The Killer's Tears (by Anne-Laure Bondoux)

This award-winning translation from the French has the kind of world-view that you don't see much in American children's literature: Life is hard, bleak, and mostly pointless, and the best we can do is soldier on. It's a melancholy world in which a child can love the man who killed his parents for no particular reason, and that love can redeem the murderer, who is executed anyway by an indifferent bureaucracy, leaving the boy alone in the world.

The book is beautifully written and seamlessly translated, and it has a horrifying fascination. It lyrically offers a cynical view that sees a world filled with misery, betrayal, and stupidity. But adolescents in their more dramatic moments can see things in the same way, and will find in this lethal prose-poem a truth that they think most literature hypocritically hides from them. Parents may want to suggest a less somber read to help wash this book down.