Beth Goobie Books In Order

Novels

Mission Impossible (1994)
Could I Have My Body Back Now, Please (1996)
I’m Not Convinced (1997)
The Good, the Bad, and the Suicidal (1997)
The Only-Good Heart (1998)
The Colours of Carol Molev (1998)
The Dream Where the Losers Go (1999)
Before Wings (2001)
Sticks and Stones (2002)
Kicked Out (2002)
The Lottery (2002)
Who Owns Kelly Paddik? (2003)
Flux (2004)
Something Girl (2005)
Fixed (2005)
Hello, Groin (2006)
Born Ugly (2011)
Jason’s Why (2012)
The Throne (2013)
The First Principles of Dreaming (2014)
The Pain Eater (2016)

Collections

Plays

Novels Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Plays Book Covers

Beth Goobie Books Overview

Mission Impossible

Nominee, Governor General’s Literary Award for Children’s Literature Text Jill Gilbert doesn’t like the high school Lovely Legs Contest. For one thing, it’s sponsored by the football team headed by her brother. For another, the school newspaper she writes for came up with the idea. But more important, it boils her blood that guys like her brother make so many assumptions about what girls like. So why does she end up entering the competition? Maybe for the same reason she tried out for the football team. Maybe for the same reason she’s obsessed with the movie The Mission. Jill is nobody’s pushover. Mission Impossible is a tough sensitive teen novel. Jill, the narrator, is wickedly funny and heartbreakingly honest as she wrestles with sexism in her school and demons in her head. She comes close to going over the edge in more ways than one but triumphs in a way she could never have predicted. Right now, though, she’s stuck in a jungle of tangled thoughts and leg hairs on what seems like an impossible mission.

The Good, the Bad, and the Suicidal

Dariel is a SWFF, as in Single White Fat Female. Otherwise a typical student at a typical high school. You know, gangs, weapons, boredom, apathy. Neither a Jock nor an Irregular, Dariel is one of the Leftovers, a non gang member. When the town imposes a 9 p.m. curfew to straighten out everyone under 18, they don’t anticipate that she will mobilize an opposition that will reveal the adults’ hypocrisies including embezzlement and child abuse.

The Dream Where the Losers Go

THIS EDITION IS INTENDED FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. While in a treatment center for her self destructive outbreaks, Skey finds comfort in an imaginary world where others like her roam in similar despair, until she begins to realize her fellow dreamers are causing her more harm than good.

Before Wings

Before Wings Beth Goobie By confronting the past, Adrien learns to understand and accept the present. The spirits were moaning, a low sound that seemed to be calling the storm toward the beach where Adrien came to a halt, pushing to stay erect in the wind. She was sure the spirits were calling something specific short phrase, several words, repeated like the lightning that snaked in the sky. Another sheer burst of white and Adrien stepped forward into the wild lake, the call of the spirit girls, the energy of their brains dying across the sky. Into some understood sameness. Having barely survived a brain aneurysm two years earlier, fifteen year old Adrien, working at her Aunt Erin’s summer camp, is caught between the land of the living and the spirit world, unsure where she belongs. As she struggles to understand the message delivered by the spirits of the five young women that only she sees, she learns of the tragic consequences of their connection to her aunt. Faced with the knowledge that another aneurysm could strike her at any time and mostly shunned by the other staff because she is the boss’s niece, Adrien finds a soulmate in Paul, the camp handyman, who is convinced that he has seen his own death foretold. Before Wings is an ambitious, beautifully written novel that dares to explore territory seldom tackled in teen fiction. In Adrien, author Beth Goobie has created a memorable character intelligent, strong, irreverent, stubborn, funny, independent, fragile who learns to confront the reality of her own death and to ‘believe in life.’

Sticks and Stones

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. This series offers the best of contemporary, compelling fiction for reluctant teen readers. Edgy cover art and high interest topics appeal to older teens, while reading levels from 2.0 to 4.5 mean success for struggling readers.

Kicked Out

The Lottery

‘You know how it works. Everyone cooperates. Everyone wants a victim, Sally…
and now it’s your turn. Now you’re Shadow’s victim, Shadow’s dud for the year. We’ll assign you duties and you’ll perform them. When we pull your leash, you’ll come.’15 year old Sally Hanson’s school is secretly ruled by a group of students known as the ‘Shadow Council’. At the beginning of every school year, the Shadow Council hold The Lottery, an infamous ritual in which a student is chosen to be the year’s ‘victim’ a person who is shunned by the entire school and forced to obey the Shadow Council’s every wish. This year Sally is the Shadow Council’s victim and she is about to face the worst year of her life. Resistance is futile and loyal friends are ignoring her. However, Sally has been hiding a horrifying secret a secret that threatens to overwhelm her as the betrayal and psychological torture grows.

Who Owns Kelly Paddik?

Kelly wants to run forever. RL3.1

Flux

Deep in another reality, while using her ability to travel to parallel worlds, Nellie uncovers a conspiracy to abduct children for an experimental laboratory. 20040523

Something Girl

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Sophie is on probation for stealing and is doing poorly in school. Her mom doesn’t really talk to her, and the other adults in her life are pressuring Sophie to talk about her bruises. Her friend Jujube is the only person who knows the truth, and now Jujube, too, wants Sophie to speak up.

Fixed

Nellie’s world changes when she meets her twin. 20050328

Hello, Groin

Dylan discovers that friendship can get in the way of love. 20061001

Born Ugly

To say Shir is unpopular is an understatement. She is a target of casual cruelty in high school. Even though she tries to remain invisible, bullies find ways of tormenting her viciously. Worse still, she’s also an outcast in her own family. There are two areas where Shir can overcome her negative self image. One is her part time job where the kindly Mr. A has hired her to make deliveries for his grocery store. The other is at her secret retreat myplace where she can sip her beer and watch the river, undisturbed. But neither sanctuary is safe. She discovers Mr A’s kindness is part of a plot to use her in shady dealings and her haven by the river is intruded upon by a boy who simply won’t go away. While these invasions shatter her initially, both lead to her throwing off the mantle of victim and asserting herself for the first time in her life.