There is no food.  No guys (well, not until the pirates show up, anyways).  And no sign of rescue… unless the weird red lights in the distance are from a subversive, mercenary Corporation with a secret base on the island.  But they could just be the volcano.

What’s a girl gonna do?  Set fishing lines?  Build huts from palm fronds?  Battle giant snakes and quicksand?  Work on her tan?  And how long can a group of teenage girls keep secrets from each other?

Libba Bray won a Printz Medal in 2010 for Going Bovine.

When Patricia discovers a special pocket watch beneath the floorboards, she is whisked back in time and observes her mother as a young girl.  Bit by bit, she begins to understand her mother, and, in turn, herself.

Kit Pearson is a Canadian treasure, less well-known in the USA.

But if there’s one thing D.J. can do, it’s work hard.  She takes on the running of her family’s small dairy farm, as well as the project of training the star quarterback of the rival high school’s football team, Brian.

Soon enough, she’s dealing with a major crush on top of everything else.  But never one to give up, D.J. comes up with a creative solution to her woes: she’ll try out for the football team at her own school.

I couldn’t resist posting both the hard and paperback covers for this.  I wonder which one sold better?

Nancy Redd’s book (written with help from Dr. Angela Diaz) provides the best-quality answers to any and all body questions.  Redd shares her own personal story — how she won the Miss America Swimsuit contest but still struggled with body issues.

Real photos provide a refreshing break from impersonal, unrealistic pen-and-ink drawings.  This book provides the facts — all of them — and also helps with the emotional side of things.

The trouble begins when Karen first arrives in Africa.  She makes her way to the Muthaiga Country Club, hoping to find her husband there.  When she unwittingly walks into the men’s bar, she is forcibly removed, unable even to leave a message for her husband.

The film documents a huge portion of the Baroness von Blixen’s life in Africa, including her frightening experience with syphilis, contracted from her philandering husband.  She eventually embarks upon an affair of her own with the dashing, free-spirited Denys (Robert Redford).  Directed by Sydney Pollack, based on the book by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen’s pen name).

It’s 1906, and women don’t have a lot of options.  Mattie has taken a summer job as a serving girl at a fancy hotel in the Adirondacks, and as she works relentlessly to save money, she comes closer and closer to a choice she must make: whether to marry Royal and stay at her family farm, or use her hard-earned money to attend Barnard College.

Amidst her troubles and decisions, Mattie becomes involved in a secondary – and deadly – plot.  A young woman staying at the hotel presents Mattie with a sheaf of love letters and asks Mattie to burn them.  But before Mattie can, the woman is found drowned, and her lover disappears.  Custodian of the letters, Mattie begins to read, hoping to find escape from her own difficulties as well as answers to the mystery.

But for Ashitaka, San, and the people of Irontown, this fact is a living, daily reality.  Ashitaka is banished from his village after a battle with demon leaves him horribly scarred.  He finds the people of Irontown and the spirits of the Forest locked in battle.  Irontown, led by Lady Eboshi, is destroying the Forest.  The Forest spirits strike back and kill several Irontown inhabitants.

In the center of the battle is San — a fearless, beautiful girl abandoned by humans and raised by wolves.  When the two worlds collide, she fears that she fits into neither.

Directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.  Trailer here:

Imaginative and dramatic, brave and loyal, Anne soon embeds herself in the hearts of Matthew, Marilla, and the entire community.  But she is not devoid of trouble; before too long she has broken her ankle after falling from a roof, stranded herself in the middle of the river in a sinking canoe, accidentally gotten her best friend drunk on raspberry cordial, and cracked a slate over the head of her academic rival, Gilbert Blythe.

The first book ever written and marketed for teenagers, Anne of Green Gables is an important landmark in literary history.  It’s also a must-read for any girl with an irrepressible spirit.

Then her grandfather dies, leaving a pile of debt, and Kit is uprooted to live with relatives in the British Colony of Connecticut.

Why is everyone shocked to learn that Kit can swim?  How can her family expect her to do servants’ work, like gardening and making soap?  Why must she pack away her beautiful dresses and trade them for rough, plain working dresses?  What exactly does the handsome, rich William want from her?  And why is everyone so scared of Hannah Tupper, the Quaker woman who lives alone on Blackbird Pond?