Verse Novel: "one of those hideous books where the mother dies"

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Sones, Sonya. One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2004.

Ruby's mother dies and she is forced to leave Boston for Los Angeles to live with a father who abandoned her before she was born. A father who was too busy being a big Hollywood star to look her up before now.

Ruby was raised on the east coast by a mother that loved her and an Aunt she adores. When her mother dies, she finds herself on a plane to Los Angeles leaving behind her first real boyfriend, Ray, and her best friend in the world, Lizzie. Leaving her "whole entire life" behind to live with a father she's never met. A movie star father. An A-lister. A big star. A "scumbag" who divorced her mother before Ruby was even born.

"A billion flashbulbs are exploding all around us
and people are shouting and pushing and shoving
and sticking cameras in our faces
and crowding so close
that it feels like we're in a mosh pit.
"Whip! Whip!" they're calling
"Is that your long lost daughter?"

Whip may be an Oscar winning actor, but Ruby intends to make this role the most difficult he'll ever play. Will she come to terms with the past and forgive him? Will she fit in at her new school? Will next door neighbor, Cameron Diaz, who keeps breezing in borrow things, be her new stepmother? Read these heartfelt words of a girl whose life turns serious and who doesn't want her life to be just like one of those hideous books where the mother dies.

YALSA Best Books for Young Adults. YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. Rhode Island Teen Book Award. Iowa Teen Award. YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults - What Makes a Family?

GLBTQ: "Keesha's House"

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Frost, Helen. Keesha's House. Waterville, Maine: Thorndike Press, 2005.

Seven teens on the run find shelter at Keesha's house.

The stories are nothin' new: Stephie and Jason get pregnant, Dontay runs from foster care, Carmen is in for DUI, Harris's father can't accept he's gay, and Katie's mother can't see her abusive stepfather for the piece of crap he is.

The stories are nothin' new, but this time they have a place to go...Keesha's house. The house actually belongs to Joe, and while he is the heart it, Keesha is the heart and soul of this house.

It used to be when kids showed up they'd say,
I'm lookin' for Joe's house. Somebody sent me
here
and said to ask you for a place to stay
tonight. They'd stay a week, a month,
a year...
It's still like that, 'cept now they look at
me
like, where'd you come from? Ain't this
Keesha's house?

This story is told in the first person using a hybrid of traditional and non-traditional sestinas and sonnets. Some of the seven teenagers will find their way back home and some of the seven will make their home in a house that's both beautiful and durable- Keesha's house.

Michael L. Printz Honor Book. YALSA Best Books for Young Adults. YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, What Makes a Family?

Classic: "Weetzie Bat"

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Block, Francesca Lia. Weetzie Bat. NY: Harper Collins, 1989.

A punk laced fairy tale set in the City of Angels. Weetzie may have the help of the genie of the lamp, but she'll need more than that to live happily ever after.

Tooling around Hollywood with her best friend Dirk in his slinkster-cool car, Weetzie Bat searches for love and dreams about living happily ever after. But ambitions change and ever afters are never guaranteed and just living happily for one moment takes a lot of assembling.

Will it all come together for Weetzie Bat and Dirk and the colorful cast of characters that populate this hipster genie in a bottle type tale? Follow them as they go "duck hunting"; each looking for their one true love. Witness Weetzie Bat as she tries to pull her father back from grey New York to the sunlit boulevards of Hollywood. Try to follow the logic when Dirk and Duck, her two gay friends, convince themselves and Weetzie that if they all sleep together and make a baby, Weetzie's Secret Agent Lover Man (who doesn't want to bring a child into this world) will come around.

This mythological melodrama is like jazz on a page. All syncopated rhythms, ensemble casting, and the spontaneity of Weetzie's improvisations. But for all its' complexity, there is the simple message of love hidden amongst the crazy swings of pitch and timbre.

YALSA 100 Best Books 1950-2000. Parents' Choice Award.