~NEW ADDITIONS~

• Three Black Swans (Caroline B. Cooney)
• Forbidden (Tabitha Suzuma)
• Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her (Melanie Rehak)

BOOKS ABOUT DRUGS AND HARDSHIP

• I have not read most of these but here are several suggestions

GENERAL BOOKS

• Alan Stratton
  • Chanda's Wars
  • Chanda's Secrets
    • This young African girl is now the head of her household due to the AIDS epidemic, trying to take care of her family. Her siblings are kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers so she goes off to rescue them.
• Alane Ferguson
  • The Angel of Death
    • MURDER BY M.......................I can't tell you. CRAP D:
• Brian Selznick
  • The Invention of Hugo Cabret
    • LOTS OF GORGEOUS ILLUSTRATIONS. This boy lives alone in the train station and runs the clocks, and eventually winds up working for Georges Méliès, a supermegaawesome early filmmaker.
• Caroline B. Cooney
  • Three Black Swans
    • Adoption issues and long-lost siblings finding each other
• Eleanor Updale
  • Montmorency
  • Montmorency on the Rocks
  • Montmorency and the Assassins
  • Montmorency's Revenge
    • This man figures out how to manipulate London's sewer system to his advantage and becomes the BEST ROBBER EVER and establishes himself as a ~wealthy, respected gentleman~ at the same time. HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. There's also lots of grave-robbing and chopping up of corpses in the name of ~SCIENCE~
• Gemma Malley
  • The Declaration
  • Resistance
    • Futuristic dystopia. Children are outlawed because of overpopulation concerns due to extreme medical advances that drastically extend life. If you want to have kids, you have to opt out of the treatment and age and die normally.
• Graham McNamee
  • Acceleration
    • This guy finds the hit list of a serial killer and makes it his mission to ~SAVE THE NEXT VICTIMS~
• Edward Lear
  • The Pobble Who Has No Toes
    • A xhildhood favorite.
• James Devita
  • The Silenced
    • Oppressive government! Rebellious teenagers! Secret hideouts! YEAH and also this is based on actual events/people
• James St. James
  • Freak Show
    • YADA. A young drag queen fights persecution at his high school. Also recommended to Oliver as a result of his hypothetical fondness for wiring Christmas lights into clothing.
• Jeanne DuPrau
  • The City of Ember
  • The People of Sparks
  • The Prophet of Yonwood
  • The Diamond of Darkhold
    • The city is ALWAYS DARK save for electric lights, and the electricity's beginning to fail, and Lina and Doon set out to try to find a way to save the people. Also, I love it when I can get my "If global warming was real, it wouldn't be snowing!" family to sit through a movie with strong environmentalist themes (like this, or Wall-e) without them even noticing what's going on. FYEAH
• JM Barrie
  • Peter Pan
    • HELLO.
• Katherine Paterson
  • Bridge to Terabithia
  • Jacob Have I Loved
  • Bread and Roses, Too
    • She's suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a beautiful writer.
• Kay Thompson
  • Eloise
  • Eloise in Paris
  • Eloise in Moscow
  • Eloise at Christmastime
    • JUST BECAAAAAAAAAAUSE.
• Kevin Brooks
  • Candy
    • DRUGS AND PROSTITUTION AND HARDSHIP AND DRAMA
• Lewis Carroll
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
  • Through the Looking-glass, and What Alice Found There
• Lloyd Alexander
  • The Rope Trick
    • GYPSIES AND MAGIC AND OPPRESSIVE POLITICAL SYSTEMS.
  • He just has SO MANY WONDERFUL BOOKS
• Lois Lowry
  • Gathering Blue
  • Messenger
    • The books that come after The Giver, OH MY GOD
• Margaret Gray
  • The Ugly Princess and the Wise Fool
    • FEMINIST FAIRY TALE.
• Margaret Peterson Haddix
  • Running Out of Time
    • This girl escapes from one of those reconstructed villages where people live as though it's the 1800s and tourists come and watch, except this time they actually think it's the 1800s and it is so creepy, but she escapes into the ~modern world~ to get help for the diptheria epidemic.
  • The Shadow Children series
    • Overpopulation and Population Police and children who are forced to live in hiding.
  • Uprising
    • This is about a lot of things, actually, immigration and citizenship and womens' rights and workers' rights and capitalism/socialism and the income gap and the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York and oh my lord it made me cry. ~THE GREATEST~
• Malorie Blackman
  • Black and White
    • Alternate reality where the roles and history of the black and white races are reversed. This is my best ammo against white-privilege deniers.
• Mary Norton
  • Bedknob and Broomstick
    • DAT FLYING BED.
  • The Borrowers
    • TINY PEOPLE STEAL THINGS AND WE LOVE THEM FOR IT.
• Melanie Rehak
  • Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her
    • the ghostwriters behind Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, and everything else
• Mira Grant
  • Feed
    • My Christmas present from Catherine. ZOMBIES. ZOMBIE GIRAFFES.
• MT Anderson
  • Whales on Stilts!
    • EXACTLY WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE OH MY P this is on the fasttrack to becoming a yada classic, is what it is.
  • The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen
    • The sequel. There's another one, but I haven't been able to find it yet..
  • The Game of Sunken Places
    • Sort of like Jumanji.
  • Feed
    • DYSTOPIA FUCK YES. They've cut down the last of the forests to make room for oxygen factories, and everybody has a chip in their brain connecting them to the Feed and tailoring custom ad campaigns for everyone.
  • The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing series
    • Evil scientists perform unethical experiments on African captives. D:
• Peter Cameron
  • someday this pain will be useful to you
    • GAY AND SOCIALLY AWKWARD AND AJKLEJGKAWJEGIAEGHAIDLFKAJSDLAJGALEKJIEJGKLEAG SO MUCH GOODNESS JUST GO GET IT IMMEDIATELY BABE
• Richard and Florence Atwater
  • Mr. Popper's Penguins
    • For obvious reasons.
• Shannon and Dean Hale
  • Rapunzel's Revenge
    • YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
  • There are more, I haven't read them all, but SOME I HAVE
• Shaun Tan
  • The Arrival
    • About immigration. Also, it is ~GORGEOUS~
• Tabitha Suzuma
  • Forbidden
    • Sibling incest and social services and ugh serious trauma
• William Shakespeare
  • Macbeth
    • THE VERY BEST.
  • As You Like It
    • Cross-dressing, gender-bending, and I'm convinced that Celia's gay.
  • The Tempest
• William Sleator
  • Test
    • Dystopia where your high school test scores determine everything about your future, like where you live, what kind of jobs you can get, how poor you'll be, blah blah