Young Adult Female Protagonists Book List Denotes new titles recently added to the list

Abdel-Fattah, Randa O'Connell's journey to America after their Does My Head Look Big In parents' cottage is destroyed by their greedy This? landlord. Their paths intersect with that of Year Eleven at an exclusive prep Laurence Kirkle, who is also running away to school in the suburbs of the land of opportunity. Melbourne, Australia, would be tough enough, but it is further complicated Bauer, Joan for Amal when she decides to wear the hijab, Hope Was Here the Muslim head scarf, full-time as a badge of Sixteen-year-old Hope takes her faith--without losing her identity or sense pride in her job: she's a short- of style. (Summary from Destiny Follett, Oct order waitress who has come 2009) from Brooklyn with her aunt Addie to run a diner in Wisconsin, its proprietor sidelined by Amateau, Gigi leukemia. Addie and Hope, long peripatetic, A Certain Strain of Peculiar find a new life in Wisconsin as well as a cause: Tired of the miserable life she the diner's owner takes on the corrupt mayor lives, Mary Harold leaves her in an upcoming election. And Hope's mother behind and moves back tentative romance with the cook is sweet to Alabama and her indeed. grandmother, where she receives support and love and starts to gain confidence in herself Bauer, Joan and her abilities. The Rules of the Road Jenna, newly armed with a Anderson, Laurie Halse driver's license, thought she had Chains her summer all worked out--until After being sold to a cruel couple Mrs. Gladstone, owner of the shoe store chain in New York City, a slave named where Jenna works in Chicago, shows up and Isabel spies for the rebels during asks Jenna to drive her to Texas. the Revolutionary War. (Follett, 2009) Bodett, Tom The Williwaw Anderson, Laurie Halse Thirteen-year-old September Fever 1793 and her younger brother Yellow fever is sweeping Ivan are home alone while through Philadelphia, and for their father, a commercial fisherman, is off the young Mattie, the epidemic Alaskan coast. Disobeying their father, they begins with the sudden death take the skiff across the bay, and after one of a friend. broken rule leads to another, an autumn windstorm threatens to capsize their boat. Avi Beyond the Western Sea: The Bouman, H.M. Escape From Home The Remarkable and Very This adventure begins in Ireland True Story of Lucy & Snowcap during the potato famine and In 1788, thirteen years after follows Maura and Patrick English convicts are shipwrecked

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 1 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

on the magical islands of Tathenland, two Cashore, Kristin twelve-year-old girls, one a native Colay, the Graceling other the child-governor of the English, set In a world where some people are out on a journey to stop the treachery from born with extreme and often- which both peoples are suffering. (Summary feared skills called Graces, Katsa from Destiny Follett, November 2009). struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace of killing and teams up Burg, Shana with another young fighter to save their land A Thousand Never Evers from a corrupt king. (Summary from Destiny As the civil rights movement in Follett, November 2009) the South gains momentum in 1963 and violence against Creech, Sharon African-Americans intensifies, Bloomability residents of the small town of Kuckachoo, Thirteen-year-old Dinnie travels Mississippi, including seventh-grader Addie to Lugano, Switzerland, for a year Ann Pickett, begin their own courageous when her uncle is appointed struggle for racial justice. (Summary from headmaster of the American Follett Destiny, October 2009) School. Reluctantly at first, Dinnie allows experiences, diverse new Calhoun, Dia friends, and unexpected and challenging ideas Aria of the Sea to push the walls of her world further and When commoner Cerinthe further out. The cast of characters are lively, gains admittance to the sympathetic, and often amusing, and Dinnie School of the Royal Dancers, herself is an appealing narrator. she thinks that her dream has come true. But a rivalry with another dancer causes tension, Creech, Sharon which is amplified by Cerinthe's deep-rooted The Wanderer fear of using her gift for healing. Sophie is determined to join her three uncles and two (boy) Cashore, Kristin cousins on their transatlantic sail Bitterblue to England, home of her Eighteen-year- beloved grandfather Bompie. old Bitterblue, queen of Monsea, realizes her Creech, Sharon heavy responsibility and the Walk Two Moons futility of relying on advisors who surround While traveling from Ohio to her with lies as she tries to help her people to Idaho with her eccentric heal from the thirty-five-year spell cast by her grandparents to visit her father, a violent psychopath with mind- mother, who left the year before and has altering abilities. (Summary from Destiny never returned, thirteen-year-old Salamanca Follett, January 2013) Hiddle tells them about her new friend, Phoebe Winterbottom, whose mother also left without explanation.

