What does it mean to be free? To have freedom? To lose your freedom? In honor of the Fourth of July, chow down on these titles!
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. 2007.
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. 2007.
In this heart-wrenching, candid autobiography, a human rights activist offers a firsthand account of war from the perspective of a former child soldier, detailing the violent civil war that wracked his native Sierra Leone and the government forces that transformed a gentle young boy into a killer as a member of the army.
Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. 2008.
After being interrogated for days by the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco, seventeen-year-old Marcus, released into what is now a police state, decides to use his expertise in computer hacking to set things right.
The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. 1999.
A true account of a teacher who confronted a room of “at-risk” students details their life-changing journey and includes diary excerpts.
Hautman, Pete. Rash. 2006.
In a future society that has decided it would “rather be safe than free,” sixteen-year-old Bo’s anger control problems land him in a tundra jail where he survives with the help of his running skills and an artificial intelligence program named Bork.
Hawkins, Rachel. Rebel Belle. 2014.
Seventeen-year-old Harper Price’s charmed (and planned) life is turned upside down when she discovers she’s been given magical powers in order to protect her school nemesis, David Stark.
King, A.S. Reality Boy. 2013.
An emotionally damaged seventeen-year-old boy in Pennsylvania who was once an infamous reality TV star, meets a girl from another dysfunctional family, and she helps him out of his angry shell.
Lake, Nick. Hostage Three. 2013.
Seventeen-year-old Amy, her father, and her stepmother become hostages when Somalian pirates seize their yacht, but although she builds a bond with one of her captors it becomes brutally clear that the price of life and its value are two very different things.
Reedy, Trent. Divided We Fall. 2014.
Danny Wright, seventeen, joined the Idaho Army National Guard to serve the country as his father had, but when the Guard is sent to an anti-government protest in Boise and Danny’s gun accidentally fires, he finds himself at the center of a conflict that results in the federal government declaring war on Idaho.
Shusterman, Neal. Unwind. 2007.
In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives “unwound” and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs – and perhaps, save their own lives. Followed by UnWholly and UnSouled.