[Trigger Warning] Please note this book addresses sensitive topics including suicide, substance abuse, and family violence. While these emotionally challenging realities are held thoughtfully, and with love, this story may be triggering.
Jessica has contemplated suicide for a while now. Grappling with the reverberating grief of losing her beloved grandmother and the trauma of a broken home, young Jessica is reaching a place so far from herself, her community, and the traditional Indigenous teachings she once lived by, it is frightening.
When it all becomes too much, Jessica attempts to take the final step over the ledge.
What follows is a journey through the sacred spaces within memory, song, and the spirit world, guided by two playful tricksters--eagles, who happen to have lifetimes of wisdom to share. With a love of riddles and soaring beyond the edges of possibility, they turn and twist Jessica's reality until she can finally ground herself in what she has known all along, and allow the love, strength and voice of her beloved grandmother to once again be remembered and heard. The trajectory of Jessica's life will be changed forever.
From Hopi Elder, Pershlie Perci Ami, and Street Outreach Worker, Anthony Goulet, comes a creative, sensitive, and thoughtful approach to the topic of suicide. Combined, they have over forty years of experience in youth development and suicide prevention.
Medicine Wheel Publishing is committed to sharing diverse voices and perspectives, creating a platform for stories that celebrate Indigenous cultures and inspire understanding and respect among readers of all ages.
A stunning novel about the transformative power of love, perfect for fans of 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher.
Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness.
There's only one problem: she's not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a website with a section called Suicide Partners, Aysel's convinced she's found her solution--Roman, a teenage boy who's haunted by a family tragedy, is looking for a partner.
Even though Aysel and Roman have nothing in common, they slowly start to fill in each other's broken lives. But as their suicide pact becomes more concrete, Aysel begins to question whether she really wants to go through with it. Ultimately, she must choose between wanting to die or trying to convince Roman to live so they can discover the potential of their energy together.
Sixteen-year-old Crystal knows she's blessed. She is drop-dead gorgeous and in the beginning stages of a glamorous career as a model in New York City. At first, modeling is exciting. But soon, her life becomes less and less about her, and more and more about her body. Crystal wonders if her new life is worth giving up everything -- her friends, her beliefs, and her self-respect.
If you knew you had to do the right thing, but that something bad may happen to you because of it, would you do it anyway? This hard-hitting, emotional, YA story of pain and love; right and wrong; and life and death is a masterful mix of suspense, romance, the paranormal, and the though-provoking questions we all ask surrounding the difficult subject of suicide.
Hadley Jamison is shocked when she hears that her classmate, Archer Morales, has committed suicide. She didn't know the quiet, reserved guy very well, but that doesn't stop her from feeling there was something she could have done to help him.
Hoping to find some sense of closure, Hadley attends Archer's funeral. There, she is approached by a man who calls himself Death and offers her a deal. If Hadley accepts, she will be sent back twenty-seven days in time to prevent Archer from killing himself. But when Hadley agrees to Death's terms and goes back to right the past, she quickly learns her mission is harder than she ever could have known.
Time ticks away as Hadley looks for ways to not only talk to Archer but to know him on a deeper level. But just as she and Archer connect, a series of dangerous accidents starts pushing them apart. Hadley must decide whether she is ready to risk everything--including her life--to keep Archer alive.
In 27 Days:
A twist on Groundhog's Day meets Death, this paranormal tale [In 27 Days] will have readers turning the pages to see if Hadley stops Archer from making a tragic mistake. --YA Books Central
For fans of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder and We Were Liars comes a tale of redemption from YA author Annie Fox. True friendship is put to the test when Nicole's untimely death leads to more questions than answers.
Sixteen-year-old Nicole had enough on her plate already between navigating the ups and downs of friendship with her witchy best friend Isabel, competing with her romantic rival Cassie, and flirting with her crush Alex, a.k.a. Cassie's boyfriend-and now she's dead. They say it was suicide, but Nicole knows she didn't kill herself and will do whatever it takes to prove it.
When Nicole wakes up and finds herself on Substation Fifteen, a special plane of existence for teen suicides, she must accept the fact that she is no longer alive. Nicole has zero memory of dying, but she's convinced she didn't take her own life and doesn't belong here.
Her only path to uncovering the truth is a journey through a minefield of secrets and lies, beginning at her own funeral. The clock is ticking while she tries to figure out a way to communicate from beyond the grave with Isabel and Cassie. Both girls know much more about Nicole's Last Day than they're willing to admit-but ultimately, the facts Nicole finds may be harder to piece together and accept than her death itself.
A story of family and friendship, the supernatural, and high school drama, The Little Things that Kill shows readers the impact of the small choices we make every day in our lives (and afterlives).
In a busy coffee shop, a robbery goes wrong. Two gunmen hold seven hostages, including teenager Zach Wahhsted. What nobody realizes at first is that Zach is anything but ordinary and his troubled mind is more dangerous than any weapon. Terry Trueman has created a compelling character with the same shocking power and heartbreaking compassion as his Printz Honor Award debut novel, Stuck in Neutral.
