Coming-of-Age Journeys

A fortuneteller tells 10-year-old Peter that an elephant will lead him to his lost sister, which starts Peter on a journey of self-discovery and wonder in Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo’s The Magician’s Elephant (2009). When a magician miraculously conjures an elephant, its appearance affects everyone in town. In his efforts to find his sister Adele and rescue the homesick elephant, Peter must overcome obstacles and unite a diverse group of characters that includes a policeman... Read The Magician's Elephant Summary

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The Man Who Was Poe is a young adult historical fiction novel published in 1989 by Edward Irving Wortis, an award-winning American author who writes under the pen name “Avi.” Set in Providence, Rhode Island in 1848, the story is about the unlikely partnership between Edgar Allan Poe and an 11-year-old London boy named Edmund. The book sources many facts from Poe’s life and works and emulates Poe’s own Gothic style of literature. Edmund turns... Read The Man Who Was Poe Summary

Zeyn Joukhadar is a transgender Syrian American writer (also published under the name Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar). His first novel, The Map of Salt and Stars (2018), won the 2018 Middle East Book Award in Youth Literature and became a 2018 Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist in Historical Fiction. Comprising two interwoven narratives, the novel follows Nour, the present-day protagonist whose flight from a war-torn Syria parallels the journey of her imaginary heroine—Rawiya, a medieval mapmaker’s apprentice... Read The Map of Salt and Stars Summary

Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot (2011), set in the early 1980s, follows a love triangle among a group of recent Brown University graduates. As the 20-somethings forge a path into adulthood, they explore the dynamics of love and commitment while wrestling with ways to imbue their lives with meaning and make a purposeful mark on the world. The title references a plot trope common to 19th-century British novels, such as those by Jane Austen, in... Read The Marriage Plot Summary

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The Midwife’s Apprentice was written by Karen Cushman and published in 1991 by Houghton Mifflin. A young adult historical fiction novel set in medieval England, the story follows a young unhoused girl with no ambitions or sense of belonging as she experiences kindness and learns to have confidence in herself and find her place in the world through midwifery. The book won the John Newbery Medal in 1996, an honor also given to Cushman’s 1995... Read The Midwife's Apprentice Summary

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William Gibson’s drama The Miracle Worker chronicles the relationship between the real-life Helen Keller, a young girl from Alabama who was blind and deaf, and her teacher, the Irish, headstrong Annie Sullivan from Boston. The play follows a three-act structure and was adapted from Gibson’s 1957 Playhouse 90 teleplay. The staged production premiered in New York City at the Playhouse Theatre in 1959. The show received five Tony Award nominations in 1960 and won four... Read The Miracle Worker Summary

Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, published in 2006, is a novel about the life of Edward Tulane, a three-foot tall china rabbit. While the book functions like a fairy tale, having magical content and a clear moral, both young and adult audiences can relate to the themes of love and loss that Edward endures. Although the chapters are short, and the language is geared towards children, the themes serve as a larger... Read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane Summary

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Written by Emily M. Danforth and published in 2012, The Miseducation of Cameron Post depicts lesbian teen Cameron Post’s coming of age in Miles City, Montana. The book, which comprises three parts—“Summer 1989,” “High School 1991-1992,” and “God’s Promise 1992-1993”—explores themes of homosexuality, grief, and religion. Danforth, who grew up in Miles City, draws from her own experiences of “growing up gay in the 1990s.” In 2018, LGBTQ culture advocate Desiree Akhavan directed the YA... Read The Miseducation of Cameron Post Summary

The Misfits is a young adult novel by bestselling American author James Howe. The first of four in The Misfits series, the novel chronicles a group of unpopular seventh graders’ participation in a contentious student council election. The series inspired No-Name Calling Week, a bullying-prevention initiative that has been held by schools across the country.Plot SummaryThe Misfits is told from the perspective of Bobby Godspeed, a seventh grader living in Paintbrush Falls, New York. Bobby... Read The Misfits Summary

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The Mosquito Coast, published in 1981 by Paul Theroux, is an adventure story narrated by 13-year-old Charlie Fox, the son of a brilliant inventor who uproots his family to establish a self-sustaining settlement in the jungles of Honduras. Writing in the tradition of novels like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Robinson Crusoe, The Swiss Family Robinson, and Lord of the Flies, Theroux cited the Jonestown Massacre and the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith as influences in... Read The Mosquito Coast Summary

The Name of This Book Is Secret (2007) is the first book in the middle grade fantasy series The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch, the pen name of writer Raphael Simon. The book is told by an intrusive narrator, the author, Pseudonymous Bosch. The narrator frequently breaks the fourth wall to address the reader directly and interrupts the story to warn the reader of the dangerous nature of the story he is telling, sometimes considering... Read The Name of This Book Is Secret Summary

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) is Edgar Allan Poe’s only complete novel. The first two installments were published in 1837 in the Southern Literary Messenger magazine, where Poe was an editor. After leaving the Messenger, he continued working on the novel intermittently until it was published as a complete text in 1838. It brings together various literary genres—including the adventure story, coming-of-age narrative, and scientific guidebook— and infuses them with an... Read The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Summary