The Year of the Book: Anna Wang

Key Words with Peter and Jane #3 Let Me Write Series C

A Year in the Life of a Total and Complete Genius

Runt

Mentor Texts

Dream Big and Be Yourself: A Collection of Inspiring Stories for Boys about Self-Esteem, Confidence, Courage, and Friendship

Surprisingly Sarah: Emmie & Friends

Catie Conrad: How to Become the Most (un)Popular Girl in Middle School (Desperate Diva Diaries Series)

In Kat Spears’s hilarious and often poignant debut, high school senior Jesse Alderman, or "Sway," as he’s known, could sell hell to a bishop. He also specializes in getting things people want---term papers, a date with the prom queen, fake IDs. He has few close friends and he never EVER lets emotions get in the way. For Jesse, life is simply a series of business transactions.

But when Ken Foster, captain of the football team, leading candidate for homecoming king, and all-around jerk, hires Jesse to help him win the heart of the angelic Bridget Smalley, Jesse finds himself feeling all sorts of things. While following Bridget and learning the intimate details of her life, he falls helplessly in love for the very first time. He also finds himself in an accidental friendship with Bridget’s belligerent and self-pitying younger brother who has cerebral palsy. Suddenly, Jesse is visiting old folks at a nursing home in order to run into Bridget, and offering his time to help the less fortunate, all the while developing a bond with this young man who idolizes him. Could the tin man really have a heart after all?

A Cyrano de Bergerac story with a modern twist, Sway is told from Jesse’s point of view with unapologetic truth and biting humor, his observations about the world around him untempered by empathy or compassion---until Bridget’s presence in his life forces him to confront his quiet devastation over a life-changing event a year earlier and maybe, just maybe, feel something again.

Discover Your Child's Next Read

The Year of the Book: Anna Wang

Abigail Halpin, Andrea Cheng, 2012

Key Words with Peter and Jane #3 Let Me Write Series C

Susan St. Louis, Ladybird Books, 2009

A Year in the Life of a Total and Complete Genius

Stacey Matson, 2014

Runt

V. M. Caldwell, 2006

Mentor Texts

Rose Cappelli, 2017

Dream Big and Be Yourself: A Collection of Inspiring Stories for Boys about Self-Esteem, Confidence, Courage, and Friendship

Special Art Stories, Nadia Ross, 2022

Surprisingly Sarah: Emmie & Friends

Terri Libenson, 2023

Catie Conrad: How to Become the Most (un)Popular Girl in Middle School (Desperate Diva Diaries Series)

Angie Spady, Channing Everidge, 2015