Kids Book Index
Wendelin Van Draanen
Fourteen-year-old chess player Ruby Vossen has tried to stay outside the conflicts of her wealthy family. After her mother and aunt die in a car crash, her father and uncle become estranged, her cousin is cut off from her, and her father remarries. When alarming events begin on the Vossen estate, Ruby suspects her new stepfamily is after the family fortune and relies on her own strategic thinking to respond.
This book appears on 1 reading list across 1 edition.
One KissMarthe JocelynSixteen-year-old Maya has been friends with Plum since childhood. Plum’s father, Ross Kenner, is a rock star who returns to record an album and hopes to reconnect with his daughter. Maya joins Plum for dinner with him, but Ross kisses Maya and a limo driver captures a moment on a phone. Once the image circulates, it causes trouble for everyone. Maya is left trying to understand what happened and how she feels about it.Fourteen and OlderOn the same reading list for the same age or grade groupView book details
Pushing Hope: An Illustrated Memoir of SurvivalRaymond SantanaRaymond Santana recounts being fourteen when he and four other Black and Latinx teenagers were falsely accused of an infamous crime. He spent years in prison before being exonerated in 2002. In this illustrated memoir, Santana reflects on his wrongful conviction and his continuing fight for exoneration. Sparse text is paired with animated illustrations that carry much of the account. The book centers his experience of injustice, survival, and hope.Fourteen and OlderOn the same reading list for the same age or grade groupView book details
The Underwood TapesAmanda DeWittAfter her mother dies in a car crash, Grace spends the summer in Hermitage, Florida, the hometown her mother left decades earlier. She takes a job transcribing old cassettes for the historical society. On the tapes, she hears Jake Underwood, a boy who made the recordings in 1992. When he can hear Grace’s new recordings across thirty years, the two begin communicating as a longstanding local mystery comes into view.Fourteen and OlderOn the same reading list for the same age or grade groupView book details