Catalyst (Anderson, Laurie Halse) Eighteen-year-old Kate, who sometimes chafes at being a preacher's daughter, finds herself losing control in her senior year as she faces difficult neighbors, the possibility that she may not be accepted by the college of her choice, and an unexpected Squashed (Bauer, Joan) As a sixteen-year-old pursues her two goals--growing the biggest pumpkin in Iowa and losing twenty pounds herself--she strengthens her relationship with her father and meets a young man with interests similar to her own. Tangerine (Bloor, Edward) Paul Fisher is supposed to be legally blind, although he can see well enough to play soccer. When his family moves to Tangerine, Florida, Paul doesn't expect life to be much different. His brother Erik's football dream will dominate his parents' attention, and Paul will be forgotten. But Tangerine is different than Houston--really different. The Sisterhood of the traveling pants (Brashares, Ann) Four best girlfriends spend the biggest summer of their lives enchanted by a magical pair of pants. Tune in anytime (Cooney, Caroline B.) When Sophie's father suddenly decides to divorce Sophie's mother and marry her sister Marley's college roommate, Sophie feels like she is trapped in an endless soap opera. The Rag and bone shop (Cormier, Robert) Trent, an ace interrogator from Vermont, works to procure a confession from an introverted twelve-year-old accused of murdering his seven-year-old friend in Monument, Massachusetts. Chasing Redbird (Creech, Sharon) After the death of her aunt, a thirteen-year-old girl decides to clear an overgrown trail near her family's farm. Where it stops, nobody knows (Ehrlich, Amy) Nina and her mother move from place to place, never revealing anything of themselves, and causing Nina to wonder if they will ever stop hiding. Kicks (Fitch, Janet) A fifteen-year-old girl draws back from the false glamour of Los Angeles street life when an oft envied childhood friend becomes sexually promiscuous and overdoses on drugs. Whirligig (Fleischman, Paul) Convicted of DUI and manslaughter, Brent was responsible for an 18-year-old girl's death. He becomes, just going through the motions. Then comes the restitution hearing with Lea Zamora's mother and the chance he's been waiting for. The chance to get away from his old life and try to atone for what he has done. So Brent stops all the arguing. Flour babies (Fine, Anne) When his class of underachievers is assigned to spend three torturous weeks taking care of their own "babies" in the form of bags of flour, Simon makes amazing discoveries about himself while coming to terms with his long-absent father. Mary Wolf (Grant, Cynthia D.) Sixteen-year-old Mary tries to keep her family together as they aimlessly travel the country after her father's business fails and he starts to change. Don't you dare read this, Mrs. Dunphrey (Haddix, Margaret Peterson) In the journal she is keeping for English class, sixteen-year-old Tish chronicles the changes in her life when her abusive father returns home after a two-year absence. The Planet of Junior Brown (Hamilton, Virginia) Already a leader in New York's underground world of homeless children, Buddy Clark takes on the responsibility of protecting the overweight, emotionally disturbed friend with whom he has been playing hooky from eighth grade all semester. The Watcher (Howe, James) As she sits watching a seemingly perfect family and a handsome lifeguard on the beach, a lonely, troubled girl projects herself into the fantasy lives she has created for them. Dinky Hocker shoots smack! (Kerr, M. E.) Many things change in a teenage boy's life when he meets the overweight girl who answers his ad for the cat he must give away. Stoner & Spaz (Koertge, Ronald) A troubled youth with cerebral palsy struggles toward self-acceptance with the help of a drug-addicted young woman. The View from Saturday (Konigsburg, E. L.) Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition. 24 hours (Mahy, Margaret) During his first twenty-four hours after finishing high school, seventeen-year-old Ellis unexpectedly becomes part of an inner-city world far different from his comfortable life, which helps deal with his best friend's recent suicide. Parrot in the oven: mi vida (Martinez, Victor) Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Chicano family in which the alcoholic father only adds to everyone's struggle. Sixteen and dying (McDaniel, Lurlene) HIV-positive after a blood transfusion seven years before, Anne Wingate receives money from an anonymous benefactor and journeys with her father out west, where she falls for local boy Morgan and must tell him about her illness. Swallowing stones (McDonald, Joyce) Dual perspectives reveal the aftermath of seventeen-year-old Michael MacKenzie's birthday celebration during which he discharges an antique Winchester rifle and unknowingly kills the father of high school classmate Jenna Ward. Monster (Myers, Walter Dean) While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken. Born blue (Nolan, Han) Janie was four years old when she nearly drowned due to her mothers neglect. Through an unhappy foster home experience, and years of feeling that she is unwanted, she keeps alive her dream of someday being a famous singer. Peeling the onion (Orr, Wendy) Following an automobile accident in which her neck is broken, a teenage karate champion begins a long and painful recovery with the help of her family. The Last safe place on earth (Peck, Richard) Fifteen-year-old Todd sees his perfect suburban world start to unravel when his little sister has her mind poisoned by a member of a fundamentalist sect, and he begins to notice signs of censorship in his community. Tribute to another dead rock star (Powell, Randy) For a tribute to his mother, a dead rock star, fifteen-year-old Grady returns to Seattle, where he faces his mixed feelings for his retarded younger half-brother Louie while pondering his own future. A Door near here (Quarles, Heather) Four siblings struggle to maintain a seminormal home life when their single mother's alcoholism becomes debilitating. Holes (Sachar, Louis) As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself. Stranded in Harmony (Shoup, Barbara) While struggling with the changes he faces during his senior year in a small Indiana town, Lucas gains insight through a unique friendship with a former Vietnam war protester. How I changed my life (Strasser, Todd) Overweight high school senior Bo decides to change her image while working on the school play with a former star football player who is also struggling to find a new identity for himself. Rats saw God (Thomas, Rob) Steve, a high school senior, has only one hope of graduating on time--writing a 100-page paper. When she hollers (Voigt, Cynthia) Tish, a teenager who has been enduring abuse from her adoptive stepfather since she was a small child, finally decides she must do something to stop him. Whistle me home (Wersba, Barbara) Seventeen-year-old Noli feels as if she has found her soul mate when handsome, sensitive TJ moves to Sag Harbor, but even as their feelings deepen, individual secrets threaten their relationship. The Pigman's legacy (Zindel, Paul) Haunted by the memory of a dead friend, two teenagers join an old man in a series of misadventures.