Developing and Maturing

Adolescent protagonists face the challenges and struggles of growing up in many books, from H. F. Simms seeking a sexual identity in Finding H. F. (Watts, 2001); overweight outsider Elvin failing at his assigned sport slot in Slot Machine (Lynch, 1995); Raspberry equating money with security in Money Hungry (Flake, 2001); wise-guy Matt emerging from his bad-boy shell in Big Mouth and Ugly Girl (Oates, 2002); and Myrtle trying to determine just exactly who and what she is in Myrtle of Willendorf (O’Connell, 2000). While many novels, such as Virginia Euwer Wolff’s story of life in the inner city in Make Lemonade (1993) and True Believer (2001), Victor Martinez’s tale of a Mexican American teenager in the California projects in Parrot in the Oven (1996), or Rob Thomas’ novel of a gifted but troubled high school senior in Rats Saw God (1996), are very serious, more humorous narratives also exist, such as Louise Rennison’s funny British tale of Georgia Nicholson that begins in Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging (2000) or the diaries of Jonah Black that begin in Black Book Diary of a Teenage Stud: Girls, Girls, Girls (2001). In a series of poems, Sonya Sones tells of the maturing of 15-year-old Sophie in What My Mother Doesn’t Know (2001). Other tales that address these topics include Alice, I Think (Juby, 2003), Bloomability (Creech, 1998), Cry Baby (Karas, 1996), Goodbye, Amanda the Good (Shreve, 2000), and Homeless Bird (Whelan, 2000).