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 2 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

the hope that the self-reliant girl will find her Crewe, Megan place in life. The Way We Fall Sixteen-year-old old Kaelyn Donnelly, Jennifer challenges her fears, finds a Revolution second chance at love, and fights An angry, grieving seventeen- to keep her family and friends year-old musician facing safe as a deadly new virus devastates her expulsion from her prestigious island community. (Summary from Follett Brooklyn private school travels Destiny, March 2012). to Paris to complete a school assignment and uncovers a diary written during the French Cushman, Karen revolution by a young actress attempting to Alchemy and Meggy Swann help a tortured, imprisoned little boy--Louis Meggy Swann, a girl who walks Charles, the lost king of France. (Summary with the aid of two sticks, from Follett Destiny, November 2010). arrives in Elizabethan London, along with her goose Louise, to Dowell, Frances O’Roark stay with her father who really does not want Dovey Coe her, and while he pursues his dream of Plainspoken twelve-year-old transforming base metal into gold, Meggy Dovey narrates her experiences undergoes a transformation herself. (Summary growing up in North Carolina from Follett Destiny, November 2010). in the 1920s with her older sister, Caroline, and their hearing-impaired Cushman, Karen brother Amos. When Caroline's onerous Catherine, Called Birdy former suitor is murdered, Dovey stands trial The thirteen-year-old for the crime. daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal Ernst, Kathleen in which she records the Hearts of Stone events of her life, particularly her longing for Orphaned when her father dies adventures beyond the usual role of women fighting for the Union and her and her efforts to avoid being married off. mother expires from exhaustion, (Summary from NoveList online book guide, October and also estranged from their 2003). Confederate neighbors, fifteen-year-old Hannah struggles to find a way for her family Cushman, Karen to survive during the Civil War in Tennessee. The Midwife’s Apprentice (Summary from www.hclib.org, 2007) In a sharply realistic novel of medieval England by the Eulberg, Elizabeth author of Catherine, Called The Lonely Hearts Club Birdy (Clarion), a homeless, Penny swears off boys after one hungry orphan girl called Beetle is taken in by too many bad dates and creates the village midwife. As Beetle grows and The Lonely Hearts Club. Then, learns, she begins to gain some hard-won self- as the club unexpectedly becomes esteem, and a satisfying conclusion conveys popular, Penny falls for a boy. (Summary from Follett Destiny, November 2010)

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 3 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

Fama, Elizabeth Fogelin, Adrian Overboard Crossing Jordan Frustrated with her doctor- Cass, who is white, and parents' work in Indonesia, Jemmie, her new neighbor fourteen-year-old Emily runs who is black, become friends away, only to be thrust into a survival but are forbidden to see each nightmare when the ferry she's riding capsizes other when their prejudiced parents find out. at sea. For nearly a full night and day, she and a Muslim boy stick together and swim toward George, Jean Craighead an island. Julie of the Wolves While running away from home Farmer, Nancy and an unwanted marriage, a A Girl Named Disaster thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl An extraordinarily rich novel becomes lost on the North set in contemporary Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf Mozambique and Zimbabwe pack. (Summary from NoveList online book guide, and featuring a most October 2003). remarkable heroine begins with her life in a traditional, remote village; follows Giff, Patricia Reilly her journey to escape an arranged marriage; Lily’s Crossing and concludes with her experiences in Lily Mollahan is looking 'civilized' Zimbabwe. forward to summer, but the war shatters all her dreams: her Fenner,Carol beloved father has enlisted; her Yolonda’s Genius best friend is moving away; and Albert, a Although her younger brother seemingly unfriendly war refugee from Andrew is having trouble Hungary, intrudes on her private space. To learning to read in the first complicate matters, Lily is fond of enhancing grade, Yolonda is convinced her importance or escaping retribution with that he is a musical genius and sets out to facile lies. prove it. Giff, Patricia Reilly Flake, Sharon G. Nory Ryan’s Song The Skin I’m In Giff recounts the tragic days of Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, Ireland's mid-nineteenth- uncomfortable because her century potato famine. Twelve- skin is extremely dark, meets year-old Nory's struggle to find a new teacher and makes food for her family brings her to the outcast some discoveries about how to love who she village wise woman, where she overcomes her is and what she looks like. (Summary from superstitions to learn the art of healing. NoveList online book guide, October 2003). Giff, Patricia Reilly Pictures of Hollis Woods A troublesome twelve-year-old orphan, staying with an elderly

