EPL.ca: Reading Music: Stories for Teens Who've Got the Beat

Beautiful City of the Dead - Leander Watts
After joining a heavy metal band, high school student Zee learns that she is a god of water and is called upon to fight sinister forces that want her powers for their own.

Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys - Francesca Lia Block
Once there was a slinkster-jamming band called the Goat Guys. Cherokee Bat sang, Witch Baby pounded her drums, Raphael Chong Jah-Love played guitar, and Angel Juan Perez kept the rhythm on his bass. But success came with a dangerous power . . . and Cherokee knew it was up to her to save them all.

Dragon Voice - Yuriko Nishiyama
Rin Amami is a good-looking, 15-year-old kid who enjoys being a street dancer. When a chance encounter with the newest boyband, The Beatmen, allows Rin to go on stage, the band's manager is convinced that Rin possesses the legendary "Dragon Voice," which is fabled to be filed with "demonic charm and God-like brilliance." Manga series.

Fat Kid Rules the World - K.L. Going
Seventeen-year-old Troy, depressed, suicidal, and weighing nearly 300 pounds, gets a new perspective on life when a homeless teenager who is a genius on guitar wants Troy to be the drummer in his punk band.

Firmament - Tim Bowler
Luke is a musical genius who wants to join a gang. As part of his initiation, Luke must steal something. But after climbing inside a house, Luke encounters something so unexpected that it changes everything--something that unlocks secrets and helps Luke find out exactly who he is.

Garage Band - Gipi
The four teens who form a garage band have difficult family situations and use music to help make sense of their lives in this graphic novel from Italy.

Guitar Girl - Sarra Manning
Seventeen-year-old Molly Montgomery never planned on becoming famous. Starting a band with her best mates was just a way to have some fun. But when the group is joined by a charismatic bad-boy, things start happening.

Harlem Hustle - Janet McDonald
Eric "Hustle" Samson, a smart and street-wise seventeen-year-old dropout from Harlem, aspires to rap stardom, a dream he naively believes is about to come true.

Harlem Summer - Walter Dean Myers
In 1925 Harlem, 16-year-old Mark Purvis wants a chance to play saxophone for piano-playing jazz great Fats Waller. Fats offers another opportunity first--a simple delivery job for some fast cash. However, gangster Dutch Schultz wants in on the deal, in this poignant, often hilarious coming-of-age novel.

Heavy Metal and You - Christopher Krovatin
Sam wears spiked bracelets, gets wasted with his friends, and has almost encyclopedic knowledge about heavy-metal music. He attends an expensive all-boys prep school in New York City, and he and his buddies often cut classes to smoke or get an early start on the weekend. But when Sam begins to date straightedge Melissa, he tries to modify his behaviour. Will pleasing Melissa mean completely changing who he is?

King Dork - Frank Portman
High school loser Tom Henderson has a passion for rock music. He finds his father's copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" and discovers that it may hold the clues to the many mysteries in his life.

Last Days - Scott Westerfeld
As an ancient evil stirs beneath the streets of New York City, infecting rats and people like a plague, five quirky teens come together to form a "New Sound" band whose music seems to have paranormal power.

Lemonade Mouth - Mark Peter Hughes
A outcast group of high school students thrown together in detention form a band to play at a school talent show and end up competing with a wildly popular local rock band.

Mountain Solo - Jeanette Ingold
The love of music links two young people--one a modern teen, the other a long-dead pioneer from the turn of the century.

New Policeman - Kate Thompson
Irish teenager JJ Liddy discovers that time is leaking from his world into the land of the fairies, and when he attempts to stop the leak he finds out a lot about his family history, the music that he loves, and a crime his great-grandfather may or may not have committed.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
Told in alternating chapters, this he said/she said romance is a roller coaster of a story about one date over one very long night, with two teenagers who meet by accident in a New York club.

Plastic Angel - Nerissa Nields
Thirteen-year-old Randi, an aspiring singer-songwriter, spends the summer forming a band called Plastic Angel with her friend Gellie, and together they also make some decisions about the kind of people they want to be. Includes CD with 2 Nields songs.

