These are stories of children, young adults, sometimes late-bloomers who achieve maturity by overcoming difficult emotional and/or physical situations.
British teenager, Adrian Mole, reveals all his yearnings and inadequacies in a diary.
In pre-War Britain, 13-year-old Briony witnesses a flirtatious moment between her older sister and a neighbor boy. Her misunderstanding of the situation brings about a crime that will change all their lives. The book follows that crime’s repercussions, and its effect on the lives of the main characters, through WW II and into the close of the twentieth century.
This French coming-of-age story written in the 1950s was considered scandalous when it came out. With the author barely older than her teenage protagonist, the story ably explores emotional matters and life-changing experiences. Translated from French.
A coming-of-age story about an adolescent boy coming to terms with his sexuality. A six-week encounter, at the family's villa on the Italian Riviera, changes the lives of the adolescent and an adult guest.
A perceptive talking cat enlists the help of an aimless high school student in order to help save books that " ... have been imprisoned." A coming-of-age adventure that is also an homage to all kinds of books and to the joy of reading.
Eleven-year-old Jim is torn from the comfort of his upper-class British family when Japan attacks allied warships in Shanghai on December 7, 1941. He is left to scavenge in a city left in ruins until being picked up and thrown into an internment camp with adults.
French writer Colette tenderly explores adolescent love between two childhood friends, Phil and Vinca. This new translation captures Colette's sensuous writing style.
In nineteenth century Jamaica, a shipload of British children are being sent home to school when their ship is highjacked by pirates. What happens is unexpected and belies the innocence of childhood.
A tale of a tumultuous father-son relationship in present-day Afghanistan and the United States which reveals two family secrets.
12-year-old Frankie Addams feels alienated and lost, and as she struggles with her own identity assumes the name of F. Jasmine. Set in a small southern town, in the 1940s, Frankie's only close relationships are with her 6-year-old cousin, John Henry, and her family's African-American housekeeper, Berenice.
Miles Franklin's autobiographical novel is about her life as a young girl, growing up in the wilds of Australia's outback, all the while yearning for a life of art, music and literature.
Lore Segal’s semi-autobiographical novel is about her life as a refugee Jewish child evacuated from Austria during World War II to the relative safety of England. It is a poignant and candid reflection about a child’s displacement, and how it feels to be thrust into new surroundings, without the immediate comfort and solace of one’s own family.
The story is set in Bengal, India, during the 1940s, where Harriet's English family lives. She is a dreamy adolescent girl who loves to write and is highly susceptible to feelings of romantic love, while the immediate world grounds her reality. There is also the beautiful Jean Renoir movie. The novel is available on e-Media.
After her beloved uncle dies of AIDS-related complications, fourteen-year-old June Elbus strikes up a secret friendship with his boyfriend in this heartbreaking coming of age story, set during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
This is a spectacular twofer: one novel and a short story by Graham Greene, which became two films directed by Carol Reed. The fallen idol has been overshadowed by the more famous Third man.
Nathaniel Williams reminisces about his life as a young boy during World War II, when he and his sister were left in the care of a mysterious stranger. Has time blurred his memory, or was there something more to the neighbor and his relationship to the young boy's parents?