Teen Violence

Five estranged cousins are lost in a maze of their family’s tangled secrets. Their grandparents, former potato farmers Gottfried and Marla Hemmings, managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions, and now they sit atop a million-dollar bank account - wealth they’ve refused to pass on to their adult children or their five teenage grandchildren. "Because we want them to thrive," Marla always says. But for the Hemmings cousins, "thriving" feels a lot like slowly dying of a poison they started taking the moment they were born.

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.

Nominated for a National Book Award in 1971, His Own Where is the story of Buddy, a fifteen-year-old boy whose world is spinning out of control. He meets Angela, whose angry parents accuse her of being "wild." When life falls apart for Buddy and his father, and when Angela is attacked at home, they take action to create their own way of staying alive in Brooklyn. In the process, the two find refuge in one another and learn that love is real and necessary.

The enigmatic Black Coats have been exacting vengeance on men who have hurt girls and women for years. The killer of Thea's cousin went free, and Thea has just received an invitation to join the Black Coats' balancings - acts of revenge meant to teach a lesson. Justice for Natalie has never felt so close. But as the balancings escalate in brutality, Thea’s clear-cut mission begins to unravel, and she must decide just how far she is willing to go for justice.

When Gabby Perez is almost drugged at a nightclub, she decides to take action. Teaming up with a mysterious stranger known as X, the two go after a gang who is drugging and kidnapping innocent girls off the Miami streets and forcing them into prostitution. As their search deepens, Gabby and X can't ignore their undeniable attraction to each other. Then Gabby discovers the truth about who X really is and the danger that surrounds him. Can their love survive the light of day?

A girl walks home from school. She's tall for her age. She's wearing her winter coat. Her headphones are in. She's hurrying. She never makes it home. In the aftermath, while law enforcement tries to justify the response, one fact remains: A police officer has shot and killed an unarmed 13-year-old girl. The community is thrown into upheaval, leading to unrest, a growing movement to protest the senseless taking of black lives, and the arrival of white supremacist counter-demonstrators.

Palmer LaRue is running out of birthdays. For as long as he can remember, he's dreaded the day he turns ten - the day he'll take his place beside all the other ten-year-old boys in town, the day he'll be a wringer. But Palmer doesn't want to be a wringer. It's one of the first things he learned about himself and it's one of the biggest things he has to hide. In Palmer's town being a wringer is an honor, a tradition passed down from father to son.

In a country ripped apart by war, Tareq lives with his big and loving family...until the bombs strike. His city is in ruins. His life is destroyed. And those who have survived are left to figure out their uncertain future. In the wake of destruction, he's threatened by Daesh fighters and witnesses a public beheading. Tareq's family knows that to continue to stay alive, they must leave. As they travel as refugees from Syria to Turkey to Greece, facing danger at every turn, Tareq must find the resilience and courage to complete his harrowing journey.

Four years ago, Judith and her best friend disappeared from their small town of Roswell Station. Two years ago, only Judith returned, permanently mutilated, reviled and ignored by those who were once her friends and family. Unable to speak, Judith lives like a ghost in her own home, silently pouring out her thoughts to the boy who's owned her heart as long as she can remember - even if he doesn't know it - her childhood friend, Lucas.

Boy Nobody: No name. No past. No remorse. At least until he began to ask questions and challenge his orders - until he fell in love with his target. Now The Program is worried that its valuable soldier has become a liability. Boy Nobody, haunted by the outcome of his last assignment, is given a new mission. A test of sorts. A chance to show his loyalty. His objective: Take out Eugene Moore, the owner of a military training and indoctrination camp for teenagers. One target. Limited time frame. Public place. It sounds simple, but a previous operative couldn't do it.

Third-grader Jamie sees his baby sister being tossed across the room by his stepfather. His mother miraculously catches the baby, and what follows are the effects of the incident on Jamie.

Nine-year-old Ling is very comfortable in her life; her parents are both dedicated surgeons in the best hospital in Wuhan. But when Comrade Li, one of Mao's political officers, moves into a room in their apartment, Ling begins to witness the gradual disintegration of her world. In an atmosphere of increasing mistrust, Ling fears for the safety of her neighbors and, soon, for herself and family.

The Program has sent Boy Nobody on countless missions, instructed to kill whichever target he was given. But now, after going rogue, he is on his own mission to rescue his friend, Howard, who was captured by The Program. Boy Nobody manages to free Howard as well as Tanya, a mysterious girl who was being held with him. Howard and Tanya help Boy Nobody collect information about his father, eventually revealing a dangerous secret that teaches Boy Nobody a valuable lesson - he can't trust anyone.

Sixteen-year-old Beau Willet has dreams of being an artist and one day leaving the Chicago projects she’s grown up in. But after her older sister, Katia, is killed by an off-duty police officer, Beau knows she has to clear her sister’s name by finding the only witness to the murder; Katia’s no-good boyfriend, Jordan, who has gone missing. If she doesn't find him and tell the world what really happened, Katia's death will be ignored, like the deaths of so many other Black women who are wrongfully killed.

When everything has been taken from you, what else is there to do but run? So that’s what Annabelle does - she runs from Seattle to Washington, DC, through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She’s not ready to think about the why yet, just the how - muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the Earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person - The Taker - that haunts her.

When Marvin Johnson's twin, Tyler, goes to a party, Marvin decides to tag along to keep an eye on his brother. But what starts as harmless fun turns into a shooting, followed by a police raid. The next day, Tyler has gone missing, and it's up to Marvin to find him. But when Tyler is found dead, a video leaked online tells an even more chilling story: Tyler has been shot and killed by a police officer. Terrified as his mother unravels and mourning a brother who is now a hashtag, Marvin must learn what justice and freedom really mean.

"Bang! A side door bursts open. Soldiers pour into the room. They're shouting and waving rifles. I shield my head with my arms. It was a lie! I think, my mind racing. Girls and boys alike are screaming. The soldiers prod and herd some of us together and push the rest apart as if we're cows or goats.Their leader, though, is a middle-aged man. He's moving slowly, intently, not dashing around like the others. 'Take the boys only, Win Min,' I overhear him telling a tall, gangly soldier...."

A peaceful summer night is shattered by gunfire as an unseen assailant tries to murder police officer John Busby. Though horribly wounded, Busby survives. But the perpetrator remains at large, meaning neither Busby, nor his wife, nor their three children are safe. In separate chapters John and his daughter, Cylin, who was nine at the time, recount the story of that year. John writes graphically, and movingly, of his wounds, his pain, his multiple surgeries, and his rage.

It’s the summer of 1962, and Scott and his friends spend their days playing baseball and thinking about girls. But the threat of nuclear war looms over everything they do, and they are haunted by the idea that they could all be dead tomorrow. Even though the possibility of war is all anyone talks about, Scott’s dad is the only one in the neighborhood who actually prepares for the worst, building a bomb shelter to protect his family and stocking it with enough supplies to keep them alive for two critical weeks. The neighbors scoff, but then, in the middle of the night in late October, the unthinkable happens.

A heartbreaking novel that offers no easy answers, Give a Boy a Gun addresses the growing problem of school violence. Although it is a work of fiction, it could tragically be the leading nightly news story in any community. After a high school shooting at her alma mater, a college journalism student returns home to interview students, teachers, parents, and friends of the suspects. Intermingled with her interviews are journal entries written by the two troubled boys responsible for the shooting.