by Victoria Ashton (2006)
Two teen nannies learn the dangers of losing old boyfriends and gaining new ones in the glamorous but deceptive world of the rich and powerful.
Paul Zindel
Discovering that their beloved former teacher Miss Applebaum is terminally ill, fifteen-year-old Henry and his friend Zelda accompany her on her excursions to the colorful parts of New York City and join her in confronting death with quiet courage.
Alisha Sevigny
Popular high school senior Jessica Stone has a secret, she used to be a nerd. But she gave herself the ultimate makeover and applied all her academic genius to study and imitate the social elite and now she rules the school. With her cool new friends and hottest-guy-in-school boyfriend, life's a beach - and that's where she's headed for spring break. That is, until her biology teacher breaks the bad news that she's failing and her only chance to make up the grade is to join the conservation club in Panama to save the golden frog. Jess finds herself in a foreign country with a new social crew, including a ghost from her past that could threaten her queen bee reputation.
Jacqueline Woodson
Margaret loves her parents and hanging out with her best friend, Maizon. Then it happens, like a one-two punch, during the summer she turns eleven: first, Margaret's father dies of a heart attack, and then Maizon is accepted at an expensive boarding school, far away from the city they call home. For the first time in her life, Margaret has to turn to someone who isn't Maizon, who doesn't know her heart and her dreams. . . . "Ms. Woodson writes with a sure understanding of the thoughts of young people, offering a poetic, eloquent narrative that is not simply a story of nearly adolescent children, but a mature exploration of grown-up issues: death, racism, independence, the nurturing of the gifted black child and, most important, self-discovery." (The New York Times)