Favorites 4: Realistic Fiction
Explore a powerful curated list of realistic fiction favorites, featuring gripping titles by John Marsden, Lois Duncan, and more. From survival stories like *Lord of the Flies* to emotional journeys in *The Face on the Milk Carton*, discover compelling books about teens facing real-world challenges, friendship, and resilience. Perfect for readers seeking authentic, thought-provoking young adult and juvenile fiction.
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The Outsiders
by S. E. Hinton
Over 50 years of an iconic classic! This international bestseller and inspiration for a beloved movie is a heroic story of friendship and belonging. No one ever said life was easy. But Ponyboy is pretty sure that he's got things figured out. He knows that he can count on his brothers, Darry and Sodapop. And he knows that he can count on his friends—true friends who would do anything for him, like Johnny and Two-Bit. But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up on “greasers” like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect—until the night someone takes things too far. The Outsiders is a dramatic and enduring work of fiction that laid the groundwork for the YA genre. S. E. Hinton's classic story of a boy who finds himself on the outskirts of regular society remains as powerful today as it was the day it was first published. "The Outsiders transformed young-adult fiction from a genre mostly about prom queens, football players and high school crushes to one that portrayed a darker, truer world." —The New York Times "Taut with tension, filled with drama." —The Chicago Tribune "[A] classic coming-of-age book." —Philadelphia Daily News A New York Herald Tribune Best Teenage Book A Chicago Tribune Book World Spring Book Festival Honor Book An ALA Best Book for Young Adults Winner of the Massachusetts Children's Book Award
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Wind Blows Backward
by Mary Downing Hahn
Although they share a love of poetry and problems with their parents, a shy high school senior's attraction to a popular classmate is tempered by her fear of his moody, self-destructive side.
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Six Months to Live
by Lurlene McDaniel
When 13-year-old Dawn Rochelle is diagnosed with leukemia, she's scared. While in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy, Dawn meets Sandy, who also has cancer. Dawn and Sandy battle the disease together, and remain best friends even after they both go into remission and return home. But when Sandy gets sick again, Dawn wonders what the future holds both for Sandy and herself.
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Taming the Star Runner
by S. E. Hinton
Sent to live with his uncle after a violent confrontation with his stepfather, sixteen-year-old Travis, an aspiring writer, finds life in a small Oklahoma town confining until he meets an eighteen-year-old horse trainer named Casey.
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Dare
by Marilyn Halvorson
Having seen his share of troubles, fifteen-year-old Dare is convinced that the only thing keeping him at his new foster home is his love of the horses.
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Life Without Friends
by Ellen Emerson White
After the drug-overdose death of a fellow student, Beverly breaks away from the fast crowd but finds herself friendless and full of guilt until she meets Derek who helps her come to terms with the past and look with some hope to the future.
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The Road Home
by Ellen Emerson White
Rebecca, a young nurse stationed in Vietnam during the war, must come to grips with her wartime experiences once she returns home to the United States.
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Up Country
by Alden R. Carter
When his mom is arrested for a hit-and-run accident, 16-year-old Carl is sent to live with straight-laced, clean-living relatives. All Carl wants to do is run away. But it's not that easy to run from people who really care.
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Cut
by Patricia McCormick
"A tingle arced across my scalp. The floor tipped up at me and my body spiraled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next."Callie cuts herself. Never too deep, never enough to die. But enough to feel the pain. Enough to feel the scream inside.Now she's at Sea Pines, a "residential treatment facility" filled with girls struggling with problems of their own. Callie doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She won't even speak.But Callie can only stay silent for so long...
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Letters from the Inside
by John Marsden
Two girls whose lives couldn’t be more different are brought together as pen pals in this riveting and haunting novel that’s perfect for fans of Orange is the New Black and those interested in unpacking the reality of life behind bars. Mandy and Tracey have never met, but they know everything about each other. Connected through a pen-pal ad, they exchange frequent letters, writing about boyfriends, siblings, music, and friends. They trade stories about school and home. They confide their worries and hopes. It almost makes it easier, and more special, that they’ve never met—they can say whatever they want in the safety of their private world of letters. But that private world may not be as safe as it seems. Can Mandy trust Tracey to be who she says she is? What secrets hide between the lines of their letters? "A powerful book. . . . It will draw its readers in completely." —School Library Journal, Starred "The heart-wrenching conclusion will exert its power long after this book is read.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred “Proof that originality need not be reserved for adults.”—Kirkus Reviews “The ending will shock you and . . . 'strangle your heart'.” —The Guardian
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So Much to Tell You
by John Marsden
Winner of Australia's Book of the Year Award. Set in Australia and written in the form of a diary, this is the tragic story of the effects of divorce and her parents' anger on a young woman's life. "Remarkable...few readers will come away from the portrait of Marina's ordeal unshaken. "--Publishers Weekly
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Ransom
by Lois Duncan
The lives of five captives hang in the balance while their families gather the ransom. Two brothers, their family frantic to find their sons. A loner whose uncle doesn't even know he's missing. An Army brat whose family will never be able to raise enough money. And a cheerleader who can't count on her stepdad, but knows her father will come through.
