Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

• Paperback
• New York Times Best Seller
• 1999 National Book Award Finalist
• 1999 BCCB Blue Ribbon Book
• 2000 SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Fiction
• 2000 Horn Book Fanfare Best Book of the Year
• 2000 ALA Best Books for Young Adults
• 2000 Printz Honor Book
• 2000 Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults
• 2000 Fiction Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
• 2000 Edgar Allan Poe Best Young Adult Award Finalist
• 2001 New York Times Paperback Children's Best Seller
• 2005 New York Times Paperback Children's Best Seller

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"Speak up for yourself--we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication. In Laurie Halse Anderson's powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.