Three books for adolescents focus on sibling relationships and also the subject of death. The Two Princesses of Bamarre (2001), by the Newberry Honor-winning author Gail Carson Levine, is a fairy tale about two teenage sisters, Addie and Meryl. Addie admires her older sister, whose intent is to free their kingdom of such fantastical creatures as dragons, specters, ogres, and gryphons while she herself fears even the smallest of creatures. However, when Meryl is stricken by the dreaded "Gray Death" (from which their mother died when the girls were very young), Addie must gather up all of her courage and set off on a quest to find the cure for the disease and save her beloved sister.

Gregory Maguire's Oasis (1998) tells the story of thirteen-year-old Hand, who must come to terms with his grief over his father's sudden death; his anger toward his mother, Clare, for having...