September Recommendations for Teens

Fiction

Big Mouth by Deborah Halverson - Ever dreamed of being the richest, most famous competitive eater in the world? Fourteen-year-old Shermie Thuff is doggedly training for the Nathan’s Famous July Fourth International Hot Dog Eating Contest. The vivid details make this is not a tale for the faint of stomach! An added attraction is the mustard revolt, and smelly, gross science.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson - Wintergirls are frozen and easily shattered, as Cassie has been. High school best friends Lia and Cassie made a pact to be thin, thin beyond caution. Their lives begin to revolve around food, and their avoidance and measuring of it, until their friendship fragments, and Lia learns of the suicide of Cassie, alone in a motel room. Cassie called Lia thirty-three times the night she died, but Lia received the messages too late. Lia battles with her anorexia, cutting, and her strained relationship with her parents on her agonizing journey of inexplicable pain and her attempt to make some sense of her life. Journey with her as she attempts to find purpose and make sense of her life.