insights gained from Zoë's diary — a fifteenth birthday gift from Zoë's boyfriend — about her sister's life and death change Echo in ways she could have never expected.

CRAZY
by Han Nolan
Fifteen-year-old loner Jason struggles to hide father's declining mental condition after his mother's death, but when his father disappears he must confide in the other members of a therapy group he has been forced to join at school.

FAR FROM XANADU
by Julie Anne Peters
In a small Kansas town, sixteen-year-old Mary-Elizabeth "Mike" Szabo tries to come to terms with her father's suicide and her own homosexuality.

PRETEND YOU LOVE ME
by Julie Anne Peters
In a small Kansas town, sixteen-year-old Mary-Elizabeth "Mike" Szabo tries to come to terms with her father's suicide and her own homosexuality.

BULLYVILLE
by Francine Prose
After the death of his estranged father in the World Trade Center on 9/11, thirteen-year-old Bart, still struggling with his feelings of guilt, sorrow and loss, wins a scholarship to the local preparatory school and there encounters a vicious bully whose cruelty compounds the aftermath of the tragedy.

BLACK POWDER
by Staton Rabin
After his best friend is shot and killed, fourteen-year-old Langston borrows his science teacher's time machine and travels from Los Angeles in 2010 to Oxford, England, in 1278 to try to prevent Roger Bacon from publishing his formula for gunpowder.

CRYING TREE
by Naseem Rakha
Irene and Nate Stanley are living a quiet and contented life with their two children, Bliss and Shep, on their family farm in southern Illinois when Nate suddenly announces he’s been offered a job as a deputy sheriff in Oregon. They are just settling into their life in Oregon’s high desert when the unthinkable happens. Fifteen-year-old Shep is shot and killed during an apparent robbery in their home. The murderer, a young mechanic with a history of assault, robbery, and drug-related offenses, is caught and sentenced to death. As the execution date nears, the Stanleys must face difficult truths and find a way to come to terms with the past.

SAMMY & JULIANA IN HOLLYWOOD
by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
As a Chicano boy living in the unglamorous town of Hollywood, New Mexico, and a member of the graduating class of 1969, Sammy Santos faces the challenges of "gringo" racism, unpopular dress codes, the Vietnam War, barrio violence, and poverty.

CHASING BROOKLYN
by Lisa Schroeder
As teenagers Brooklyn and Nico work to help each other recover from the deaths of Brooklyn's boyfriend – Nico's brother Lucca – and their friend Gabe, the two begin to rediscover their passion for life, and a newly blossoming passion for one another.

THE COMEBACK SEASON
by Jennifer E. Smith
High school freshman Ryan Walsh, a Chicago Cubs fan, meets Nick when they both skip school on opening day, and their blossoming relationship becomes difficult for Ryan when she discovers that Nick is seriously ill and she again feels the pain of losing her father five years earlier.

NOTHING LIKE YOU
by Lauren Strasnick
Six months after her mother's death, seventeen-year-old Holly finds some happiness in a secret affair with Paul, a boy she barely knows, but after becoming friends with Paul's girlfriend, Saskia, Holly worries that her best friend, Nils, or Saskia will learn the devastating truth.

THE TALE OF ONE BAD RAT
by Bryan Talbot
Helen Potter becomes the armored knight before her own personal demons. It's a story of heroism and courage, and of defeating the greatest enemy–the one which lives within.

A SEA SO FAR
by Jean Thesman
After surviving the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires, two teenage girls, a wealthy semi-invalid and her hired companion, travel together to Ireland and discover they share much in common, from a love of romance novels to grief over the loss of their mothers.

HARD HIT
by Ann Turner
A rising high school baseball star faces his most difficult challenge when his father is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

THE TROUBLE WITH A HALF MOON
by Danette Vigilante
Overwhelmed by grief and guilt over her brother's death and its impact on her mother, and at odds with her best friend, thirteen-year-old Dellie reaches out to a neglected boy in her building in the projects and learns from a new neighbor to have faith in herself and others.

WHAT COMES AFTER
by Steve Watkins
When her veterinarian father dies, sixteen-year-old Iris Wight must move from Maine to North Carolina where her Aunt Sue spends Iris's small inheritance while abusing her physically and emotionally, but the hardest to take is her mistreatment of the farm animals.

ADIOS, NIRVANA
by Conrad Wesselhoeft
As Seattle sixteen-year-old Jonathan helps a dying man come to terms with a tragic event he experienced during World War II, Jonathan begins facing his own demons, especially the death of his twin brother, helped by an assortment of friends, old and new.

BEHIND YOU
by Jacqueline Woodson
After fifteen-year-old Jeremiah is mistakenly shot by police, the people who love him struggle to cope with their loss as they recall his life and death, unaware that 'Miah is watching over them.

NONFICTION

HELLO CRUEL WORLD: 101 ALTERNATIVES TO SUICIDE FOR TEENS, FREAKS, AND OTHER OUTLAWS
by Kate Bornstein
A one-of-a-kind guide to staying alive outside the box, Hello, Cruel World is a much-needed unconventional approach to life for those who want to stay on the edge, but alive.

SOMETIMES LIFE SUCKS: WHEN SOMEONE YOU LOVE DIES
by Molly Carlile
Provides information for teens to navigate their personal experience of grief, and for parents and teachers to use with teens struggling with loss.

WHEN NOTHING MATTERS ANYMORE: A SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR DEPRESSED TEENS
by Bev Cobain
A guide to understanding and coping with depression, discussing the different types, how and why the condition begins, how it may be linked to substance abuse or suicide, and how to get help.

STOPPING FOR DEATH: POEMS OF DEATH AND LOSS
edited by Carol Ann Duffy
A collection of poems about death, loss, and mourning written by poets from all over the world including Janet Frame, Alice Walker and Seamus Heaney.

WHEN A FRIEND DIES: A BOOK FOR TEENS ABOUT GRIEVING & HEALING
by Marilyn Gootman
The death of a friend is a wrenching event for anyone at any age. This sensitive book answers questions grieving teens often have, like "How should I be acting?" "Is it wrong to go to parties and have fun?" and "What if I can't handle my grief on my own?" The advice is gentle, non-preachy, and compassionate; the author has seen her own children suffer from the death of a friend, and she knows what teens go through.

THE COLOR OF ABSENCE: 12 STORIES ABOUT LOSS AND HOPE
edited by James Howe
A collection of stories dealing with different kinds of loss experienced by young people.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE: TEENS TALK ABOUT LIFE AFTER THE LOSS OF A PARENT
by Lynne Hughes
Former attendees of the Comfort Zone Camp share their experiences of losing a parent at a young age. Their testimonials are accompanied by discussions of coping strategies, and ways to express grief and relate to loved ones.

WHEN WILL I STOP HURTING?: TEENS, LOSS, AND GRIEF
by Edward Myers
A self-help guide for teenagers who are struggling with bereavement and the emotional difficulties it presents.

GRIEF GIRL: MY TRUE STORY
by Erin Vincent
Imagine that you're going through one of the hardest parts of your life — being a teenager — when your parents are killed in a horrific car crash. Now you, your seventeen-year-old sister, and your three-year-old brother are on your own. Imagine what that would be like. Then read this book and find out.

HEALING A TEEN'S HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS FOR FAMILIES, FRIENDS, AND CAREGIVERS
by Alan D. Wolfelt
A compassionate resource for friends, parents, relatives, teachers, volunteers and caregivers, this series offers suggestions to help the grieving cope with the loss of a loved one.