Pop Princess - Rachel Cohn
When 15-year-old Wonder Black is given the chance to become a teen idol, it seems like a dream come true--even if it's not her dream, but her older sister Lucky's, who was on her way to becoming a pop star when she died. Wonder jumps at the offer, but learns that stardom isn't all glamour.

Resurrection Blues - Mike Tanner*
Flynn Robinson's decision to drop out of grade 12 to join a top local club band doesn't please anyone else, and other choices he has to make are difficult and lead to moral dilemmas.

Rock Star, Superstar - Blake Nelson
When Pete, a talented bass player, moves from playing in the high school jazz band to playing in a popular rock group, he finds the experience exhilarating even as his new fame jeopardizes his relationship with girlfriend Margaret.

Second Fiddle: Or How to Tell a Blackbird from a Sausage - Siobhan Parkinson
Outspoken Mags decides to help her new friend Gillian, a talented violin student, reconcile with her estranged father so that he will allow her to attend a prestigious music school in England.

She's Got the Beat - Nancy E. Krulik
Miranda was the quiet type until she moved to the big city of Austin, Texas, with its thriving music scene. Now Miranda decides to learn how to play the drums... and the biggest perk to her new hobby is a cute bass player.

Things Hoped For - Andrew Clements
Seventeen-year-old Gwen, who has been living with her grandfather in Manhattan while she attends music school, joins up with another music student to solve the mystery when her grandfather suddenly goes missing.

Thunderbowl - Lesley Choyce*
Jeremy's band Thunderbowl have had their first big break--a long-term gig at a local bar. The only problem is that while Jeremy should be doing his homework and keeping up in school, he is spending most nights in a rowdy club, trying to keep the band together while his life is falling apart.

Under the Baseball Moon - John Ritter
Andy Ramos dreams of taking his unique fusion of Latin jazz, rock, and hip-hop straight to the top. When he crosses paths with a softball pitcher with Olympian dreams, the mysterious fusion of their athletic and musical skills changes everything.

Vandal - Michael Simmons
The love-hate relationship between high school musician Will and his older brother Jason is fueled by the abuse Will suffers at Jason's hands but a devastating accident changes the everything for the boys and their family.

When It Happens - Susane Colasanti
Tara is following her dream of becoming a bass guitar rock star. But when roommates Pop and Lolly tell her about an African school for orphans, Tara decides that helping others is more important than becoming famous. A charity CD seems like a great way to raise money, since Tara is surrounded by talented friends and teachers at Rockley Park school. But before long, she realizes that the CD is much more work, and trouble, than she bargained for.

Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love - Courtney Love

Journals - Kurt Cobain
A collection of random thoughts, drawings, letters and miscelleany presenting a fragmented self-portrait of the man who changed the course of popular music in the late twentieth century.

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story - Chuck Klosterman
By turns philosophical, insightful and gut-bustingly funny, Spin Magazine staff writer Chuck Klosterman flourishes his considerable literary talents as he takes readers on a slightly twisted road trip to the historic sites of some of rock music's most famous deaths.

Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time - Rob Sheffield
The deeply moving story of author Sheffield's relationship with his late wife Rene, from the time they met in 1989 to her untimely death from a pulmonary embolism in 1997. Each chapter is based on a song from one of the many mix-tapes the couple shared during their relationship.

Modest Mouse: A Pretty Good Read - Alan Goldsher
Journalist Goldsher investigates the gritty, drama-laden world of indie-rock trio Modest Mouse, who, after flying under the radar fro several albums, finally broke through in 2004 with the single "Float On." Scrurrilous details surrounding the life of frontman Isaac Brock make for a pretty darn good read.

Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent Life, Times and Music of Green Day - Marc Spitz

Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo - Andy Greenwald

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk - Legs McNeil
The founder of Punk magazine has the right pedigree to serve as anthologist of the misdeeds and exploits of some of punk's most notorious personalities. As for the content of this book, let's just say that 'uncensored' is the operative word.

Punk Love - Susie Horgan
Photographer Susie Horgan's images chronicle the rise of punk in the Washington, D.C. area, circa 1979. Indigenous to the scene that she documents, Horgan's punk rock bona fides are unassailable, as is her grasp on her subject matter.

Rose that Grew from Concrete - Tupac Shakur
The murdered rapper bares his soul in this highly person collection of poems. It is a testament to the power of beauty to prosper in even some of the harshest places.