How Long Will I Cry?: Voices of Youth Violence

Chicago Public Library’s Teen Volume Project recommends the following books as stories of self-empowerment, perseverance and “upstanders,” and each heightens the importance of taking a stand against bullying, putting an end to intolerance and making a positive difference in the world today.

Angry Management
By Chris Crutcher
In three powerful novellas about survival, Crutcher revisits and connects his well-known characters Angus Bethune, Sarah Byrnes, Montana West and Marcus James as they struggle with insecurity and self-acceptance.
eBook

Crank
By Ellen Hopkins
While visiting her absentee father, good girl Kristina becomes fearless Bree, falling in love and taking crazy risks. What begins as a fun, wild ride with “the Monster” leaves her empty and struggling for life.
Audiobook

Between Shades of Gray
By Ruta Sepetys
Readers will be deeply moved by the harrowing tale of Lina, a 15 year-old Lithuanian artist, and the imprisonment of her family and fellow countrymen in Russia under Stalin’s brutal reign.
Audiobook | eAudiobook | eBook

Blood is Thicker
By Paul Langan & D.M. Blackwell
Hakeem finds himself thrust into drama with his cousin Savon as, after years of having been apart, the two must re-establish who they are and build a relationship.

Leverage
By Joshua Cohen
The rivalry between football and boy's 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.
Audiobook | eAudiobook | eBook

Luna
By Julie Anne Peters
Join Regan as she journeys through high school, hiding from society, keeping a dark secret that is slowly eating her away. Her older brother, Liam, is transgender – known as Luna at night – and she’s trying to protect him from himself and society, while at the same time discovering what it takes for him to truly be himself and find happiness.

Perfect
By Ellen Hopkins
Four teens, four stories, one goal: perfection by any means necessary. To what extent is each willing to go to achieve it?

Ricochet
By Julie Gonzalez
A bully. A gun. A dare.
A friendship ripped apart.
An instant in which Connor Kaeden's life changes forever. . . .

The Rock and the River
By Kekla Magoon
In 1968 Chicago, 13-year-old Sam is torn between following his father’s peaceful path toward Civil Rights and the more aggressive tactics of the burgeoning Black Panthers.
Audiobook | eAudiobook

Speak
By Laurie Halse Anderson
When Melinda Sordino is raped a summer party, she decides that not talking about it is easier than sharing her story. Melinda eventually gets stronger, and finds a way to release the pain, but it’s hard to know how powerful it can be to share something so difficult and to know who she can trust.
Audiobook | eAudiobook

Stargirl
By Jerry Spinelli
When two very different people fall in love, will sparks fly, or will they both end up crushed?
Audiobook | eAudiobook | eBook