Planet Pregnancy by Linda Oatman High

In this new novel by Linda Oatman High, we find a teenage girl waiting for a simple test result. As she sit there begging for the test to turn blue and not pink she begins to moan and groan about her predicament. When that little test betrays her and turns pink, Sahara feels her world drop away from her. Sahara refuses to acknowledge the baby as a baby and gives it random nicknames. She goes to a psycic to find out the baby's gender and when the psycic lysps that she's having a boy, Sahara declares that penises should be illegal. Months pass and she refuses to tell anyone she's pregnant until Christmas when she tells her friend. Sahara goes to great lengths to not tell her mom she was pregnant by making up a story of date rape and declaring that she was NOT pregnant when her mother asked if she had any tests after the supposed rape. Eventually, Sahara admits the pregnancy and that she wasn't raped and begins to take care of herself and the baby.
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While I am not usually a fan of Novels in Verse, this was a good one. I like that this book doesn't glorify teen pregnancy like movies such as Juno. Planet Pregancy take the view of a young woman who is really just a kid herself and the typical fear of disappointing her parent and her priest. Underneath it all, she's just a kid who isn't ready for the responsibility. In this book, you hear about the morning sickness, the getting bigger, the fear of hurting the baby, nothing is glorified.

Safe by Susan Shaw

When thirteen-year-old Tracy, whose mother died when she was three years old, is raped and beaten on the last day of school, all her feelings of security disappear and she does not know how to cope with the fear and dread that engulf her.
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I absolutely loved this book. The attack on Tracy is not graphically detailed, but the emotions and trauma she feels after are very vivid. You can feel the anxiety she has when left alone, the desire to cling to her father and the despair she lives in now that she can no longer feel her mother's presence. Tracy has a long road ahead of her, one that she will not have to walk alone. Her father refuses to allow her to wallow in fear and pity. Tracy also finds comfort in her weekly piano lessons, lessons she used to dread and attempt to get out of, now bring her peace and help her find a new life. Tracy's expreience in the orange car causes her to try to pull away from her friends and it almost succeeds. A frightening event will bring her back to her friends, her father and even back to the mother she lost so many years before.