Kim DeRose
For Girls Who Walk Through Fire
A powerful, concise primer on female resilience that works best as a springboard for deeper research rather than a standalone read.
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A Daughter of the Seine: The Life of Madame Roland
by Jeanette Eaton
Nonfiction · ages 10–14 · 850L · 1929
A serious, sympathetic portrait of a woman at the center of the French Revolution; the 1929 prose is formal and demands attention, but the historical stakes are genuine and the subject matter is genuinely instructive about political conviction.
We Ride Upon Sticks: A Novel
by Quan Barry
Nonfiction · ages 14–18 · 850L · 2020
Lyrical, genuinely funny, and structurally daring — a sports novel that's actually about identity, class, and queerness in late-80s America; best for confident teen readers comfortable with literary ambition.
Life inside my mind
by Jessica Burkhart
Nonfiction · ages 10–18 · 850L · 2019
Honest collection of mental-health essays by YA authors and public figures that normalizes struggle without minimizing it; the best first 'these things happen to real people' book for a middle schooler asking hard questions about themselves.