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Hope For Garbage

Alex Tully · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

No Way Out

Peggy Kern · 140 pages

Bluford High freshman Harold Davis is trapped. Medical bills for his sick grandmother are piling up, and a social worker has threatened to put him in a foster home. Desperate for money, he reluctantly agrees to work for Londell James, a neighborhood drug dealer. The choice leads him into a world of dangerous streets where no one is safe. Will Harold escape the violence that surrounds him, or will

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Honestly Ben

Bill Konigsberg · 339 pages

Ben Carver returns for the spring semester at the exclusive Natick School in Massachusetts determined to put his relationship with Rafe Goldberg behind him and concentrate on his grades and the award that will mean a full scholarship--but Rafe is still there, there is a girl named Hannah whom he meets in the library, and behind it all is his relationship with his distant, but demanding father.

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Being Billy

Phil Earle

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Running Wide Open

Lisa Nowak · 323 pages

Cody Everett has a temper as hot as the flashpoint of racing fuel, and it's landed him at his uncle's trailer, a last-chance home before military school. But how can he take the guy seriously when he calls himself Race, eats Twinkies for breakfast, and pals around with rednecks who drive in circles every Saturday night? What Cody doesn't expect is for the arrangement to work. Or for Race to become

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Lockdown

Walter Dean Myers · 247 pages

When I first got to Progress, it freaked me out to be locked in a room and unable to get out. But after a while, when you got to thinking about it, you knew nobody could get in, either.It seems as if the only progress that's going on at Progress juvenile facility is moving from juvy jail to real jail. Reese wants out early, but is he supposed to just sit back and let his friend Toon get jumped? Th

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Rikers High

Paul Volponi · 246 pages

Martin was sitting on the front stoop of his apartment building minding his own business when he was arrested for something he didn't even mean to do. Five months later, he's still locked up on Rikers Island, in a New York City jail. Just when it seems things couldn't get much worse, Martin is caught between two warring prisoners, and his face is slashed. Now he'll be forever marked with a prison

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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The Fallen

Paul Langan · 133 pages

This sequel to Brothers in Arms picks up the story of Martin Luna as he struggles to rebuild his life after the death of his little brother. In trouble at Bluford High School for fighting, Martin faces an even bigger problem at home: Frankie, the most feared homeboy from his neighborhood, is hunting him.

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Bronxwood

Coe Booth · 336 pages

Tyrell’s father is just out of jail, and Tyrell doesn’t know how to deal with that. It’s bad enough that his brother Troy is in foster care and his mother is no help whatsoever. Now there’s another thing up in his face, just when he’s trying to settle down. Tyrell’s father has plans of his own, and doesn’t seem to care whether or not Tyrell wants to go along with them. Tyrell can see the crash tha

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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The Boy in the Black Suit

Jason Reynolds · 272 pages

Soon after his mother's death, Matt takes a job at a funeral home in his tough Brooklyn neighborhood and, while attending and assisting with funerals, begins to accept her death and his responsibilities as a man.

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Buddy

Nigel Hinton · 208 pages

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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In the Wild Light

Jeff ZENTNER · 432 pages

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Rumble Fish

S.E. Hinton

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Life: An Exploded Diagram

Mal Peet · 400 pages

In 1960s Norfolk, England, seventeen-year-old Clem Ackroyd lives with his mother and grandmother in a tiny cottage, but his life is transformed when he falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy farmer in this tale that flashes back through the stories of three generations.

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Rumble Fish

Marcus Romer, S.E. Hinton · 123 pages

A junior high school boy idolizes his older brother, the coolest, toughest guy in the neighborhood, and wants to be just like him.

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Stone Cold

Robert Swindells

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Brothers In Arms

Paul Langan, Ben Alirez · 160 pages

Martin Luna, a new student at Bluford High, is at the center of this story. Haunted by the tragic death of his little brother, Martin seeks one thing: revenge. But his mother wants more for her only remaining child. Will Martin listen to her, or will he allow anger to control him?

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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The Demon King

Cinda Williams Chima · 464 pages

Relates the intertwining fates of former street gang leader Han Alister and headstrong Princess Raisa, as Han takes possession of an amulet that once belonged to an evil wizard and Raisa uncovers a conspiracy in the Grey Wolf Court.

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Gentlemen

Michael Northrop

When three teenaged boys suspect that their English teacher is responsible for their friend's disappearance, they must navigate a maze of assorted clues, fraying friendships, violence, and Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" before learning the truth.

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Creature of the Night

Kate Thompson

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Gather

Kenneth M. Cadow · 325 pages

Publisher Annotation: A resourceful teenager in rural Vermont struggles to hold on to the family home while his mom recovers from addiction in this striking debut novel.

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I Am the Messenger

Markus Zusak · 386 pages

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The Fire Eaters

David Almond · 228 pages

In 1962 England, despite observing his father's illness and the suffering of the fire-eating Mr. McNulty, as well as enduring abuse at school and the stress of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bobby Burns and his family and friends still find reasons to rejoice in their lives and to have hope for the future.

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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No Promises in the Wind

Irene Hunt · 223 pages

"No Promises in the Wind", by Irene Hunt, is about a 15-year-old boy and his little brother that run away from their home. It takes place in the Great Depression, 1932. After a long journey, the boys go back home and make things better.

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead
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Munmun

Jesse Andrews · 330 pages

In an alternate reality a lot like our world, every person's physical size is directly proportional to their wealth. The poorest of the poor are the size of rats, and billionaires are the size of skyscrapers. Warner and his sister Prayer are destitute—and tiny. Their size is not just demeaning, but dangerous: day and night they face mortal dangers that bigger richer people don't ever have to think

Working-Class ProtagonistTeen ProtagonistYoung AdultMale Lead

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