The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars (1970)

This middle grade realistic coming-of-age novel is Betsy Byars’s most famous of her many pieces of fiction. Like her other books, it follows a teenage protagonist who struggles through difficult personal and environmental situations as they navigate adolescence.

• The Summer of the Swans on SuperSummary

The Moon and I by Betsy Byars (1991)

This middle grade memoir is Byars’s only piece of nonfiction among her dozens of published works. The memoir begins with Byars recounting a moment she was sitting on her porch, writing, when she discovered a large, harmless blacksnake in her rafters. From there, she explores her writing process as well as the “scraps” of her life that have helped her throughout her writing career.

A Child Called It: One Child’s Courage to Survive by Dave Pelzer (1995)

This memoir explores the author’s experience with his mother’s abuse through his elementary school years, as well as his journey through the foster system. Pelzer experiences acute and severe abuse at the hands of his mother and neglect by his complicit father, who is complacent about the abuse and therefore enables it. This book provides a haunting, real-life version of the types of experiences Carlie, Harvey, and Thomas J went through.