Teen Violence

Sixteen-year-old Sarah can't draw. This is a problem, because as long as she can remember, she has "done the art." She thinks she's having an existential crisis. And she might be right; she does keep running into past and future versions of herself as she wanders the urban ruins of Philadelphia. Or maybe she's finally waking up to the tornado that is her family, the tornado that six years ago sent her once-beloved older brother flying across the country for a reason she can't quite recall.

Imagine having everything taken away from you - permanently - with no hope of resuming a normal life. This is the case for many teenagers in America who are tried and convicted as adults for the crime of murder. Here Susan Kuklin takes you behind bars for frank interviews with a collection of young men who will spend the better part of their lives in jail. She lets them speak for themselves, providing the raw details of their incarceration and the anger, despair, and surprising hope they experience every day. Kuklin also provides an in-depth look at the American penal system, highlighting its many intricacies and inequities while focusing on capital cases involving juveniles.

At a young age, Lil J. Skin started stealing pain pills from his mom whenever he started to feel stressed - but now he's graduated to the big leagues. After Lil J. partners with a pusher named Rico on a sweet deal, events take a shocking turn when the buyer - an undercover police officer - is shot and Lil J. winds up wounded and hiding in a crack house.

Fifteen-year-old Blaise Montgomery lives in the gritty outskirts of Washington, DC, where a stray bullet can steal a life on the way to school. Drugs and violence are the only way to survive, so Blaise and her friends turn to gangs for safety, money, and love. When Blaise is invited to join Core 9, one of the most infamous crews, she jumps at the chance. Though her best guy friends, Rico and Satch, warn her about the danger, she agrees to be beaten for a minute straight as part of the gang's initiation ritual.

El mundo es una escala de grises, pero siempre lo vemos en blanco y negro. El blanco de quien es inocente y se acerca a la prisión con miedo a convertirse en una víctima. El negro que inunda las celdas de aislamiento. Y el gris que envuelve el lugar, plagado de matices. Un día me dijeron: «Leire, no vayas a la cárcel, hay gente peligrosa».

A terrorist’s bomb killed her brother - is Laura the next target? Laura and Billy are all-American expat kids living in London with their parents. Charming eleven-year-old Billy wants to be an entrepreneur and is making a good start with his paper route and by selling American macaroni-and-cheese to his British friends. Pretty teenaged Laura is so boy-crazy she hopes her unique crush-ranking system will be attractive to college admissions boards. But their carefree lives change forever when Billy is handed a mysterious package in a London Underground station.

Jedes Mädchen hat ein schmutziges Geheimnis. Jedes. Auch du. Doch was würdest du tun, wenn dein Geheimnis eigentlich meins wäre, und nur ich, nicht du, die Wahrheit kenne? Und was geschah mit Femke Star? Einst waren Femke und Anouk beste Freundinnen, bis ein Verrat die beiden entzweite. Was blieb, war die Hassliebe zweier Mädchen, die sich in unterschiedliche Richtungen entwickelt hatten. Doch als Femke eines Tages Anouk um Hilfe bittet, kommt es zu einem schrecklichen Unfall, der Anouks Leben für immer verändert.

Martina necesitaba huir y olvidar lo que ocurrió en la fiesta. Por eso se fugó en plena noche y acabó en ese pueblo cualquiera, lejos de la ciudad donde ya todos buscan a la chica que desapareció sin dejar ni rastro en el cumpleaños de su novio. "Yo era la sombra de la Araña; era como un complemento suyo, uno que no se quitaba nunca, pero que por sí mismo tampoco importaba apenas".

Nadie sabe qué ocurre en el instituto. Estudiantes y profesores corren por el edificio e intentan salir a toda costa mientras resuenan estallidos similares a disparos... Pero eso no es posible, ¿verdad? Una chica en la calle asegura que los ha visto entrar y, sí, iban armados. Otro alumno tiembla en la biblioteca tras haber presenciado una escena que jamás olvidará. Y John... ¿Dónde está John? ¿Por qué, cuando todos se esfuerzan por huir, él recorre los pasillos en dirección a los disparos? Tal vez él quiera contarlo.

On April 21, 2008, Steven "Crash" Crashinsky saved more than a thousand people when he stopped his classmate David Burnett from taking their high school hostage armed with assault weapons and high-powered explosives. You likely already know what came after for Crash: the nationwide notoriety, the college recruitment, and, of course, the book deal. What you might not know is what came before: a story of two teens whose lives have been inextricably linked since grade school, who were destined, some say, to meet that day in the teachers' lounge of Meadows High.

