Criminal Elements

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(911 Koe)  The Brimstone Journals by Ronald Koertge. In a series of short interconnected poems, students at a high school nicknamed Brimstone, reveal the violence existing and growing in their lives.

(921 Gantos, J)  Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos. The author relates how, as a young adult, became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer.

(921 Rodriguez)  Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. by Luis J. Rodriguez. Rodriguez’s memoir explorers the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction the inevitably claim its participants.

(FIC Bonham)  Durango Street by Frank Bonham. Hard hitting story of ghetto life.  Rufus Henry, fresh out of reform school, fights his way like a cornered animal.

(FIC Brooks, K)  Martyn Pig: A Novel by Kevin Brooks. Martyn Pig’s life goes from bad to worse when he accidentally kills his father, and he must choose whether to tell the police the truth about what happened and be suspected of murder, or he can get rid of the body and pretend nothing ever happened.

(FIC Cormier)  The Rag and Bone Shop: A Novel by Robert Cormier. Trent, an ace interrogator from Vermont, works to procure a confession from an introverted 12 year old accused of murdering his 7 year old friend in Monument, Massachusetts.

(FIC Ewing)  Drive-By by Lynne Ewing. 12 year old Tito, while helping to care for his little sister, struggles to find his way during the aftermath of his brother’s death in a gang related shooting.

(FIC Ferris)  Bad by Jean Ferris. In an attempt to please her boyfriend, 16 year old Dallas goes along with a plan to rob a convenience store, and when her father refuses the judge’s offer to let her come home on probation, she is sentenced to six months in the Girls’ Rehabilitation Center.

(FIC Hinton)  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. The struggles of three brothers to stay together after their parents’ death and their quest for identity among conflicting values of their adolescent society.

(FIC Mikaelson)  Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelson. After his anger erupts into violence, Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the Native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.

(FIC Myers)  Monster by Walter Dean Myers. While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, 16 year old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tried to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

(FIC Oates)  Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang by Joyce Carol Oates. The time is the 1950’s.  The place is a blue-collar town in upstate New York, where five high school girls are joined in a gang dedicated to pride, power, and vengeance on a world that seems to be made to denigrate and destroy them.

(FIC Pullman, P)  The White Mercedes by Philip Pullman.17 year old Chris, living and working in Oxford, falls in love with an elusive girl and while searching for her discovers the devastating consequences of placing his trust in the wrong person.

(FIC Sachar)  Holes by Louis Sachar. As further evidence of his family’s bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

(FIC Soto, G)  The Afterlife by Gary Soto. A senior at East Fresno High School lives on as a ghost after his brutal murder in the restroom of a club where he had gone to dance.