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 4 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

artist who needs her, remembers the only Hale, Shannon other time she was happy in a foster home, Austenland with a family that truly seemed to care about Thirty-something New Yorker, her. (Summary from Library of Congress online , Jane Hayes, who is obsessed with October 2003). Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's novel "Pride and Prejudice," is Greenwood, Lisa gifted a vacation to an estate where fans are My Life in Pink & Green transported back in time and actors pretend to When the family's drugstore is be characters from Austen novels; and things failing, seventh-grader Lucy uses get confusing when she blurs the line between her problem-solving talents to fiction and reality by becoming attracted to come up with a solution that two of the actors. might resuscitate the business, along with helping the environment. (Summary from Handler, Daniel Follett Destiny, November 2009) Why We Broke Up Sixteen-year-old Min Green Haddix, Margaret Peterson writes a letter to Ed Just Ella Slaterton in which she Combining modern sarcasm with breaks up with him, stilted medievalism, Just Ella documenting their relationship and how items picks up the Cinderella tale after in the accompanying box, from bottle caps to the ball is over. Feminist Ella, a cookbook, foretell the end. (Summary from who managed without any fairy godmother, Follett Destiny, March 2014) finds palace protocol boring and trophy wifedom insulting--so she escapes and finds Hesse, Karen fulfillment doctoring suitably pathetic war The Music of Dolphins refugees alongside Jed, her nobleman love A feral child raised by dolphins interest. is rescued and taken to a research center where she is Haddix, Margaret Peterson introduced to the world of Uprising human behavior. Initially delighted by her In 1927, at the urging of new skills, Mila soon feels a powerful draw to twenty-one-year-old Harriet, return to the dolphins. Mrs. Livingston reluctantly recalls her experiences at the Hoffman, Alice Triangle Shirtwaist factory, Foretelling including miserable working Rain, the product of a rape and conditions that led to a strike, then the fire shunned by her distant queen that took the lives of her two best friends, mother, struggles to find her when Harriet, the boss's daughter, was only identity and prove herself in a five years old.. (Summary from Hennepin world where an Amazonian County Library, January 2008) band of horsewomen warriors fight to defend their territory and sovereignty. Rain is a gifted warrior herself, but begins to question her tribe's combative, man-hating traditions and unlike the rest of her army, she does not find

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 5 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

any pleasure in watching her enemies die. Lockhart, E (Summary from Mackin.com, 2006). The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks Huntley, Amy Frankie Landau-Banks attempts Everafter to take over a secret, all-male After her death, seventeen-year- society at her exclusive prep old Maddy finds a way to revisit school, and her antics with the group soon moments in her life by using draw some unlikely attention and have objects that she lost while she unexpected consequences that could change was alive, and she thereby attempts to figure her life forever. (Follett, 2009) out the complicated emotions, events, and meaning of her existence. (Summary from Lowry, Lois Follett Destiny, November 2010) Gathering Blue In this speculation on the nature of Jiang, Ji-Li the future of human society, life in Red Scarf Girl Kira's community is nasty, brutish, This is a rare personal and, for the ill or disabled, short. glimpse of the upheaval China suffered during the Lowry, Lois 1960s, and twelve-year- Number the Stars old Ji-li's point of view is firmly maintained, In 1943, during the sometimes to the point of self-dramatization. German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Keehn, Sally Annemarie learns how to be brave and Anna Sunday courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish Motherless twelve-year-old friend from the Nazis. (Summary from Library of Anna, disguised as a boy, and Congress online, October 2003). her younger brother Jed travel from Pennsylvania to Virginia on a horse Mah, Adeline Yen named Samson to nurse their wounded Chinese Cinderella soldier father. After various adventures with a After her mother dies giving sutler, they find their Yankee father being birth to her, Adeline's siblings, nursed by a Confederate housewife. who consider her bad luck, scapegoat her, and her wealthy Larbalestier, Justine father and vain stepmother deprive her of Liar friends and send her away to school. This Compulsive liar Micah promises riveting memoir of a turbulent childhood is to tell the truth after revealing enriched by Chinese-language lessons, a that her boyfriend has been generous historical backdrop, and half-dozen murdered. (Summary from family photos. Follett Destiny, November 2010). Mosher, Richard Zazoo Thirteen-year-old Zazoo learns about love, betrayal, and forgiveness when she discovers

