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Tearjerkers
Books to make you cry, just a little
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The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane
by Kate O'Shaughnessy
Eleven-year-old Maybelle Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown jewel of her collection is a sound she didn't collect herself: an old recording of her daddy's warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phone's voicemail. It's the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows about him. Until the day she hears that laugh--his laugh--pouring out of the car radio.
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Just like Jackie
by Lindsey Stoddard
Teased by a school bully because she does not resemble the dark-skinned grandfather who is raising her, young Robbie wonders about her other family members and worries when her grandfather's memory begins to fail.
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Red, White, and Whole
by Rajani LaRocca
Told in verse, Reha, already dealing with being the only Indian American student in middle school, must now take care of her mother who is diagnosed with leukemia.
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Glitter Gets Everywhere
by Yvette Clark
Relocating from London to New York City with her family in the aftermath of her mother's death, Kitty struggles to adjust to a different culture, before an unlikely friendship inspires alternate perspectives on how to keep her mother's memory alive.
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One for the Murphys
by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Carley uses humor and street smarts to keep her emotional walls high and thick. But the day she becomes a foster child, and moves in with the Murphys, she's blindsided. This loving, bustling family shows Carley the stable family life she never thought existed, and she feels like an alien in their cookie-cutter-perfect household.
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Mixed Up
by Gordon Korman
Plagued by strange flashes of memory that don't belong to them while, at the same time, their own memories begin to fade, Reef, who is trying to remember his late mother, and Theo, who discovers a newfound sense of freedom, must discover what's happening before it's too late.
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Farther Than the Moon
by Lindsay Lackey
While attending the Junior Astronaut Recruitment Program, 13-year-old Houston Stewart struggles to meet the program's rigorous demands but is determined to honor the dream of his brother, who has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, even if it seems like an impossible mission.
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Remember Us
by Jacqueline Woodson
It seems like Sage's whole world is on fire the summer before she starts seventh grade. As house after house burns down, her Bushwick neighborhood gets referred to as "The Matchbox" in the local newspaper. And while Sage prefers to spend her time shooting hoops with the guys, she's also still trying to figure out her place inside the circle of girls she's known since childhood.
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Repairing the World
by Linda Epstein
With the help of a new perspective from Hebrew school and supportive new friends, 12-year-old Daisy grapples with her grief over the tragic loss of her best friend, in this heartfelt middle grade novel about learning to look forward.
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Show Us Who You Are
by Elle McNicoll
A neurodivergent twelve-year-old girl is shown an amazing new technology that gives her another chance to talk to the best friend she lost. But she soon discovers the corporation behind the science hides dark secrets that only she can expose in this heartwarming and heroic sophomore novel from the award-winning author of A Kind of Spark.
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Shot Clock
by Caron Butler
When the police officer who killed his best friend, a hoops phenom, is back on the job, Tony, the statistician for the AAU basketball team, must deal with his own grief and help his community heal while leading his team to victory.
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Black Bird, Blue Road
by Sofiya Pasternack
To save her sick twin brother from the Angel of Death by taking him to find doctors who can cure him, Ziva accidentally frees a half-demon boy instead, who leads them to a fabled city where no one dies.
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Jennifer Chan is Not Alone
by Tae Keller
When Jennifer Chan, a new girl who believes she can find aliens, goes missing, Mallory Moss sets out to find her and must figure out why Jennifer might have run and face the truth inside herself.
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Courage: My Story of Persecution
by Freshta Tori Jan
As a girl and as part of an ethnic minority in Afghanistan, Freshta Tori Jan was persecuted relentlessly. With a voice that is both accessible and engaging, Freshta brings forward a captivating first-person account of strength, resilience, and determination. She delivers compelling narrative nonfiction by young people, for young people.
Note: This title may be found in the nonfiction section.
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Caprice
by Coe Booth
Offered a place at the school of her dreams, Caprice, plagued by internal doubt and family drama, is pulled back towards the past and to an abuse she's never told anyone about.
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Carry Me Home
by Janet S. Fox
When their father goes missing, 12-year-old Lulu and her younger sister must take care of themselves until they learn that trusting new friends and the community will help them find their true home.
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Just Like That
by Gary D. Schmidt
Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students from wealthy backgrounds. In a parallel story, Matt Coffin has wound up on the Maine coast near St. Elene's with a pillowcase full of money lifted from the leader of a criminal gang.
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Trowbridge Road
by Marcella Fleischman Pixley
Struggling with her mother’s advancing mental illness in the months after her father’s death from complications of AIDS, a girl in the 1983 Boston suburbs befriends an imaginative boy with his own troubles before threats to her safety force her to make a difficult choice.
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Kaleidoscope
by Brian Selznick
Two people are bound to each other through time and space, memory and dreams, as they try to solve a mystery of grief and love.
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A Story about Cancer (with a Happy Ending)
by India Desjardins
When she is ten years old, a girl is diagnosed with leukemia and describes her journey through the next five years, including her medical treatments, her relationships with nurses and other patients, and falling in love.
Note: This book can be found in the Teen Graphic Novel section.
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