Ages 12+
Caz thinks she has a pretty good reason when she punches her boyfriend in the face, but she gets expelled anyway.
Moving to a new school, she is told she is dyslexic and sent to special education classes. Caz tries to fit in and get by while suffering the taunts and abuse that others throw at the students in her class. Her friendship with Amanda leads her into new territory--shoplifting and skipping school. Coupled with her parents' impending separation, her life is spiraling out of control.
This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for teen readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don't like to read! Available in Spanish as La otra vida de Caz.
Caz tuvo una muy buena razón para darle un puñetazo en la cara a su novio, pero aun así es expulsada. En su nueva escuela le dicen que es disléxica y que estará en el salón de educación especial. Caz trata de integrarse y de sobrellevar las burlas y el abuso con que otros jóvenes tratan a los estudiantes de su grupo. Mientras tanto, su amistad con Amanda la lleva a nuevos territorios: a faltar a la escuela y a robar. Además, la inminente separación de sus padres hace que su vida se descontrole aún más.
Disponible en inglés: My Time as Caz Hazard.
★ Brilliant.... The masterful writing takes readers inside Leonard's tormented mind, enabling a compassionate response to him and to others dealing with trauma. --School Library Journal, starred review
From New York Times bestselling author Matthew Quick comes an intensely compassionate and important book about a boy who brings a gun to school, and the people and experiences that force him to look beyond his pain. In addition to the P-38, there are four gifts, one for each of my friends. I want to say good-bye to them properly. I want to give them each something to remember me by. To let them know I really cared about them and I'm sorry I couldn't be more than I was--that I couldn't stick around--and that what's going to happen today isn't their fault.Today is Leonard Peacock's birthday. It is also the day he hides a gun in his backpack. Because today is the day he will kill his former best friend, and then himself, with his grandfather's P-38 pistol.
But first he must say good-bye to the four people who matter most to him: his Humphrey Bogart-obsessed next-door neighbor, Walt; his classmate, Baback, a violin virtuoso; Lauren, the Christian homeschooler he has a crush on; and Herr Silverman, who teaches the high school's class on the Holocaust. Speaking to each in turn, Leonard slowly reveals his secrets as the hours tick by and the moment of truth approaches.
In this riveting look at a day in the life of a disturbed teenage boy, acclaimed author Matthew Quick unflinchingly examines the impossible choices that must be made--and the light in us all that never goes out.
With the unexpected help of a giant prehistoric sloth, ghostly grandfathers return to help a suicidal teenager.
Winning a national high-school geography competition should be the high point of Jomon's life. So why does he find himself running through the streets of Georgetown, Guyana, later that same night -- so angry and desperate? Why does he heave his hard-won medal through the front window of a liquor store?
Why does a teenaged boy decide life is not worth living?
Arrested by police and detained in a jail cell, Jomon is jolted out of his suicidal thoughts by the sudden appearance of another teenaged boy -- who claims to be his great-great-grandfather ...
Meanwhile, across town, the pride of Guyana, the life-sized exhibit of a giant prehistoric sloth named Gather, disappears overnight from the Guyana National Museum. While museum officials argue over who is responsible for the disappearance and who is in charge of getting the sloth back, only Mrs. Simson, a museum cleaner, seems to understand what needs to be done.
And so begins a strange and marvelous journey, as Jomon is sentenced to a youth detention facility, and a succession of his dead grandfathers appears, each one of them having died by suicide. As the grandfathers argue among themselves and blame each other for their own fates, they keep a watch out for Jomon, to try to make sure he does not continue their family tradition.
In this short, fable-like story, Deborah Ellis comes at the timely and difficult issue of child suicide with restraint, compassion, and freshness, as the grandfathers overcome their own fraught histories to help their grandson, who in the end is aided by the appearance of a wondrous giant rodent, busy enjoying her own return to earthly existence.
Fifteen-year-old Neil lost his brother to suicide one year ago, and in the process, he lost his voice. Now, with his parents drifting apart and another first day at a new school, his life feels like it's spiraling out of control. That is, until Neil meets a high school counselor who gets him involved in the Polar Bear Club, where he connects with a group of classmates he can finally relate to. As their friendship grows, so do their adventures. Life throws out many challenges, and death forces us to ask why far too many times. In Everything That Makes Us Feel, Neil tries to navigate a world in search of the answers to those questions.
I heard the gunshot and I knew what had happened. Even before I made it downstairs to Dad's office, I knew what he'd done.
How do you live your life after catastrophe hits your family? How do you go back to football practice, or take a girl out on a date, or talk to your friends about normal stuff when nothing is normal anymore? Three years after his father's death, Jordan is still wondering.
But then, salvation comes--in the form of a '76 Corvette. It's gorgeous, it's beautiful, it's incredibly sexy. And so is the girl who suddenly takes notice of him.
Slowly Jordan realizes that maybe, just maybe, he can start living again. But the real question is: Does he want to?