The question of civil rights for adolescents is central to the young people in Avi's Nothing but the Truth, Garden's The Year They Burned the Books, and Naylor's Walker's Crossing as they seek a fair and equitable application of the Bill of Rights, especially freedom of speech. Homelessness is addressed in Fenner's The King of Dragons; the threat of gangs and drugs in McGuigan's Where You Belong and Rodriguez's It Doesn't Have to Be This Way, and teenage pregnancy in Grant's The White Horse.