This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki

Things are inexplicably different this summer for Rose's family on their annual beach vacation: Mama's not herself and won't even go into the water, and eventually their fighting drives Dad to go back home to work for a few days rather than stay.

Rose and her "summer cottage friend" Windy (a slightly younger girl whose family always rents a neighboring bungalow) hang out, watch horror movies, and spy on the local kids who loiter at the one-and-only store.

It's a book about that awkward time when you're too old for baby games and not old enough to really understand what's going on around you. Even though she thinks she knows, Rose doesn't really understand why her parents are fighting. Also, the things she overhears from the local kids lead her to imagine a whole drama that's going on there - which she may or may not be right about, also. Despite the year-and-a-half age discrepancy, Windy may actually have a better understanding of the summer's many plot threads.

This wonderfully inked graphic novel was highly lauded this awards season, and I can see why. It's the kind of story that sticks with you and would be a fantastic book discussion title.

After

by Amy Efaw

So often these days we hear about the ways that sex is romanticized for teens. It seems that every media outlet makes creates a form of entertainment that shows sex as something that every teen is doing, and there are rarely consequences. Here comes a book that shows an image of a teen and her reflection on the cover. In the reflection, her belly is a small bump. The book opens with a police officer banging on the door to Devon's apartment because a baby was found in a trash can minutes earlier. In this story, the main character is forced to face what has occurred in her life, not just on that one day, but in the months, and even years, leading up to it.

When I finished the book I wanted a sequel. I would really like Efaw to write about the baby when she becomes a teen. How did being a "trashcan baby" affect the rest of her life? Does she want to meet her biological mother? What has happened in Devon's life since that day?