Gems in Young Adult Literature

If you've been reading my blog for any time at all, you know I thoroughly enjoy reading children's literature and I try to preread books for my children, even as I'm finding it more and more difficult to stay ahead of them. We have to weed through the popular reading fare for teenagers which is often trivial, smutty, and/or dark, and we've recently read a couple of books that are too good not to share.
Letters From Rifka by Karen Hesse tells the story of a twelve-year-old girl, a Russian Jew, immigrating to the United States during the first World War. She tells her story through a series of letters she writes to her cousin. We enjoyed this historical fiction (based on the experiences of the author's great aunt) as it taught us a little about history in a personal way, but also because of the growth taking place in the main character as a result of her many trials.

This is a story of a girl learning who she is, becoming independent, and persevering until she overcomes. I especially appreciated the underlying message that true joy comes from serving others, especially in times of adversity, which keeps us from wallowing in self-pity and actually promotes growth.

We also especially enjoyed Words By Heart written by Oida Sebestyen. Only 162 pages, I read this story in one sitting as I just couldn't put it down. It tells the story of twelve-year-old Lena, a Black girl living in a sharecropping family in a White community in 1910. As the story begins, we see her exercising her phenomenal memory in a scripture-reciting contest. The rest of the story, however, illustrates her learning and growing as "those words you memorized--those words are not cotton, to see how much you can stuff in your sack and get rewarded for. They're rules to live by. They're to aspire to" (85).
This is another "coming of age" story. It shows how defining points in a person's life shape who they become. It helps young people begin to see their parents as people too as they struggle to find their place in the world. What I especially love, however, is the way this book teaches some life lessons within the pages of a truly gripping story.

• Figure out who you really are, not just in comparison to others

"Nobody's better than anybody else. The Lord has a special need for all of us, or we wouldn't be here. But the thing you want to strive for, always, is to be better than yourself. And we all fall short on that" (22).

• Never give up hope

Papa put the last of Bullet's scraps into the tub and stroked the mama-cat's head. "Something always comes to fill the empty places," he said, as she chewed thankfully. "Something comes to take the place of what you lose" (37).

• Live your faith
  

"She knew, with a heavy sinking, how Papa would answer, whom he would quote. Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Give to him that asketh thee. The words that had been so beautiful to say, so easy, turned to stone. No one had told her, not Papa, not the preacher, that they could change like that when they had to be lived, and crush her with their weight" (148).

These books have truly been gems in our literature discussions during the last couple weeks and I am so grateful to have shared them with my teens. What great books would you recommend I read with them next?