Scars

By Cheryl Rainfield
Gr 9 Up-Fifteen-year-old Kendra is being stalked by someone who wants her dead, and she is overwhelmed by the compulsion to cut herself. She is dealing with shadowy memories of sexual abuse from her early childhood and wonders why she cannot recall her rapist's face. Kendra is a tough, vulnerable, troubled teen, a survivor who will win readers' hearts as she struggles to deal with her life.
This book will be a particular comfort and source of insight for teens facing any of these challenges, but whatever their life experience, they will be on the edge of their seats, rooting for Kendra to unravel the mystery that shadows her life.

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Puttiing Makeup on Dead People

by Jen Violi

Since Donna's father died, she prefers to go inside herself to a "quiet place.... the only spot I feel at home," until she finds another comfortable place-a funeral home-and decides to become a mortician. But even as Donna applies to mortuary school after high school and starts work at Brighton Brothers Funeral Home, she must learn to connect with the living, including her well-meaning but disapproving mother and an offbeat friend who may be crushing on her. Readers will find Donna's job choice intriguing, as well as the descriptions of her education, including restorative arts class, where "people in lab coats are working with what I think is clay, shaping it into things I have to squint to realize are parts of the human face." Violi's first novel is swimming in unusual characters, from the people-both living and dead-who pass through the funeral home, to the eccentric members of Donna's church drama troupe.

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