Memoirs from People Who Were Once Teens Just Like You
By Marisa Rodriguez, School-Age and Teen Services Outreach Coordinator
It’s not easy being a teenager – take it from these talented memoirists.
Apple (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth
Eric, an enrolled member of the Onondaga nation, explores his identity and confronts the slur “apple,” which is a derogatory term used to imply that a Native person is “red on the outside, white on the inside.” His memoir spans from the traumatic legacy of government boarding schools to his interest in pop culture, supplemented by photos and graphic art to tell his family’s history and how it shaped the person he is today.
Hummingbird Heart by Travis Dandro
After losing his father to suicide, Travis moves in with his grandmother to care for her as she battles cancer. To escape the heaviness of his daily life, he makes mischief with his friends – pumpkin smashing, prank pulling and other hijinks. When a prank gone awry results in police involvement, Travis realizes that he is drifting away from his friends and that childhood may be more fleeting than he realized.
IMPROVE: How I Discovered Improv and Conquered Social Anxiety by Alex Graudins
Alex finds her way out of social anxiety by doing the unthinkable: joining an improv comedy class. By forcing herself out of her comfort zone, she learns how to move past embarrassment and finds a group of friends who are willing to accept her for who she is.
Islands Apart: Becoming Dominican American by Jasminne Mendez
As an Afro-Latina whose dad was in the military, Jasminne did not always fit neatly into one culture. In her memoir, she recounts her adolescence – her bilingualism, the imaginary white friend she created when she craved acceptance and what it means to be both Black and Latina in a world that doesn’t always understand the way that cultures intersect.
Passport by Sophia Glock
Fifteen-year-old Sophia is used to starting over in a new place; she has already lived in six countries and enrolled in countless new schools. Now a high school student in Central America, she discovers that her parents work for the CIA. Adolescence is hard and all the international moves and new starts don’t make it any easier – what choices will Sophia make in the face of it all?
Rolling Warrior: The Incredible, Sometimes Awkward, True Story of a Rebel Girl on Wheels Who Helped Spark a Revolution by Judith E. Heumann with Kristen Joiner
Disability rights activist Judith was paralyzed after contracting polio as a baby in 1949. Growing up prior to antidiscrimination legislation, she was faced with inaccessible buildings, schools that were unwilling to enroll her and doctors who unfairly deemed her unfit to pursue her dream job due to her disability. Judith tells the story of how she decided to take up a decadeslong fight to make the world more accessible for everyone.