La vida de Filip tiene una constante: la violencia. ¿De qué manera nos podemos defender de la gente que nos molesta o se burla de nosotros? Al menos eso piensa él, hasta que le ponen un límite que es a la vez un desafío. Ahora tendrá que tomar unas vacaciones en Dinamarca, lejos de las pandillas y del precipicio en que está cayendo su vida. Tres meses sin golpes en un lugar donde no conoces nada ni a nadie parece fácil. En realidad, no tan fácil para un muchacho de catorce años acostumbrado a los puñetazos y a la discriminación.

DDR 1988: Als ihre Mutter einen Ausreiseantrag stellt und verhaftet wird, steckt man Anja in einen der berüchtigten Jugendwerkhöfe. Von jetzt auf gleich ist die 14-Jährige allein, gefangen zwischen hohen Mauern, schweren Eisentoren und vergitterten Fenstern. Das war’s also, ja? Sie wurde weggesperrt. In den Knast. Einfach so. Ohne Urteil, ohne Verhandlung und ohne, dass ein Richter sie angehört hätte. Es gibt nur einen Weg, der Willkür, dem gnadenlosen Drill und der Gewalt im Werkhof zu entkommen: Flucht!

Yolanda Álvarez está teniendo un buen año. Comienza a sentirse como en casa en la Secundaria Julia De Burgos, su escuela en el Bronx. Tiene a su mejor amiga Victory, y tal vez algo con José, un jevito de último año que está conociendo mejor. Confía en que su iniciación en la tradición de brujas de su familia sucederá pronto.

It's been two weeks since Polly St. James went missing. The police, the headmistress of Torrey-Wells Academy, and even her parents have ruled her a runaway. But not Maren, her best friend and roommate. She knows Polly had a secret that she was about to share with Maren before she disappeared—something to do with the elite, ultra-rich crowd at Torrey-Wells. Then Maren finds an envelope hidden among Polly's things: an invitation to the Gamemaster's Society.

From William C. Morris and Edgar Award finalist Leah Thomas comes an ethereal, thought-provoking YA tale about a teen who can see ghosts...and helps them avenge their deaths. Dani’s best friend, Sarah, is a ghost. But maybe that’s normal when you’ve spent your childhood running from an abusive parent. Dani and Sarah might be more than friends, though Dani dares not say so. Dani is afraid that if he tells Sarah he’s trans, she won’t bother haunting him anymore. Sarah’s got good reason to distrust boys, having been strangled by one.

Hector has always minded his own business, working hard to make his way to a better life someday. He's the chess team champion, helps the family with his job at the grocery, and teaches his little sister to shoot hoops overhand. Until Joey singles him out. Joey, whose older brother, Chavo, is head of the Discípulos gang, tells Hector that he's going to kill him: maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday. And Hector, frozen with fear, does nothing. From that day forward, Hector's death is hanging over his head every time he leaves the house.

This astonishing novel from three-time National Book Award finalist Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork—empathetic, brutal, and entirely human—and essential reading for both teens and adults grappling with the long history of American racism.

On the night of October 6, 1998, a gay 21-year-old University of Wyoming student named Matthew Shepard was lured from a bar by two young men, then savagely beaten, tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, and left to die. Five days later, Lesléa Newman arrived on campus to give the keynote speech for the University of Wyoming’s Gay Awareness Week. October Mourning is Lesléa Newman’s deeply personal response to the events of that tragic day and its brutal aftermath.

There is an unspoken agreement between the racially divided towns of Bayside and Hamilton: no one steps over the train tracks that divide them. Or else. Not until Zach Whitman anyway, a white boy who moves in from Philly and who dreams of music. When he follows his dream across the tracks to meet his idol, the famous jazz musician who owns The Sunlight Record Shop in Hamilton, he’s flung into Capri Collins’s path.

Four accomplished teenagers are on the verge of explosion. The anxieties they face at every turn have nearly pushed them to the point of surrender: senseless high-stakes testing, the lingering damage of trauma, the buried grief and guilt of tragic loss. They are desperate to cope—but no one is listening. So they will lie. They will split in two. They will turn inside out. They will build an invisible helicopter to fly themselves far away from the pressure…but nothing releases the pressure. Because, as they discover, the only way to truly escape their world is to fly right into it.