Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen

We listened to this on a road trip to LA a few weeks ago. 3 1/2 hours (which is short for an audiobook), gripping wilderness survival story. Like many books in this category it made me want to up my wilderness survival game, and keep matches and water purification tablets in my purse at all times. Read by Peter Coyote. Great for 9 year old boys and 50 year old women alike. Recommend!

The 57 Bus, by Dashka Slater

I read this for the mother/daughter book club I belong to with my 13 year old Stella. It is the true story of a crime committed against a non-binary youth by a black male youth in the Berkeley/Oakland area of the San Francisco Bay Area. Good, but not great. It provided a useful education about terms (asexual, pan romantic, etc). It alternated between points of view, and I kept thinking at any moment it would veer off the rails and become very political, either about the hate crime, or the unjust juvenile justice system for black youths, but it pulled those punches and I liked it better for it.