​Bruised by Tanya Boteju is one of those stories. The protagonist is 18-year-old Daya who recently lost both parents in a car accident. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Daya is left to consider what her life might look like without her parents; she turns to physical outlets as a way to fill the void where those familial relationships once existed. Adding to this void is the absence of boxing – a sport she grew up learning from her father, sometimes at the disapproval of her mother. After their deaths, Daya wants nothing to do with boxing as it brings memories of her father and the pain of loss. Although she refuses to pick up a boxing glove, she does still crave a physical outlet for the emotional pain she feels. 

This is where skateboarding enters Daya’s life, and where the novel begins. We enter Daya’s journey as she catapults herself from one trick on her board to the next. She seeks the challenge of the sport and welcomes the crashes that come with it. What begins as innocent distraction in sport turns to a reliance on skateboarding as a way to self-injure: ​

​The solitary nature of skateboarding allows Daya the private space to self-injure through bruising without too many questions being asked. But when a friend suggests a new sport – roller derby – Daya is drawn to the competitive drive of the women she watches skate, and to the fierce roughness of the sport. She is drawn to the authenticity with which many of the characters on and around the team live (LGBTQIA+ found family), which is important to her as she navigates her own identity questions. 

Daya fights for a place on the team, but how will she continue to self-harm when teammates are relying on her to be her best in the rink? Daya must rise to meet the biggest challenges of her life: navigating emotions, relationships, and the physicality of a sport that requires the devotion of her whole self. 

Walk, run, skateboard, rollerblade, (or click!) your way to this story asap. Bruised by Tanya Boteju will not disappoint. 

​Dr. Kia Jane Richmond is Professor and Director of English Education at Northern Michigan University and author of Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature: Real Struggles through Fictional Characters (Bloomsbury, 2019). She is a frequent presenter at NCTE, ELATE, ALAN, CEL, and MCTE conferences and has published many articles and book chapters focused on young adult literature and teacher preparation in English Language Arts.

​She can be reached at [email protected].

Many 21st century adolescents and young adults have also developed an affinity for true crime books or novels featuring murder or a serial killer. High school and college teachers occasionally tap into this interest by including units focused on fictional novels such as Out of the Easy by Ruby Sepetys (2014), The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (2002) or Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco (2017), nonfiction texts such as The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (2017) or In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965), or podcasts such as “Serial,” a podcast created in 2014 as a spinoff of the public radio show “This American Life.” 

One of the best books I’ve found to pique readers’ interests is My Friend Dahmer, a graphic novel written and illustrated by Derf Backderf. The text is based on Backderf’s own memories having grown up with Jeffrey Dahmer in rural Ohio in the 1970s. However, the text is not solely grounded in reminiscence; instead, Backderf completed extensive research on Dahmer’s life before he killed his first victim in 1978. ​

What makes My Friend Dahmer an engaging read is the author’s ability to represent four years of life in the 1970s so effectively while also telling the story of one teen’s daily routines as a high school outcast who frequently drank himself into oblivion while ruminating on the desire to kill first animals, then another human being. The visuals in the book are powerful examples of excellence in graphic art. For instance, in Part 2 (“A Secret Life”), Dahmer is represented in four panels having just caught a fish in a local stream. He cuts the fish’s head off with a “thwap,” bludgeons the fish in multiple strokes (“chok! chok! chok!), and kneels over the fish, fixated on its mutilated body. In a splash page that follows, a close up is shown of this last image, with the words “I just wanted to see what it looked like” in the speech bubble. Backderf’s use of shading (Dahmer’s face is very dark, his eyes blocked by lines drawn across his wire-framed glasses) and body positioning add to the reader’s experiences with this novel. 

Most of the author’s drawings in My Friend Dahmer fit into one of three categories: graphic comic, cartoon, or sketch. As the reader moves through the book, the images on the pages get progressively darker -- in shading and in content. However, Backderf deftly leaves details of Dahmer’s first of seventeen murders for the last chapter and the “Notes” section. ​

​​Lia Overbrook is an 18-year-old high school student who lives with anorexia nervosa. She is unable to see her body in ways that are healthy. Instead, Lia feels repulsive and frail, which will not help her reach her (unrealistic) goal weight of 80 pounds. Like many young people with eating disorders, Lia finds ways to lie about her eating habits to her family, over-exercises and weighs herself repeatedly– both in secret, and doom scrolls online in chat rooms and underground blogs filled with the voices of others who are seeking solace and advice for weight-loss. Those voices are loud in Lia’s head, bumping into the voices of her parents (who are constantly fighting) and her best friend Cassie Parrish (who has lived with bulimia since she was 10 years old), and the buzzing of “echovoices that made a permanent home inside the eggshell of her skull,” saying
​ 
":: Stupid/ugly/stupid/bitch/stupid/fat/stupid/baby/stupid/loser/stupid/lost/::” 

​Laurie Halse Anderson, a New York Times bestselling author and phenomenal speaker, has won numerous awards for her writing, including the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (2023), the NCTE Intellectual Freedom Award (2015), and the ALA’s Margaret A. Edwards Award (2009). Her most recent novel, just published this year, is Rebellion 1776, a middle grade historical narrative about a young girl living through an epidemic during the Revolutionary War. 

​Dr. Kia Jane Richmond is Professor and Director of English Education at Northern Michigan University and author of Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature: Real Struggles through Fictional Characters (Bloomsbury, 2019). She is a frequent presenter at NCTE, ELATE, ALAN, CEL, and MCTE conferences and has published many articles and book chapters focused on young adult literature and teacher preparation in English Language Arts.

​She can be reached at [email protected].

​The narrator of Forever is Now, Sadie Dixon, is a self-described “sad, anxious Black girl” who lives in Oakland, California. Before she and her girlfriend Aria witness a violent incident of police brutality against a woman in the local park, Sadie is working with her therapist, Dr. Candace, to manage her anxiety through cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), exposure therapy, dialogue, and journaling/creative writing. After the incident, Sadie’s anxiety symptoms worsen, spiraling into ongoing self-doubt, more frequent panic attacks, bouts of insomnia, and a new diagnosis of agoraphobia. 

Sadie’s story includes many issues teens expect in fiction such as friendships,  family relationships, romances, and breakups. What makes this novel a standout is the deep self-discovery that Sadie shares with readers through discussions with her therapist, family, and friends. Agoraphobia and other anxiety disorders can be extremely isolating, often exacerbating symptoms. Sadie’s support system – including new neighbor Jackson Sweet and best friend Evan - helps her develop effective strategies for living with anxiety. 

Readers will find themselves captivated by Sadie’s powerful voice, which is enriched by poems she writes and (sometimes) shares with listeners/viewers of her broadcasts on an online activist app called Ruckus. For example, during one of her live shows called “Dispatches from Insomnia Garden,” Sadie reads a poem that blends her experiences with anxiety and the issue of police brutality with a call for an “Open Mic for Joy” event: 
​
… That’s what keeps me up 
       makes it hard for me to close my eyes most nights
Thinking of all those gone gone gone bodies
                                     floating in silence
no gravity, no light
no escape                  back to love
But the poet Nikki g wrote: 
‘Black love is Black wealth’
And despite all the suffering-there is joy too …  (267).