KDL Recommends
These titles involve male protagonists who find themselves in interesting and sometimes, bizarre situations.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Separated from his friend Isabel after their daring escape from slavery, fifteen-year-old Curzon serves as a free man in the Continental Army at Valley Forge until he and Isabel are thrown together again, as slaves once more.
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Jonathan Auxier
Raised to be a thief, blind orphan Peter Nimble, age ten, steals from a mysterious stranger three pairs of magical eyes, that lead him to a hidden island where he must decide to become a hero or resume his life of crime.
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Paolo Bacigalupi
In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.
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Kelly Barnhill
Jack is practically invisible at home, but when his parents send him to Hazelwood, Iowa, to spend a summer with his odd aunt and uncle, he suddenly makes friends, is beaten up by the town bully, and is plotted against by the richest man in town.
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Nora Raleigh Baskin
Jason, a twelve-year-old autistic boy who wants to become a writer, relates what his life is like as he tries to make sense of his world.
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Josh Berk
When Will Halpin transfers from his all-deaf school into a mainstream Pennsylvania high school, he faces discrimination and bullying, but still manages to solve a mystery surrounding the death of a popular football player in his class.
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Libba Bray
Cameron Smith, a disaffected sixteen year-old who, after being diagnosed with Creutzfeld Jakob’s (aka mad cow) disease, sets off on a road trip with a death-obsessed video gaming dwarf he meets in the hospital in an attempt to find a cure.
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Chelsea M. Campbell
Expecting to become a supervillain on his sixteenth birthday, Damien Locke, son of one of Golden City’s most notorious supervillains, is horrified to discover that he may instead be destined to become a superhero.
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Kate De Goldi
Twelve-year-old Frankie Parsons has a quirky family, a wonderful best friend, and a head full of worrying questions that he shares with his mother each night, but when free-spirited Sydney arrives at school with questions of her own, Frankie is forced to face the ultimate ten p.m. question.
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Stephen Emond
After going through traumatic times, a troubled, socially awkward teenager moves to a new school where he tries to reinvent himself.
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Jack Gantos
In the historic town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack Gantos spends the summer of 1962 grounded for various offenses until he is assigned to help an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, typewriting, and countless bloody noses.
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John Green,David Levithan
When two teens, one gay and one straight, meet accidentally and discover that they share the same name, their lives become intertwined as one begins dating the other’s best friend, who produces a play revealing his relationship with them both.
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Daniel Kraus
Sixteen-year-old Joey’s life takes a very strange turn when his mother’s tragic death forces him to move from Chicago to rural Iowa with the father he’s never known, and who’s the town pariah.
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Andrew Lane
In 1868, with his army officer father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously “unwell,” fourteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire, where he uncovers his first murder and a diabolical villain.
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Patrick Ness
Thirteen-year-old Conor awakens one night to find a monster outside his bedroom window, but not the one from the recurring nightmare that began when his mother became ill—an ancient, wild creature that wants him to face truth and loss.
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Gary D. Schmidt
As a fourteen-year-old who just moved to a new town, with no friends, an abusive father and a louse for an older brother, Doug Swieteck has all the stats stacked against him until he finds an ally in Lil Spicer. Together they find a safe haven in the local library, inspiration in learning about the plates of John James Audubon’s birds and a hilarious adventure on a Broadway stage.
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Mark Shulman
When eighth-grade school bully Tod and his friends get caught committing a crime on school property, his penalty reveals aspects of himself that he prefers to keep hidden.
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Tim Wynne-Jones
Two teenagers who are living on the streets and barely getting by become involved in a complicated criminal plot, and make an unexpected connection with each other.
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