On a recent inventory of our 6th grade books we found realistic fiction with main characters dealing with the following situations:

• Child has been caught shoplifting
• Child has recently moved into a new school
• Child is bullied at school
• Child is failing school
• Child must deal with neighborhood gangs
• Child is witness to a natural disaster
• Child is blind
• Child has severe reaction to sunlight
• Child lives with grandparents or other relatives
• Child is in foster care
• Child is a child bride
• Child is abused
• Child works as slave labor
• Child has to enter witness protection program with her family
• Sibling is smarter, prettier, more popular, or more loved by all
• Sibling is very ill
• Sibling is dying or dead
• Parents are divorcing or have recently divorced
• Parent is out of work
• Parent is ineffective due to a particular situation
• Parent is alcoholic or abuses drugs
• Parent is neglectful
• Parent is severely depressed
• Parent is bipolar and depressed
• Parent is very ill
• Parent is in jail
• Parent is absent
• Parent is missing and child is actively searching for them
• Parent abandons child
• Parents aren't really the real parents
• Parent is dead

Welcome to the miserable world of tween and teen books!

The way it all started

One of the 6th grade booktalkers was pulling books for an April classroom visit and was disappointed to find that we were all out of the book Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah. Nay problemo - I suggested she try Ties That Bind, Ties That Break by Lensey Namioka - a similar but fictional account of a girl in China. Alas, that one was already in use at the school. At that point I started suggesting other books set in Asia where the main characters were girls with miserable lives. Homeless Bird by came to mind, as did several others. And we got talking together about how so many books for young teens and teens in general could all be placed in one shelf called Miserable Lives, if Dewey had created such a cataloging section.

In the weeks that come we hope to review many of the titles in our 6th grade book collection that could be placed on that special sad, lonely, desperate, sagging, dusty, miserable shelf of paperbacks.