Crissa-Jean Chappell's books will resonate with the angsty teen in all of us. Her books will cut you deep and make you feel.
Crissa's characters are indeed angsty, but mostly trying to figure out who they are and
discover and accept themselves for who they are. But she does it on a
cross-cultural level, and I LOVE that. One of her books focuses on Amish girls
taking part in Rumspringa, and another is about boy who goes to live with his father on
an American Indian reservation.
We might not be able to relate to these characters personally (for example, obviously I'm neither Amish or an American Indian), but Crissa is really good at helping her readers understand these different cultures and how they live differently than what we're used to.
AND she's also a contributing author for Dear Bully, a short story collection with contributions from 70 YA authors sharing their experiences with bullying. Do you know how brave you have to be to share such brutally honest, and sometimes very painful, truths with a mass audience? If these stories don't punch you in the heart and give you feels, I don't think we can be friends anymore.
So yea. READ CRISSA'S BOOKS.
Secrets Were a Way of Life.
But Secrets Have Gone Too Far …
Every year, Lucy waits eagerly for the arrival of the “snowbirds,” the Old Order Amish who come trundling into Florida on buses from the north, bringing Lucy’s best friend Alice, with whom she’s spent every winter she can remember. This winter is different. At sixteen, Alice is in the middle of “Rumspringa,” a season in which Amish teens try out forbidden temptations, in order to get them out of their system.
Lucy is part of a different sect, in which teens aren’t allowed such bold experimentation, and she’s fighting to keep up as Alice races from one wild party to the next. Then, one night after just such a party, Alice vanishes.
Wracked by guilt, Lucy knows that she should have been watching out for Alice, but instead, she was kissing Faron, an Older Order boy shunned by his society. Now, Lucy plunges into a search for her best friend—while also hiding her own secret, which could put her in even more danger.
Trent Osceola's life is turned upside down when his mother announces that he will be moving to the Miccosukee reservation to live with his father, who was recently released from prison. Only half Miccosukee, Trent feels alienated from rez society and starts to question who he really is. When he changes schools, he reconnects with Pippa, a childhood friend who moved away, and together they tackle the class assignment to make a film of their lives. When he starts to see himself through Pippa's eyes, Trent’s not sure he likes what he sees. Will he ever be good enough for the rez, for school, and for her?
(edited by Megan Kelley Hall)
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Discover how Lauren Kate transformed the feeling of that one mean girl getting under her skin into her first novel, how Lauren Oliver learned to celebrate ambiguity in her classmates and in herself, and how R.L. Stine turned being the "funny guy" into the best defense against the bullies in his class.
Top authors for teens come together to share their stories about bullying—as silent observers on the sidelines of high school, as victims, and as perpetrators—in a collection at turns moving and self-effacing, but always deeply personal.
“You’re going to hate me forever when you learn my secret.”
When his little sister is caught with a bag of weed, seventeen-year-old Aaron Foster takes the fall. To keep the cops from tearing his family apart, Aaron agrees to go undercover and help bust the dealer who’s funneling drugs into his Miami high school. But making friends with the school’s biggest players isn’t easy for a waste-case loner from the wrong part of town.
Stuck between the cops on one hand and a crazy party scene on the other, Aaron befriends Morgan Baskin—a cute but troubled rich girl who might be his link to the supplier. But just when he realizes he’s falling for Morgan, the unbearable weight of his lies threatens to crush them both.
Want to know more about Crissa? Find her at her website, on Twitter, and Instagram. AND AT YA FEST 2017 ON MARCH 18!!
W00T W00T!
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