Note: This book is suggested for teens because of the sensitive topic of sexual abuse. AR Book Level: 3.8 Interest Level: Upper Grades Lexile: HL590 Common Sense Media: 16+ (Kids Say 13+, Parents Say 15+ based on 34 reviews) YA Books Central: 14+

Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Summary of Identical by Ellen Hopkins Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family—on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that's where their differences begin. For Kaeleigh, she's the misplaced focus of Daddy's love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favorites—and she is losing. If she has to lose, she will do it on her own terms, so she chooses drugs, alcohol, and sex. Secrets like the ones the twins are harboring are not meant to be kept—from each other or anyone else. Pretty soon it's obvious that neither sister can handle it alone, and one sister must step up to save the other, but the question is—who? (Goodreads.com)

One Soul Or Two We live in a smug California valley. Rolling ranch land, surrounded by shrugs of oak-jeweled hills. Green for two brilliant months sometimes around spring, burnt-toast brown the rest of the year. Just over an unremarkable mountain stretches the endless Pacific. Mornings here come wrapped in droops of gray mist. Most days it burns off by noon. Other days it just hangs on and on. Smothers like a wet blanket. Three towns triangulate the valley, three corners, each with a unique flavor: weathered Old West; antiques and wine tasting; just-off-the-freeway boring. Smack in the center is the town where we live, and it is the most unique of all, with its windmills and cobbled sidewalk, designed to carry tourists to Denmark. Denmark, California-style.

The houses line smooth black streets, prim rows of postcard-pretty dwellings, coiffed and manicured from curb to chimney. Like Kaeleigh and me, they’re perfect on the outside. But behind the Norman Rockwell facades, each holds its secrets. Like Kaeleigh’s and mine, some are dark. Untellable. Practically unbelievable. (Page 4-5)

happen to know for a fact it’s true. If you tell a secret But Telling Isn’t an option. If you tell a secret about someone you don’t really know, other people might listen, but decide you’re making it up. Even if you happen to know for a fact it’s true. If you tell a secret about a friend, other people want to hear all of it, prologue to epilogue. But then they think you’re totally messed up for telling it in the first place. They they can’t trust you. And hey, they probably can’t. Once a nark, always a nark, you know? (Page 6)

Extension The poem “One Soul or Two” has such detailed descriptions of the setting. Choose the image that stuck out to you the most. Identify five action verbs that contribute to the poems’ imagery. How does the author use colons and semicolons in the third stanza? What is the significance of the metaphor in the last two stanzas of “One Soul or Two?” Why do you think the author separated certain words and phrases in the poem “But Telling?” What is the effect?