Looking for gangs and abuse...

Well, not me personally, but for books involving these, but books that are still appropriate. Susan Shaw's Black-eyed Susan was very good and I will be ordering two copies. A young girl falls into mental illness to escape her mother's cruelty, snapping out of it only when her sister becomes the target in her absence. The author also did The Boy from the Basement, which is popular.

Martinez's The Parrot in the Oven did not have enough gang action, which is why I was reading it. Will pass.

Liked Joseph Bruchac's Jim Thorpe: Original All-American. A biography done in the first person was a little odd, but very effective. I already have one student waiting for it!

Fitch's Kicks seemed dated and while it dealt with drug abuse, just had too many inappropriate things in it, like Plum-Ucci's The Night My Sister Disappeared, which used the f-word five times. Really. A good mystery, but that and the pregnancy perhaps caused by incest were just too much.

Woodson's Lena just seemed insubstantial. It is also a sequel to a title I don't have.