Hinton, Susie
That was Then This is Now
New York: Dell Pub. Co. 1967.
Mark and Bryon were like brothers, and both became involved in their slum neighborhood’s gang warfare. But when they were sixteen, Bryon discovered things about Mark that forced him to confront a present so different from his past. A mature; disciplined novel, which excites a response in the reader and is hard to forget.
Kerr, M.E.
Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack
New York: Dell Pub. Co. 1972.
Dinky isn’t addicted to heroin, but she does have a big problem. Then there are boys and parents to complicate her life. The most difficult problems are Dinky’s—whose addiction to food makes her life a nightmare until the night of her shocking explosion, when at last some people understand you don’t have to be a public loser to have private troubles. The characterization, the relationships (particularly between parents and children) and the writing style are excellent.
Knowles, John
A Separate Peace
New York: MacMillan Pub. Co. 1959.
In 1943, America’s first war year, most boys of sixteen had only a little time for the kind of life they had always known. For the boys at Devon prep school the atmosphere of war was lurking. Two boys, Gene and Phineas became friends. Gene, the story teller, is academically brilliant. Finny’s great gifts as an athlete are matched by his great gifts as a person: he is without fear in a world and a boy’s school which are full of it. Their friendship, as unsentimental as it is real, is flawed by defects in Gene’s character which leads to a mad, impulsive act of aggression against his friend.
Konigsburg, E.L.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil Frankweiler
New York: Atheneum 1967.
When Claudia decided to run away, she planned very carefully. She would be gone just long enough to teach her parents a lesson in Claudia appreciation. And she would go in comfort—she would live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She saved her money, and she invited her brother Jamie to go, mostly because he was a miser and would have money. From there their adventures begin. This was the winner of the 1968 Newberry Award.
Lipsyte, Robert
The Contender
New York: Harper & Row Pub. 1967.
This is a gut-wrenching story of life in the Black ghetto. Alfred Brooks was part of the murky dropout world of junkies and petty thieves. He lived in Harlem, where staying away from Whitey was the first rule of any street gang. Any member who broke this code could expect the worst the gang could give. Alfred Brooks wanted to make it straight—but he had a conflict. He wanted to stay alive as well . . .
O’Dell, Scott
Kathleen, Please Come Home
New York: Dell Pub. Co. 1978.
A runaway tries to escape from a tangle of drugs and death. Kathleen meets Sybil, and her dull life changes. She is into drugs trying whatever Sybil has to offer. When Kathleen’s mother reports her to the authorities she runs away to Mexico with Sybil. It turns out to be a journey through hell... a journey from which Kathleen may never find her way home.
Snyder, Anne,
My Name is Davy I’m an Alcholic
New York: The New American Library 1977.
Davy didn’t have a friend in the world—until he discovered booze and Maxi. The first drink was the hardest, burned going down. When Davy drank, he was on top of the world. Liquor even helped him meet his girlfriend Maxi. But together they started to get sick making their life a nightmare. They were in trouble they couldn’t handle.
Wagner, Robin
Sarah T Portrait of a Teen-Age Alcoholic
New York: Ballantine Books, 1975.
Teenage problem drinkers are not just young adults of legal age. Many are alcoholics at twelve and thirteen. They’re raiding their parents’ liquor cabinets . . . bribing older friends to buy it for them. Young girls are trading sex for it. This book takes a shocking and compassionate look at the growing problem of adolescent liquor abuse... and the desperate need for rehabilitation.
Zindel, Paul
My Darling, My Hamburger
New York: Bantam Books, 1969.
Sean and Liz and Dennis and Maggie! Senior year isn’t the end of high school—it’s the beginning of life! “The self-consciously shy hero and heroine. Maggie and Dennis, are on their first date: How skinny, a face like an undernourished zucchini . . . and always wearing the same baggy sweater says Maggie. Dennis says, Her ears were strangely small . . . her eyes weren’t bad. Maybe they were even a little pretty, but . . . the cockeyed way she’d plucked her eye-brows!”
