November Blues by Sharon Draper

Draper, Sharon. (2007) November Blues. New York: Simon & Schuster

This book is a winner of the Coretta Scott King Award. This book deals with the tough issue of teen pregnancy. This is a children's book, but it is recommended for older teenagers in grades 11-12. The title character, November, gets pregnant her senior year of high school and does not discover the news until shortly after her boyfriend, Josh, dies in a terrible accident. This book is not like other books that deal with teen pregnancy because there are no sex scenes and there is no sugarcoating the pregnancy. This book also looks at the life of Josh's cousin and how Josh's death affects him. This is a well written tale of two teenagers who learn how to deal with life when things don't happen as planned. This is not a book that would probably be used in a classroom, but it is an excellent book to have on hand for the students who are facing hard times. The bottom line is that when our students get to high school these types of situations are very real and it is books like this that sometimes show students how to grapple with these painful and unexpected situations.