Teen Short Reads: Books 250 Pages or Less

Told in two voices, Luli and Yun, raised in an orphanage to age sixteen, work together in a factory until Yun, pregnant, disappears and Luli must confront the dangers of the outside world to find her. Includes facts about China's One-Child Policy and its effects.

After being hospitalized for depression, fourteen-year-old Kayla is sent from her home in Trinidad to live with her aunt in Canada, yearning to feel at home but feeling more adrift than ever.

"From the beloved author of The House on Mango Street: a richly illustrated compilation of true stories and nonfiction pieces that, taken together, form a jigsaw autobiography: an intimate album of a literary legend's life and career. From the Chicago neighborhoods where she grew up and set her groundbreaking The House on Mango Street to her abode in Mexico, in a region where "my ancestors lived for centuries," the places Sandra Cisneros has lived...

"Two intertwining stories of Bogotá. One, a family of five children, left to live on their own. The other, a girl in an orphanage who will do anything to befriend the mysterious Immortal Boy"-- "Este libro narra dos historias de Bogotá. La de cinco hermanos colombianos que enfrentan la orfandad y la miseria con valentía. Y la de una niña huérfana que hará cualquier cosa para conocer al misterioso chico inmortal. El momento en que sus vidas...

"From two-time National Book Award finalist Deborah Wiles, a masterpiece exploration of one of the darkest moments in our history, when American troops killed four American students protesting the Vietnam War.May 4, 1970.Kent State University.As protestors roil the campus, National Guardsmen are called in. In the chaos of what happens next, shots are fired and four students are killed. To this day, there is still argument of what happened and why.Told...

"Hoodie Rosen's life isn't that bad. Sure, his entire Orthodox Jewish community has just picked up and moved to the quiet, mostly non-Jewish town of Tregaron, but Hoodie's world hasn't changed that much. He's got basketball to play, studies to avoid, and a supermarket full of delicious kosher snacks to eat. The people of Tregaron aren't happy that so many Orthodox Jews are moving in at once, but that's not Hoodie's problem. That is, until he meets...

"Once in your life, sometime after your first memory but before you can drive a car, something is going to happen to you that doesn't happen to anyone else you know. It might be something good. It might be something bad, or special, or funny, or shocking. For Millie, it's something really sad. Lolo, her neighbors' infant daughter, dies -- unexpectedly, suddenly, inexplicably -- on the night Millie babysits. There's nothing she could have done. There's...

"When it comes to family, Annie is in the losers bracket. While her foster parents are great (mostly), her birth family would not have been her first pick. And no matter how many times Annie tries to write them out of her life, she always gets sucked back into their drama. Love is like that. But when a family argument breaks out at Annie's swim meet and her nephew goes missing, Annie might be the only one who can get him back. With help from her friends,...

"A heartfelt and funny graphic novel memoir by one of the first Black female cartoonists to be published in the New Yorker, at the age of 22"--

"Matt Nolan is the high school drug dealer, deadbeat, and soon-to-be dropout according to everyone at his school. His vice principal is counting down the days until Mr. 60% (aka Matt) finally flunks out and is no longer his problem. What no one knows is the only reason Matt sells drugs is to take care of his uncle Jack, who is dying of cancer. Meet Amanda. The overly cheerful social outcast whose optimism makes Matt want to hurl. Stuck as partners...