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Monster
by Walter Dean Myers
Contemporary Literature

Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is on trial for murder. Guilty or innocent, Steve becomes a pawn in the hands of "the system," cluttered with cynical authority figures and unscrupulous inmates, who will turn in anyone to shorten their own sentences. For the first time, Steve is forced to think about who he is as he faces prison, where he may spend all the tomorrows of his life. 

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Contemporary Literature

The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
Year Published: 1998
Contemporary Literature

"The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil."

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Sarah's Key
by Tatiana DeRosnay
Year Published: 2006
Contemporary Literature
*Mature Content

July 16th 1942 marks one of the darkest days in history for Paris, France.  13,000 Jews were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps.  10-year-old Sarah Starynski attempts to save her brother Michel, but her plan is interrupted.  Can she make it back in time to save him?

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The House of the Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer
Year Published: 2002
Contemporary Literature

Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested as a clone for the 142-year-old leader of the country Opium - a small area between the United States and what was Mexico.  Formed in a petri dish and grown inside a cow, his journey to birth is something out of a science fiction novel. Is Matt a monster? Does he deserve love? Matt must escape, but does that ensure freedom?

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The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
Year Published: 1951
*Mature Content

What happens when a person doesn’t accept and doesn’t play by the rules of the dominant culture? Holden, the teenage protagonist, is expelled from school and is desperate to find a place to fit it somewhere. Highly controversial since its release in the 1950s, Salinger gives a raw account of a classic coming of age tale in trying to stay true to yourself in the midst of a bunch of “phonies.”

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