Teens & Body Image

Body Image is a tough issue for teens growing up in the United States. The following are a few recent fiction titles at the library to get you started on the topic.


Robin Brande’s Fat Cat. 2009, Gr 8 Up.
Overweight teenage Catherine embarks on a high school science project in which she must emulate the ways of hominims, the earliest ancestors of human beings, by eating an all-natural diet and foregoing technology.



Allen Zadoff’s Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have. 2009, Gr 9-10.
Fifteen-year-old Andrew Zansky, the second fattest student at his high school, joins the varsity football team to get the attention of a new girl on whom he has a crush.

Erica S. Perl’s Vintage Veronica. 2010, Gr 9 Up.
After getting a job at a vintage clothing shop and quickly bonding with two older girls, fifteen-year-old Veronica finds herself making bad decisions in order to keep their friendship.

Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls. 2009, Gr 8 Up.
"a devastating portrait of the extremes of self-deception in this brutal and poetic deconstruction of how one girl stealthily vanishes into the depths of anorexia (Booklist)" Audrey K.'s favorite!

Lesley Fairfield’s graphic novel Tyranny. 2009, Gr 6 Up.
Anna’s journey as she falls prey to the eating disorder, personified as her tormentor, Tyranny.

Justina Chen Headley’s North of Beautiful. 2009, Gr 7 Up.
Terra, a sensitive, artistic high school senior born with a facial port-wine stain, struggles with issues of inner and outer beauty with the help of her Goth classmate Jacob.

Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s Crazy Beautiful. 2009, Gr 7 Up.
In this contemporary retelling of "Beauty and the Beast," a teenaged boy whose hands were amputated in an explosion and a gorgeous girl whose mother has recently died form an instant connection when they meet on their first day as new students.

Need a book list? Find more booklists here, or stop by for assistance from the Youth Services Staff.