Rahm's Readers: You Are What You Read – Healthy Reads

Spend your summer reading about healthy bodies, minds and lives with these great fiction and nonfiction titles for teens available at your local library!

Quicklinks: Healthy Bodies | Healthy Minds | Healthy Lives | Visiting Authors

Healthy Bodies

A La Carte
By Tanita S. Davis
Cooking is like breathing to 17-year-old Elaine “Lainey” Seifert, who helps out at her mother’s Bay Area restaurant. She longs to become a professional chef, but an old friend and secret crush re-surfaces and turns her life upside down. Will this render her helpless or will Lainey rise up and follow her dreams?

Chew On This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food
By Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson
Based on the book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, this book examines and exposes the history and current practices of the fast food industry.

Looks
By Madeleine George
This story explores the ways in which girls use food and their bodies to say what they cannot. Overweight Meghan and stick-thin Aimee may look like opposites: Meghan’s massive size is impossible to ignore, yet people still spill their secrets in front of her, and she is always listening. Her attention has turned Aimee, the new girl with the defiant attitude. The two join forces to take down their shared enemy.

The Running Dream
By Wendelin Van Draanen
Jessica thinks her life is over after losing a leg in a car accident. She may be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg, but who cares about walking when you live to run? After meeting Rosa, a girl with cerebral palsy, Jessica begins to see her own life differently. With the support of everyone around her, Jessica may be able to run again, but she doesn't just want to cross finish lines herself—she wants to take Rosa with her.

Samuri Shortstop
By Alan Gratz
While obtaining a Western education at a prestigious Japanese boarding school in 1890, 16-year-old Toyo also receives traditional samurai training that has profound effects on both his baseball game and his relationship with his father.
Audiobook

Wintergirls
By Laurie Halse Anderson
Lia and Cassie are best friends competing in a deadly contest to see who can be the thinnest, but when Cassie dies and Lia is left behind, she is haunted by a self-loathing internal voice and her best friend's ghost. Will Lia survive or meet Cassie’s fate?
Audiobook | eAudio | eBook

Healthy Minds

Artichoke's Heart
By Suzanne Supplee
When your mom runs the most successful (and gossipy) beauty shop in town, it can be hard to keep a low profile. Rosemary is smart, funny, loyal and the best eyebrow waxer in Spring Hill, Tenn., but the only thing that seems to matter to anyone, including Rosemary, is her weight. She resolves to lose the weight, but her journey turns out to be about everything but the scale.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story
By Ned Vizzini
Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan’s Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. With single-minded determination, Craig is admitted to the school, but, ironically, everything starts to unravel until he eventually gets treatment for his clinical depression.
DVD | eBook

Life Freaks Me Out: And Then I Deal with It
By K.L. Hong
Friendships, stress management, sexuality, drug use and self esteem: these are all topics teens deal with daily. The concerns of teenagers inspired this memoir, which addresses how tough and exciting it is to be a teenager. The author explores big questions such as, “Who am I?” and “What am I called to do on this planet?”

Love Drugged
By James Klise
Jamie plans to protect his biggest secret—he's gay. But when a classmate discovers the truth, Jamie steals an experimental new drug that's supposed to "cure" his attraction to guys. Jamie thinks he's finally going to have a "normal" life, but as the drug's side effects worsen, Jamie begins to realize that using could shatter the world of deception that he's created—and hurt the people closest to him.

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
By Chris Crutcher
In middle school, overweight Eric was “the fat kid” and Sarah, with burn scars on her face, was “the burned kid.” As outcasts, they became best friends. Now in high school, Eric has shed the weight, but Sarah is still “the burned kid.” When he finds out Sarah is in the hospital, Eric struggles to understand how Sarah Byrnes, the toughest kid he knows, could have ended up in a psychiatric hospital.
eBook

Who Am I Without Him
By Sharon Flake
This short story collection depicts the lives of many different teenage girls, covering topics of family, sex and pregnancy, absent fathers, bad boyfriends, disobedience, poor decisions, death and more, featuring unique storytelling techniques and perspectives. A powerful book for girls and guys about relationships, family and urban life issues that only Flake could master.
eBook

Healthy Lives

Crank
By Ellen Hopkins
On a visit to her absentee father, good girl Kristina becomes the fearless Bree. Through her first love, Bree soon meets the Monster. What begins as a wild ride turns into a hellish struggle for life.
Audiobook

GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender & Questioning Teens
By Kelly Huegel
This book will help you find the right answers to questions that you may have if you or someone you know is gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning. The stories from other teens will provide additional support and advice. You will also find information about how to take care of yourself, how to deal with bullies and how society is becoming much more accepting about the GLBTQ community.

Leverage
By Joshua C. Cohen
The rivalry between football and boys gymnastics at a sports-obsessed high school leads to a brutal steroid-induced attack, which is heightened by an unlikely friendship between some members of the teams.
eAudiobook | eBook

Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy
By Bill Wright
Though he’s only 16, the fabulous Carlos Duarte knows he can do makeup like a pro and when he lands a coveted spot at the makeup counter at Macy’s, he’s living his dream. But fierce competition, trouble at home and daily harassment from bullies force Carlos to believe in himself like never before. Can the fat boy fight his way to the top?

Ridiculous/Hilarious/Terrible/Cool: A Year in an American High School
By Elisha Cooper
Elisha Cooper follows eight teenagers through a year at Walter Payton College Prep, through soccer games, detentions, dance recitals and sibling rivalry, showing us the incredible diversity of students and student experiences in a Chicago high school.

What Color is Your Parachute? For Teens
By Carol Christen and Richard N. Bolles with Jean M. Blomquist
Not sure where your passions lie? Wondering about what type of career you should pursue once you graduate college? Then this is the book for you! Find advice about how to prepare for that future job and learn about the current hot job trends.

Visiting Authors

Don’t forget to check out these teen-recommended books by authors appearing at Chicago Public Library throughout July.

Ashfall
By Mike Mullin
Alex is planning to enjoy a solitary weekend when a supervolcano erupts under Yellowstone National Park, leaving him to survive in a new world and find his way across the ash- and snow-covered terrain to be reunited with his family.

Big Fat Manifesto
By Susan Vaught
Jamie is a high school senior who is above average everywhere—she has a column in the school newspaper, a boyfriend on the football team, a starring role in the school musical and an above-average weight. She’s a self-proclaimed fat girl whose newspaper column explores what it’s like for Jamie to be a confident, attractive and overweight in today’s society.

I'll Be There
By Holly Goldberg Sloan
Sam and Riddle have never known stability until being welcomed into the home and hearts of the Bell family, but when their criminal, paranoid father discovers where they're living everything falls apart again.