Susan Shaw's Safe

It's a rare book about rape that would be appropriate for most middle school libraries, and this would be the book. 13-year-old Tracy is attacked and almost killed on her way home, by the brother of a boy in her class. Told in a gripping but not graphic way, it's easy to understand the range of emotions that she goes through, and hard to watch her get through each day that follows. This is an important book that would be useful if there were a student who was raped and needed to read an example of one way of coping with the situation, or her friends needed insight into how she might feel. In general, this will be popular with the girls who like problem novels, because it is so very well done. This author's other books, The Boy From the Basement and Black-eyed Susie are also well-crafted and sensitively written.