Central Kansas Library System

"There was very fine, an elegant pain, hardly a pain at all, like the swift and fleeting burn of a drop of hot candle wax...Then the blood welled up and began to distort the pure, stark edges of my delicately wrought wound. "The chaos in my head spun itself into a silk of silence. I had distilled myself to the immediacy of hand, blade, blood, flesh." There are an estimated two to three million "cutters" in America, but experts warn that, as with...

Daya Wijesinghe sees a bruise as a mixture of comfort and control, but joining a roller derby team pushes her toward big truths about love, loss, strength, and healing.

Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she's already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she's learned how to forget. The thick glass of a mason jar cuts deep, and the pain washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don't have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you. Every new scar hardens Charlie's heart just a little more,...

Since the car accident, Samantha Herring has been in constant pain, not only from a lingering leg injury, but also from her mother's death, which has devastated her family. After pushing away her friends, Sam has receded into a fog of depression. But then Sam meets Eliot, a reckless loner with a carefree attitude and an amazing secret: he can't feel any pain. At first, Sam is jealous -- what she would give not to feel the pain she's felt for the past...

Discusses self-mutilation and other self-harmful behavior, including why some individuals harm themselves, the risks of self-injury, and how to treat and prevent it.

Fifteeen year old Becky Sanger, battles through the emotional ups and downs of why she cuts and burns herself, while coaching young ice skaters to have the confidence and self-assurance she is missing and frighted to find.

A reporter confronts the psychological demons from her past when she returns to her hometown to cover a violent murder.

Los Angeles teenager and overachiever Tracy is an excellent student in her seventh grade class and gets along well with her mother, Melanie. She fears that she's not cool enough to be friends with Evie, the most popular girl in school. Fueled with genuine adolescent energy, Tracy follows Evie's lead into the harsh realities of sex, drugs, and hard-edged adventure. Consumed with temptations and conflicting desires, Tracy loses her good-girl identity,...

Paralyzed by grief, Moira feels punished when her parents send her to a therapeutic boarding school in Maine where she meets eleven other troubled girls and gradually begins to understand her parents' true intentions behind sending her there. When Moira Dreyfuss's parents announce that they're sending her to an all-girls boarding school deep in the Maine woods, she knows her parents are punishing her. She's been too much trouble since her best friend,...