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The Grounding of Group 6
by Julian F. Thompson
Arriving at what they believe is an exclusive school, five sixteen-year olds are unaware that they have been sent there to be exterminated and that their teacher is a murderer for hire.
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The Woman in the Wall
by Patrice Kindl
Anna is nearly invisible. At seven, terrified of school, shy little Anna retreats within the walls of her family's enormous house, and builds a world of passageways and hidden rooms. As the years go by, people forget she ever existed. Then a mysterious note is thrust through a crack in the wall, and Anna must decide whether or not to come out of hiding. Blending fantasy and reality, this is a novel readers will not forget. An ALA Best Book for Your Adults.
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The Face on the Milk Carton
by Caroline B. Cooney
A young girl is shocked to discover the face on a milk carton is her face when she was young. Are her parents her real parents, or was she kidnapped as a young child? Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
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Lord of the Flies
by William Golding
Golding’s iconic 1954 novel, now with a new foreword by Lois Lowry, remains one of the greatest books ever written for young adults and an unforgettable classic for readers of any age. This edition includes a new Suggestions for Further Reading by Jennifer Buehler. At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.
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Nowhere High
by Jesse Maguire
Having just transferred to Ernest Norwell Nowhere High, 17-year-old T.J. McAllister is not surprised by boring classes and snobby cliques. But he doesn't expect the prank that leaves him stranded in the middle of the night miles from town. But the prank leads him to a special friendship with beautiful, independent Caroline Buchanan!
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The Books of Fell
by M. E. Kerr
A young man from the wrong side of the tracks, John Fell investigates spies, drug dealers, murders, and a decades-old disappearance case, all of which are connected to his exclusive prep school's mysterious club, Sevens.
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A Good Courage
by Stephanie S. Tolan
Having been dragged by his mother from one commune to another as she searches for a place to belong, fourteen-year-old Ty finds conditions at the new place, the Kingdom, intolerable, even while realizing that for some, such as his mother, this way of life is a haven.
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But in the Fall I'm Leaving
by Ann Rinaldi
Brie's plan to leave her strict father and go live with her mother, who abandoned her as a baby, is changed when she discovers a horrible secret about her past.
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Term Paper
by Ann Rinaldi
Nicki's teacher-brother assigns her a term paper on the topic of a death in their family, in hopes that she will release long-suppressed emotion about the event.
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The Pigman
by Paul Zindel
Meet Mr. Pignati, a lonely old man with a beer belly and an awful secret. He's the Pigman, and he's got a great big twinkling smile. When John and Lorraine, two high school sophomores, meet Mr. Pignati, they learn his whole sad, zany story. They tell it right here in this book -- the truth, and nothing but the truth -- no matter how many people it shocks or hurts.
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Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey
by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Tish's journal is private and personal--and you won't be able to put it down. Tish writes candidly, and privately, about taking care of her brother, living on-and-off with her violent father, and coping with her irresponsible mother--until finally, she realizes that Mrs. Dunphrey, her new English teacher, might just be her only hope. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults.
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Don't Hurt Laurie
by Willo Davis Roberts
Laurie is physically abused by her mother; can she escape, and will anyone believe her story'.
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Checkers
by John Marsden
Tonight before I started writing this, it was me confronting Jack. It was so real I could smell it. Suddenly, according to my imagination, I'd be on my feet, screaming, "Why didn't you leave us alone? Why did you have to drag us in? You're scum, filth. I hate you. Go away. You deserve everything, everything, you understand? Everything that you get. It's not my fault. IT'S NOT MY FAULT." She had everything going for her--good looks, a nice school, and friends. But suddenly and without sufficient warning, life spins out of control. It's hard not to let life get to you when nothing seems to make sense anymore. Sometimes it takes confinement in the hospital--and a lot of time to think--to once again get a handle on life.