Monthly
Special
Love Stories
Suggested grade level for each entry: 7
and up
Wait for Me by An Na (Putnam)
Academic pressure from her Korean American immigrant mother has
led narrator Mina to concoct a string of lies, the biggest of which
is hiding her love for migrant worker Ysrael. 172 pages.
Psyche in a Dress by Francesca
Lia Block (Cotler/HarperCollins)
This free-verse novel reinvents the Greek tale of Eros and Psyche,
setting it in an LA filled with beauty and tragedy of mythic proportions.
116 pages.
Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks
(Kroupa/Farrar)
In this Manitoba-set story of the secrets stalking three generations
of women, the exceedingly well-told tale of teenage romance is expanded
by equally absorbing stories of adults who've played the tricky
game of love. 207 pages.
Postcards from No Man’s Land
by Aidan Chambers (Dutton)
Seventeen-year-old Jacob visits the family in Amsterdam that helped
his grandfather during WWII and hears bits and pieces of a gripping
story about a love affair between a young maiden, Geertrui, and
an English soldier. 312 pages.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
(Scholastic)
Katniss is drawn to her district’s other representative in
the Hunger Games, a compulsory, government-sponsored reality-TV
show from which only one of twenty-four teenage contestants will
emerge alive. 374 pages.
My Heartbeat by Garrett Freymann-Weyr
(Houghton)
Ellen, who has been in love with her brother Link's best friend,
James, for years, becomes part of a riveting love triangle centered
on her brother's sexual ambiguity. 159 pages.
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine
Leavitt (Front Street)
When sixteen-year-old Keturah is taken by Death, she uses her storytelling
skills to bargain with the lord, wringing from him the promise that
if she finds her true love during a day’s respite, he will
let her live. 216 pages.
Cupid by Julius
Lester (Harcourt)
A garrulous, worldly-wise narrator distinguishes this otherwise
straightforward retelling of “Cupid and Psyche.” 196
pages.
I’m Being Stalked by a Moonshadow
by Doug MacLeod (Front Street)
This lighthearted Australian tale about Seth and his first girlfriend,
muscular Miranda, features a vivid cast of comic characters and
plenty of rough patches on the course of true love. 200 pages.
Cyrano by Geraldine McCaughrean
(Harcourt)
The renowned verse play Cyrano de Bergerac is retold with
witty prose and ebullient wordplay well suited to Cyrano’s
heady brew of comedy, tragedy, and heartbreaking romance. 114 pages.
Street Love by Walter Dean Myers
(Amistad/HarperCollins)
Romeo and Juliet is transported to modern-day Harlem in
this meticulously lyrical, accessible verse novel that free-flows
through an array of perspectives 134 pages.
Heart’s Delight by Per
Nilsson, translated from the Swedish by Tara Chace (Front Street)
Like its emotionally fragile main character, this affecting, uniquely
constructed Swedish novel about first love — and first heartbreak
— puts up a pretense of detachment as the teenage narrator
mentally replays details of his recent romance as if they were movie
scenes. 155 pages.
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
(Lamb/Random)
Sent to live with four English cousins on their farm, fifteen-year-old
New Yorker Daisy is smitten with the pastoral beauty around her,
but especially with her cousin Edmond — until an (unnamed)
enemy power invades the country. 195 pages.
Sweethearts by Sara Zarr (Little)
Outcast Jennifer remakes herself into stylish "Jenna,"
but when her childhood soulmate, Cameron, reappears, Jenna's past
and present become inextricable. 217 pages.
 
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