Teen Memoirs

Jay was a sweet, bright high school student who cared about his grades and his friends. He had ambitions. He was happy. And he thought he could handle anything. He was wrong. When Jay falls in with a crowd that's dabbling in drugs and the occult, he finds himself in over his head and doing things he never thought possible.

More than 50 years ago, John Coltrane drew the 12 musical notes in a circle and connected them with straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane had put physics and geometry at the core of his music. Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander returns the favor, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe.

Cassandra McMurtrey has the best parents a girl could ask for; they’ve given Cass a life she wouldn’t trade for the world. She has everything she needs - but she has questions, too. Like, to know who she is. Where she came from. Questions her adoptive parents can’t answer, no matter how much they love her. But 18 years ago, someone wrote Cass a series of letters. And they may just hold the answers Cass has been searching for.

Malala's memoir of a remarkable teenage girl who risked her life for the right to go to school is now abridged and adapted for chapter book listeners. Raised in a changing Pakistan by an enlightened father from a poor background and a beautiful, illiterate mother, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. Her story of bravery and determination in the face of extremism is more timely than ever.

Paige Rawl has been HIV positive since birth, but growing up, she never felt like her illness defined her. On an unremarkable day in middle school, she disclosed to a friend her HIV-positive status - and within hours the bullying began. From that moment forward, every day was like walking through a minefield. Paige was never sure when or from where the next text, taunt, or hateful message would come. Then one night, desperate for escape, 15-year-old Paige found herself in her bathroom staring at a bottle of sleeping pills. That could have been the end of her story. Instead, it was only the beginning.

Avan Jogia grew up as a teen idol. He stumbled into the spotlight during the birth of the internet, the early days of Instagram and Twitter, before everyone online was a star. He spent his time in that spotlight writing, observing the cult of celebrity, the hilarity, the absurdity, and sometimes sinister side of being idolized before you’ve even had the chance to decide for yourself who you are. Now, in his most revealing and honest work to date, he has assembled a book of poems as an act of self-dissection.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Tuohy follows Richard O'Kane, America's undersea ace of aces, and a few fearless submariners, during the U.S. submarine war in the Pacific. This grueling battle saw 10 million tons of Japanese shipping sunk by U.S. submarines, but the cost to the U.S. Navy was one in five of its boats, the highest casualty rate of the U.S. armed services.

It's been a decade since Kate and Cecelia foiled Napoleon's plot to reclaim the French crown. The cousins now have estates, children, and a place at the height of wizarding society. It is 1828, and though magic remains at the heart of the British Empire, a new power has begun to make itself felt across England: the steam engine. As iron tracks crisscross the countryside, the shaking of the locomotives begins to disrupt the workings of English magic, threatening the very foundations of the Empire.

In CinderGirl, Christina tells her piercing and poignant story of leaving behind homelessness to become Ms. California and the founder of a nonprofit organization that provides advocacy for foster-care children.

You might ask the obvious question: What do I, a 17-year-old Haitian American from Miami with way too little life experience, have to say about anything? Actually, a lot. Thanks to "the incident" (don’t ask), I’m spending the next two months doing what my school is calling a "spring volunteer immersion project." It’s definitely no vacation. I’m toiling away under the ever-watchful eyes of Tati Estelle at her new nonprofit. And my lean-in queen of a mother is even here to make sure I do things right.

She lost her arm in a shark attack and nearly died, but she never lost her faith. Now a major motion picture, Soul Surfer is the moving story of Bethany Hamilton’s triumphant return to competitive surfing and has continued to be a beacon of inspiration to all who hear it. They say Bethany Hamilton has saltwater in her veins. How else could one explain the passion that drives her to surf? Or that nothing - not even the loss of her arm - could come between her and the waves?

When the Navy sends their elite, they send the SEALs. When the SEALs send their elite, they send SEAL Team Six—a secret unit made up of the finest soldiers in the country, if not the world. I Am a SEAL Team Six Warrior is the dramatic tale of how Howard Wasdin overcame a tough childhood to live his dream and enter the exciting and dangerous world of US Navy SEALs and Special Forces snipers. This is Howard Wasdin's story of overcoming abuse and beating the odds to become an elite American warrior.

Exclusive interviews with the top athletes in sports today. Trust the Grind: How World-Class Athletes Got to the Top reveals how these men and women reached the heights of their profession so that you can too. Each chapter tells a different story, as each superstar shares the habit that helped them accomplish their goals and reach the pinnacle of their profession.

Mendel (Manny) Steinberg spent his teens in Nazi extermination camps in Germany and Poland, miraculously surviving while millions perished. This is his story. Born in 1925 in the Jewish ghetto in Radom, Poland, Manny soon realized that people of Jewish faith were increasingly being regarded as outsiders. In September 1939 the Nazis invaded, and the nightmare started. The city's Jewish population had no chance of escaping and was faced with starvation, torture, sexual abuse and ultimately deportation.

In September of 2019, Luis Alberto Quiñonez—known as Sito— was shot to death as he sat in his car in the Mission District of San Francisco. He was nineteen. His killer, Julius Williams, was seventeen. It was the second time the teens had encountered one another. The first, five years before, also ended in tragedy, when Julius watched as his brother was stabbed to death by an acquaintance of Sito’s. The two murders merited a few local news stories, and then the rest of the world moved on. But for Laurence Ralph, Sito’s murder forced him to revisit the subject in a profoundly different way.

This profoundly moving memoir is the remarkable and inspiring true story of Sandra Uwiringiyimana, a girl from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who tells the tale of how she survived a massacre, immigrated to America, and overcame her trauma through art and activism. Sandra was just 10 years old when she found herself with a gun pointed at her head. She had watched as rebels gunned down her mother and six-year-old sister in a refugee camp.

Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad was praised by the New Yorker as “an evocative portrait,” and by the Chicago Tribune as “superb.” It is a gripping and accessible portrait of the heroic woman who guided more than 300 slaves to freedom and who is expected to be the face of the new $20 bill. Harriet Tubman was born a slave and dreamed of being free. She was willing to risk everything - including her own life - to see that dream come true. After her daring escape, Harriet became a conductor on the secret Underground Railroad.

In accessible language and with periodic references to Star Trek, motorcycle daredevils, and near-classic movies of the '80s, developmental molecular biologist John Medina explores the neurological and evolutionary factors that drive teenage behavior and can affect both achievement and engagement. Then he proposes a research-supported counterattack: a bold redesign of educational practices and learning environments to deliberately develop teens' cognitive capacity to manage their emotions, plan, prioritize, and focus.

David Parrish was in disbelief when he learned that 19-year-old Jon Bowie's body had been found hanged from a backstop at the local high school's baseball field and the death declared a suicide. David had known Jon and his twin brother since they were boys. He had coached them on the baseball field and welcomed them into his home for sleepovers with his own sons. However, when David learned how Jon's body was found, he felt compelled to find the facts behind this incomprehensible tragedy.

As a 15-year-old, struggling with severe bullying, ADHD, adoption trauma, and undiagnosed autism, Meg became one of the unfortunate 120,000–200,000 youths who are funneled into the lucrative Troubled Teen Industry (TTI) every year. Over the next 3.5 years Meg was abused in two separate facilities that masqueraded as “treatment”. Over two decades later, Meg Appelgate has evolved into an advocate, activist and passionate spokesperson for survivors across the United States.