Counseling Education Bibliotherapy Reading List: Teenage Pregnancy

A teen embarks on the road trip of a lifetime in this authentic, beautifully written debut novel. Lemon grew up with Stella, a single mom who wasn’t exactly maternal. Stella always had a drink in her hand and a new boyfriend every few months, and when things got out of hand, she would whisk Lemon off to a new town for a fresh beginning. Now, just as they are moving yet again, Lemon discovers that she is pregnant from a reckless encounter—with a guy Stella had been flirting with.      On the verge of revisiting her mother’s mistakes, Lemon struggles to cope with the idea of herself as a young unmarried mother, as well as the fact that she’s never met her own father. Determined to have at least one big adventure before she has the baby, Lemon sets off on a cross-country road trip, intending not only to meet her father, but to figure out who she wants to be.      Lyrical and moving prose from an original voice whose writing Judy Blume calls “luminous” deftly depicts the nuanced conflicts of early motherhood and the search for identity.

A 2009 New York Public Library "Stuff for the Teen Age" Selection Boys + Love = Trouble   Right?  Staying on track at school means a boy-free equation for Rhonda Lee, who spends most evenings doing homework and eating Chinese takeout with her dad. While Rhonda needs a scholarship for college, some kids at her private high school, like beautiful Sarah Gamble, seem to coast along on popularity and their parents' money. When forced to tutor Sarah in trigonometry, Rhonda recognizes all too well the symptoms-queasiness, puking, exhaustion-that Sarah is trying to mask. On a sudden impulse, Rhonda shares her past with Sarah. Exchanging their secrets adds up to more truths than either girl would have dreamed. "Without a bit of preaching, [this is] a story of two teenage girls who are faced with the consequences of unplanned pregnancies. [Readers] will love the emotional peaks and valleys of the tale." -Ellen Wittlinger, author of Hard Love "A sensitive and powerful friendship story. Realistic and heartfelt." -Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of Tantalize