Book Beats Recommended Reads for Teens in High School, Ages 14 and Up

Looking for something breezy and lyrical to read this summer from Chicago Public Library’s Teen Volume collections? Check out this list of music-related reading recommendations and ask your librarian for even more! Also, don’t forget to let us know what you think by submitting your review. And be sure to see what Teen Volume events are happening at the Library this summer.

Audrey, Wait!
By Robin Benway
(Rock and roll/pop)
When Audrey breaks up with her musician boyfriend, he ends up writing a song about her that becomes an instant hit. Suddenly Audrey is notorious and everyone has an opinion about her. But do they want to know the real story behind the song?

Beat the Band
By Don Calame
(Rock and roll/pop)
Paired with the infamous “Hot Dog” Helen for a health class presentation on safe sex, 10th-grader Coop tries to regain his “cool” by entering his musically challenged rock group in the “Battle of the Bands” competition.

Beauty and the Bully
By Andy Behrens
(Rock and roll/pop)
Hoping to attract a beautiful student activist who is the longtime object of his unrequited crush, Duncan Boone, lead guitarist in a rock band, enlists the help of a school bully whose sister wants to be in the band even though she is the worst guitar player in the universe.

Born Blue
By Han Nolan
(Jazz, blues and gospel)
Janie was 4 years old when she nearly drowned due to her mother’s neglect. Through an unhappy foster home experience and years of feeling that she is unwanted, she keeps alive her dream of someday becoming a famous singer.

Born to Rock
By Gordon Korman
(Rock and roll/pop)
High school senior Leo Caraway, a conservative Republican, learns that his biological father is a punk rock legend.

Candy
By Kevin Brooks
(Rock and roll/pop)
Before he met Candy, Joe Beck was a guitarist and not much else. Before she met Joe, Candy was a beautiful teenage prostitute who lived for drugs. But when, by chance, the two happen to meet on a London street corner, a painful struggle begins for Joe as he tries to free Candy from her heroin addiction. Candy will give almost anyone a new perspective on the world of drugs.

Chime
By Franny Billingsley
(Folk)
In the early 20th century in Swampsea, 17-year-old Briony, who can see the spirits that haunt the marshes around their town, feels responsible for her twin sister’s horrible injury until a young man enters their lives and exposes secrets that even Briony does not know about.

Decoded
By Jay-Z
(Hip-hop/rap and science of music)
An entrepreneur, poet and fearless hustler, Jay-Z tells the story of his life growing up in the projects, selling dope and eventually making it to rap stardom.

Fat Kid Rules the World
By K.L. Going
(Rock and roll/pop)
Seventeen-year-old Troy, depressed, suicidal and weighing 300 pounds, gets a new perspective on life when a homeless teenager who is a genius on guitar wants Troy to be the drummer in his rock band.

Five Flavors of Dumb
By Antony John
(Rock and roll/pop and science of music)
Piper, a hearing-impaired teen, becomes the manager for her classmates’ popular rock band, called Dumb, giving her the chance to prove her capabilities to her parents and others, if only she can get the band members to get along.

Gangsta Rap
By Benjamin Zephaniah
(Hip-hop/rap)
When teenage Ray and his two friends Prem and Tyronne form a successful rap band in London’s East End, where they live, they soon find themselves embroiled in increasingly violent gang warfare.

The Girl Who Became a Beatle
By Greg Taylor
(Rock and roll/pop)
Regina makes a wish to be as famous as The Beatles. The next day, she gets up to find that her own band is not just as famous as the Beatles, but has replaced them in history! Regina is living like a rock star, and loving it, but she has a decision to make. Does she want to replace The Beatles forever?

Heavy Metal and You
By Christopher Krovatin
(Rock and roll/pop)
Sam loves heavy metal music. He’s smarty-pants enough to attend an exclusive, all-boys prep school in New York City, and he loves to hang out with his friends and smoke up, cut class and drink. But when Sam starts to date straight edge Melissa, he tries to change himself for her. Nothing stays the same forever, though; thank goodness music is always there to get you through.

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone
By Stephanie Kuehnert
(Rock and roll/pop)
Emily is punk rock. She was born punk rock. Her mother split when she was little to follow a band, and her dad gave up music to raise her on his own. Now she has her own band that’s hitting it big. But everything is messy, and things rise high and swing low. And Emily’s looking for the song that’s going to bring it all back together, with love.

If I Stay
By Gayle Foreman
(Classical/symphonic)
While in a coma following an automobile accident that killed her parents and younger brother, 17-year-old Mia, a gifted cellist, weighs whether to live with her grief or join her family in death.

Impossible
By Nancy Werlin
(Folk)
When 17-year-old Lucy discovers her family is under an ancient curse by an evil Elfin Knight, she realizes to break the curse she must perform three impossible tasks before her daughter is born in order to save them both.

Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness
By Reinhard Kleist
(Country)
Told in black, white and shades of gray, this illustrated biography depicts Johnny Cash, the most famous country singer of all time. This graphic novel vividly portrays the unpredictable life of a loner, patriot, outlaw and music rebel, making this unique biography a compelling read for multiple generations of graphic novel and music fans.