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 6 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

the truth about the past of her grandfather, Nye, Naiomi Shihab who adopted her from Vietnam. She meets a Habibi mysterious boy and befriends the town's When Liyana Abboud is elderly pharmacist, who played an integral role fourteen, her father decides in her grandfather's story. that the time is right to move the family from St. Louis to his native Meyer, L.A. Jerusalem. Bloody Jack Reduced to begging and thievery Oliver, Lauren in the streets of London, a Pandemonium thirteen-year-old orphan After falling in love, Lena and disguises herself as a boy and Alex flee their oppressive society connives her way onto a British warship set where love is outlawed and for high sea adventure in search of pirates. everyone must receive "the cure"- -an operation that makes them immune to the Murdock, Catherine Gilbert delirium of love--but Lena alone manages to Princess Ben find her way to a community of resistance A girl is transformed, through fighters, and although she is bereft without instruction in life at court, the boy she loves, her struggles seem to be determination, and magic, from leading her toward a new love. (Summary sullen, pudgy, graceless Ben into Crown from Follett Destiny, March 2012). Princess Benevolence, a fit ruler of the kindgom of Montagne as it faces war with Paterson, Katherine neighboring Drachensbett. (Hennepin The Same Stuff as Stars County, 2009) Eleven-year-old Angel's mom, Verna, leaves most of the Napoli, Donna Jo mothering up to Angel. When Zel Verna dumps Angel and her little brother at Inevitably looking over its their great-grandmother's farm, she leaves shoulder at 'The Magic Circle' them with an old woman who is ill-equipped, (Dutton), Napoli's meditation on both physically and emotionally, to care for 'Hansel and Gretel,' this is a re-visioning of anyone, even herself. So, once again, Angel 'Rapunzel,' told in turns by the girl in the becomes the responsible one. tower, the witch, and the prince. Peck, Richard Neuberger, Anne E. A Year Down Yonder The Girl-Son This satisfying sequel to A Based on the life of Induk Long Way from Chicago is Pahk, a Korean educator, narrated by fifteen-year-old whose widowed mother Mary Alice, who is living with disguised her as a boy at the age of eight in her formidable Grandma Dowdel during the order for her to attend school, a choice 1937 recession. forbidden to girls in the early twentieth century in that country. (Summary from NoveList online book guide, October 2003)

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 7 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

Pierce, Tamora Rosoff, Meg Alanna: The First Adventure Brides Farewell Eleven-year-old Alanna, who A young woman in 1850s rural aspires to be a knight even England runs away from home though she is a girl, disguises on horseback the day she's to herself as a boy to become a royal marry her childhood sweetheart. page, learning many hard lessons along her Pell is from a poor preacher's family and she's path to high adventure. watched her mother suffer for years under the burden of caring for an ever-increasing Pullman, Phillip number of children. Pell yearns to escape the The Golden Compass inevitable repetition of such a life. She In Lyra's world, similar to our understands horses better than people and own but with some sets off for Salisbury Fair. (Summary from important differences, each Hennepin County, November 2009). human has a 'daemon,' an animal familiar with whom one's life and Roth, Veronica destiny are entwined. Divergent In a future Chicago, sixteen- Quick, Matthew year-old Beatrice Prior must Sorta Like a Rock Star choose among five Although seventeen-year-old predetermined factions to Amber Appleton is homeless, define her identity for the rest of her life, a living in a school bus with her decision made more difficult when she unfit mother, she is a relentless discovers that she is an anomaly who does not optimist who visits the elderly at a nursing fit into any one group, and that the society she home, teaches English to Korean Catholic lives in is not perfect after all. (Summary from women with the use of rhythm and blues Follett Destiny, November 2011). music, and befriends a solitary Vietnam veteran and his dog, but eventually she Roth, Veronica experiences one burden more than she can Insurgent bear and slips into a deep depression. As war surges in the dystopian (Summary from Follett Destiny, March 2012). society around her, sixteen-year- old Divergent Tris Prior must Rees, Celia continue trying to save those she Witch Child loves--and herself--while grappling with Mary, a young witch, fears haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, for her own life after her identity and loyalty, politics and love. grandmother and mentor is hanged. Luckily, she is Ryan, Carrie, rescued and whisked away to America The Dead Tossed Wave disguised as a Puritan--all under the Gabry lives a quiet life in a town protective, often invisible gaze of other trapped between a forest and the witches. ocean, hemmed in by the dead who hunger for the living, but her mother Mary's secrets, a cult of religious zealots who worship the dead, and a

