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Zebra Forest

Adina Rishe Gewirtz · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

The Silver Star

Jeannette Walls · 304 pages

Two motherless sisters--Bean and Liz--are shuttled to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that's been in their family for generations. When school starts in the fall, Bean easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz becomes increasingly withdrawn. Then something happens to Liz and Bean is left to challenge the injustice of the adult world.

Absent ParentFamily SecretsCharacter-DrivenEmotional
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The Book of Ruth

Jane Hamilton · 328 pages

"I learned slowly, that if you don't look at the world with perfect vision, you're bound to get yourself cooked." Having come within an inch of her life, Ruth Dahl is determined to take a good look at it - to figure out whether, in fact, she's to blame for the mess." Pegged the loser in a small-town family that doesn't have much going for it in the first place. Ruth grows up in the shadow of her

Absent ParentFamily SecretsCharacter-DrivenTeen Protagonist
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Waiting for Normal

Leslie Connor · 304 pages

Addie is waiting for normal. But Addie's mom has an all-or-nothing approach to life: a food fiesta or an empty pantry, jubilation or gloom, her way or no way. All or nothing never adds up to normal. All or nothing can't bring you all to home, which is exactly where Addie longs to be, with her half-sisters, every day. In spite of life's twists and turns, Addie remains optimistic. Someday, maybe, sh

Absent ParentMiddle GradeCharacter-DrivenEmotional
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Lock and Key

Sarah Dessen · 427 pages

"Ruby, where is your mother?"Ruby knows that the game is up. For the past few months, she's been on her own in the yellow house, managing somehow, knowing that her mother will probably never return.That's how she comes to live with Cora, the sister she hasn't seen in ten years, and Cora's husband Jamie, whose down-to-earth demeanor makes it hard for Ruby to believe he founded the most popular netw

Absent ParentCharacter-DrivenFamily SecretsEmotional
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Moon Over Manifest

Clare Vanderpool · 384 pages

Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up, and where she hopes to find out some things about his past.

Absent ParentFamily SecretsMiddle GradeEmotional
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Love Letters to the Dead

Ava Dellaira · 327 pages

When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister's mysterious death, her mother's departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.

Absent ParentFamily SecretsCharacter-DrivenFirst Person Narrator
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The Mystery of Hollow Places

Rebecca Podos · 305 pages

A mystery writer's daughter sets out to find her missing father and, along the way, begins to understand the loneliness that has gripped them both since her mother abandoned them years before.

Absent ParentFamily SecretsCharacter-DrivenFirst Person Narrator
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Because of Winn-Dixie

Kate DiCamillo · 182 pages

Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her becauThe summer Opal and her father, the preacher, move to Naomi, Florida, Opal goes into the Winn-Dixie supermarket—and comes out with a dog. A big, ugly, suffering dog with a sterling sense of humor. A dog she dubs Winn-Dixie. Because of Winn-Dixie, the preacher tel

Absent ParentMiddle GradeCharacter-DrivenEmotional
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Apple and Rain

Sarah Crossan · 344 pages

Absent ParentMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistEmotional
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Little Darlings

Jacqueline Wilson

Sunset lives a life of luxury with her beautiful ex-model mum, a world-famous ex-rocker dad and two little celeb siblings. But life on the red carpet is no compensation for rowing parents, constant nagging, being exposed to the media’s spotlight, and having no real friends. Meanwhile, Destiny is an only child living on a rundown estate, whose loving but sickly mother constantly reminds her that sh

Absent ParentFamily SecretsMiddle GradeEmotional
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House Rules

Jodi Picoult · 532 pages

Absent ParentCharacter-DrivenFamily SecretsTeen Protagonist
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Dizzy

Cathy Cassidy · 272 pages

Absent ParentKidnapping PlotMiddle GradeFirst Person Narrator
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon · 240 pages

This is Christopher's murder mystery story. There are no lies in this story because Christopher can't tell lies. Christopher does not like strangers or the colours yellow or brown or being touched. On the other hand, he knows all the countries in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7507. When Christohper decides to find out who killed the neighbour's dog, his mystery st

Family SecretsAbsent ParentCharacter-DrivenEmotional
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Tending to Grace

Kimberly Newton Fusco · 175 pages

When Cornelia's mother runs off with a boyfriend, leaving her with an eccentric aunt, Cornelia must finally confront the truth about herself and her mother.

Absent ParentCharacter-DrivenMiddle GradeTeen Protagonist
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These Silent Woods

Kimi Cunningham Grant · 288 pages

A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant's These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense. No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly

Kidnapping PlotFamily SecretsCharacter-DrivenEmotional
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In One Person

John Irving · 448 pages

A New York Times bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a "sexual suspect," a phrase first used by John Ir

Absent ParentFamily SecretsCharacter-DrivenEmotional
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The Case of the Missing Marquess

Nancy Springer · 216 pages

When Enola Holmes, sister to the detective Sherlock Holmes, discovers her mother has disappeared, she quickly embarks on a journey to London in search of her. But nothing can prepare her for what awaits. Because when she arrives, she finds herself involved in the kidnapping of a young marquess, fleeing murderous villains, and trying to elude her shrewd older brothers—all while attempting to piece

Absent ParentKidnapping PlotMiddle GradeFirst Person Narrator
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My Name Is Venus Black

Heather Lloyd · 368 pages

Family SecretsKidnapping PlotCharacter-DrivenTeen Protagonist
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We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Karen Joy Fowler · 336 pages

Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. "I was raised with a chimpanzee," she explains. "I tell you Fern is a chimp and, already, you aren't thinking of her as my sister. . . . Until Fern's expulsion . . . she was my twin, my fun-house mirror, my whirlwind other half. . . . I loved her as a sister."

Absent ParentFamily SecretsCharacter-DrivenEmotional
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Daphne's Book

Mary Downing Hahn

Absent ParentMiddle GradeFamily SecretsEmotional
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Cutting for Stone

Abraham Verghese · 670 pages

Cutting for Stone (2009) is a novel written by Ethiopian-born Indian-American medical doctor and author Abraham Verghese. It is a saga of twin brothers, orphaned by their mother's death at their births and forsaken by their father. The book includes both a deep description of medical procedures and an exploration of the human side of medical practices. When first published, the novel was on The

Absent ParentFamily SecretsCharacter-DrivenFirst Person Narrator
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The Broken Bridge

Philip Pullman · 218 pages

Over the course of a long summer in Wales, sixteen-year-old Ginny, the mixed-race, artist daughter of an English father and a Haitian mother, learns that she has a half-brother from her father's earlier marriage, and that her own mother may still be alive.

Absent ParentFamily SecretsTeen ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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One Crazy Summer

Rita Williams-Garcia · 232 pages

Eleven-year-old Delphine has it together. Even though her mother, Cecile, abandoned her and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, seven years ago. Even though her father and Big Ma will send them from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to stay with Cecile for the summer. And even though Delphine will have to take care of her sisters, as usual, and learn the truth about the missing pieces of the pas

Absent ParentMiddle GradeCharacter-DrivenTeen Protagonist
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I, Emma Freke

Elizabeth Atkinson · 240 pages

Growing up near Boston with her free-spirited mother and old-world grandfather, twelve-year-old Emma has always felt out of place but when she attends the family reunion her father's family holds annually in Wisconsin, she is in for some surprises.

Absent ParentMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistFirst Person Narrator

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