King Dork
By Frank Portman
(Rock and roll/pop)
When Tom Henderson (aka King Dork) discovers a copy of The Catcher in the Rye that belonged to his dead father, his whole world changes. Clues and conspiracies seem to be leading to an answer to the puzzle of his father’s death while helping to figure out the secret to attracting hot girls. Being in a band definitely helps, but that’s not as simple as it seems.

The Last Days
By Scott Westerfeld
(Rock and roll/pop)
As an ancient evil stirs beneath the streets of New York City, infecting rats and people like a plague, five quirky teens come together to form a “New Sound” band whose music has a paranormal power.

Lemonade Mouth
By Mark Peter Hughes
(Rock and roll/pop)
A disparate group of high school students thrown together in detention form a band to play at a school talent show and end up competing with a wildly popular local rock band.

A Little Wanting Song
By Cath Crowley
(Rock and roll/pop)
One Australian summer, two very different 16-year-old girls—Charlie, a talented but shy musician, and Rose, a confident student longing to escape her tiny town—are drawn into an unexpected friendship, as told in their alternating voices.

The Mockingbirds
By Daisy Whitney
(Classical/symphonic)
When Alex, a junior at an elite preparatory school, realizes that she may have been the victim of date rape, she confides in her roommates and sister, who convince her to seek help from a secret society, the Mockingbirds.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
By Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
(Rock and roll/pop)
High school student Nick, a member of a rock band, meets Norah and asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes in order to avoid his ex-sweetheart.

The Orpheus Obsession
By Dakota Lane
(Rock and roll/pop)
Sixteen-year-old Annoshka Star, who has a tumultuous relationship with her mother, becomes obsessed with a rock singer and follows him into his world, and an unexpected death magnifies her troubles.

Pepperland
By Mark Delaney
(Rock and roll/pop)
Struggling to come to terms with the death of her mother in the late 1970s, Beatles fan Star hopes to find closure by delivering to John Lennon a letter her mother wrote in 1964 but never sent.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
By Stephen Chbosky
(Rock and roll/pop)
Most people think Charlie is a freak, but seniors Patrick and Sam take Charlie under their wings and introduce him to their eclectic, open-minded, hard-partying friends. It is from these older kids that Charlie learns to live and love, until a repressed secret from his past threatens to destroy his newfound happiness.

Revolution
By Jennifer Donnelly
(Classical, rock and roll/pop and science of music)
An angry, grieving 17-year-old musician facing expulsion from her prestigious Brooklyn private school travels to Paris to complete a school assignment and uncovers a diary written during the French revolution by a young actress attempting to help a tortured, imprisoned little boy—Louis Charles, the lost king of France.

Ricochet
By Julie Gonzalez
(Classical/symphonic)
When his best friend is killed in a game with a loaded gun, 15-year-old Connor finds his perceptions of himself and his relationships with his family, friends and the other people in his life changed in more profound ways than he could have imagined.

Rock Star Superstar
By Blake Nelson
(Rock and roll/pop)
When Pete, a talented bass player, moves from playing in the high school jazz band to playing in a popular rock group, he finds the experience exhilarating even as his new fame jeopardizes his relationship with his girlfriend.

The Rose That Grew from Concrete
By Tupac Shakur
(Hip-hop/rap)
Anthology of poetry and lyrics by the late rap artist.

The Sky Is Everywhere
By Jandy Nelson
(Classical and rock and roll/pop)
In the months after her sister dies, 17-year-old Lennie falls into a love triangle and discovers the strength to follow her dream of becoming a musician.

Stringz
By Michael Wenberg
(Classical)
Fourteen-year-old Jace Adams, a cellist who loves to surf, never fits in where his mother decides to move them, but after a difficult start in Seattle, he comes to realize that talent is not something to hide and that he has “family” in some unexpected places.

Ten Cents a Dance
By Christine Fletcher
(Folk)
In 1940s Chicago, 15-year-old Ruby hopes to escape poverty by becoming a taxi dancer in a nightclub, but the work has unforeseen dangers, and hiding the truth from her family and friends becomes increasingly difficult.

This Lullaby
By Sarah Dessen
(Rock and roll/pop)
Raised by a mother who’s had five husbands, Remy believes in short-term, no-commitment relationships—until she meets Dexter, a rock band musician.

The Vinyl Princess
By Yvonne Prinz
(Rock and roll/pop and science of music)
Allie is obsessed with LPs and works at the used record store on Telegraph Avenue. She deals with crushes, her increasingly popular blog and zine, and growing up over the course of one summer in her hometown of Berkeley, Calif.

What a Song Can Do—12 Riffs on the Power of Music
Edited by Jennifer Armstrong
(Eclectic)
Twelve stories describe the power of music in young people’s lives, from forming a community of individuals in a high school band to helping a young man connect to his Indian heritage through ancient songs. Featuring David Levithan, Gail Giles and more.