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 8 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

stranger from the forest who seems to know cheerleading (she roots for both teams), high Gabry threaten to destroy her world. school junior Leo persuades her to go along with the crowd. Ryan, Pam Munoz Esperanza Rising Staples, Suzanne Fisher In this poignant look at the Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind realities of immigration, Eleven-year-old Shabanu is the thirteen-year-old Esperanza, younger daughter in a family of daughter of an affluent Mexican nomadic camel herders living in the Cholistan rancher, is forced to trade fancy desert area of modern Pakistan; she is fiercely dolls and dresses for hard work proud of her family and way of life. But she and ill-fitting hand-me-downs after her attempts to run away rather than marry a man beloved father dies. Laboring in the United chosen for her. States, picking grapes on someone else's land for pennies an hour, Esperanza is transformed Tomlinson, Theresa into someone who can take care of herself The Forestwife and others. A creative retelling of the Robin Hood story focuses on the life Sayres, Meghan Nuttall and deeds of Marian, who retreats Anahita’s Woven Riddle to the forest to escape an In Iran, more than 100 years unwanted betrothal and finds fulfillment in ago, a young girl with three helping the poor people of the woods. Marian suitors gets permission from learns the art of healing from her old nurse, her father and a holy man to Agnes; leads dangerous missions of mercy; weave into her wedding rug a riddle to be and gradually falls in love with Robert, solved by her future husband, which will Agnes's outlaw son. ensure that he has wit to match hers. (Summary from Hennepin County, VandeVelde, Vivian November, 2007) Heir Apparent When a virtual reality arcade is Schultz, Jan Neubert vandalized, fourteen-year-old Firestorm Giannine, unable to be safely After her family relocates to disconnected from her game, is Hinckley, Minnesota, Maggie stuck playing the part of heir to a threatened wants to escape the dusty kingdom as if her life depends on it--and it nineteenth-century railroad does. town. When the hot weather produces a massive firestorm, Maggie gets her wish but Venkatraman, Padma eventually learns that Hinckley has become Climbing the Stairs her home. In India, in 1941, when her father becomes brain-damaged Spinelli, Jerry in a non-violent protest march, Stargirl fifteen-year-old Vidya and her When Stargirl, a family are forced to move in with her father's contemporary Pollyanna, is extended family and become accustomed to a shunned for disloyal

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 9 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

totally different way of life. (Summary from Then the nanny has an accident days before Hennepin County, Sept. 2008) the family is to sail to New York, and Louisa must either go in her place or lose her job. Voigt, Cynthia Haunted by the drowning of her baby brother Dicey’s Song when she was younger and for which she feels This is the sequel to responsible, Louisa insists that the children Homecoming. Here Dicey and practice putting on their life vests. When the her siblings are adjusting to life on fateful collision with the iceberg occurs, Watts a farm with their grandmother. But Dicey has documents the chaos and emotions new conflicts—puberty and the longing for realistically. (Summary from School Library her dying mother. (Summary from NoveList Journal, November 2010). online book guide, October 2003). Wein, Elizabeth Voigt, Cynthia Code Name Verity Homecoming In 1943, a British fighter plane The Tillerman kids’ mother crashes in Nazi-occupied France just left them one day in a and the survivor tells a tale of car in a mall parking lot. friendship, war, espionage, and Their father, too, had left great courage as she relates what she must to them a long time ago. So, as usual, it was up survive while keeping secret all that she can. to thirteen-year-old Dicey, the eldest of four, to take care of everything, make all the Whelan, Gloria decisions, feed them, find places to sleep. Angel on the Square (Summary from NoveList online book guide, October When her mother becomes a lady- 2003). in-waiting to Empress Alexandra, Katya becomes the playmate of Grand Duchess Anastasia. Katya Walls, Jeannette and her mother stay with the Romanovs, even Half Broke Horses: a true-life following them to Siberia. novel Lily Casey Smith grows up Whelan, Gloria breaking horses with her father Homeless Bird and leaves home at fifteen to ride Married and immediately five hundred miles in order to teach in a widowed, thirteen-year-old frontier town before encountering various Koly grapples with traditional difficulties, marrying a rancher, and speaking expectations and societal out against prejudice in various parts of the neglect of widows in modern-day India. U.S. (Summary from Follett Destiny, November 2010). Winter, Laurel Growing Wings Watts, Irene N. At eleven, Linnet finds No Moon herself growing wings and Wanting to provide financial learns the cruel story of support for her large family, how her mother lost her own wings. Afraid of Louisa, 14, takes the post of being labeled a freak, Linnet flees to a winged nursemaid for a wealthy family. community in Montana, tries to fly, and thinks

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 10 Denotes new titles recently added to the list

about defying prejudice by disclosing her secret to the wingless world.

Winthrop, Elizabeth Counting on Grace It's 1910 in Pownal, Vermont. At 12 Grace and her best friend Arthur must go to work in the mill, helping their mothers work the looms. Together Grace and Arthur write a secret letter to the Child Labor Board about underage children working in the mill. A few weeks later, Lewis Hine, a famous reformer arrives undercover to gather evidence. Grace meets him and appears in some of his photographs, changing her life forever. (Summary from Hennepin County Library, January 2008).

*Unless previously noted, book summaries are from Horn Book online, October 2003 11