Dowd, Siobhan. Bog Child. Oxford: David Fickling Books, 2008
ISBN 9780385614269 | Hardcover | 321 p. | $16.99 USD
Annotation: Fergus is digging for peat with his Uncle Tally when he finds a murdered child preserved like a mummy the bog. Bog Child serves as two historical novels intertwined together: one of Fergus during the height of the Troubles in Ireland, and one of Mel, the girl murdered and left in the bog, many centuries earlier.
Awards / Honors:
- ALA's Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults: 2009
- Carnegie Medal in Literature: 2009
- Edgar Award Nominee for Best Young Adult: 2009
- TAYSHAS High School Reading List: 2010
- USBBY Outstanding International Books - Grades 9-12: 2009
Book Whisper Booktalk: Fergus is trapped between warring factions in Ireland, and can't decide on his future. But none of this matters to him once he finds the body of Mel buried in the peat and begins to unravel the mystery of the murdered Bog Child.
Blundell, Judy. Strings Attached. New York: Scholastic Press 2011.
ISBN: 9780545221269 | Hardcover | 320 p. | $17.99 USD
Annotation: Kit Corrigan dropped out of school and moved to New York City in hopes of becoming a Broadway star. Kit accepts help from her estranged boyfriends father but soon finds that his help comes with a dangerous price.
Awards / Honors:
- Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Books of the Year: 2011
- YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults: 2012
Index Card Booktalk:
- 1950's New York City
- stuggling Broadway star
- hot headed boyfriend enlists in Korean War
- boyfriend's father gives her new apartment, clothes
Donnelly, Jennifer. Revolution. New York: Delacorte Press, 2010.
ISBN: 9780385737630 | Hardcover | 471 p. | $18.99 USD
Annotation: Andi Alpers has ben suffering from depression since the death of her brother so her father brings her to Paris in hopes of helping her. She finds a diary of Alexandrine, a girl living through the French Revolution and Andi's own life becomes intertwined with Alexandrine's revolutionary struggle.
Awards / Honors:
- ALA's Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults: 2011
- Amelia Bloomer Lists - Young Adult Fiction: 2012
- Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Young Adult Fiction: 2010
- Indies' Choice Book Awards: Young Adult Fiction
- Michigan Library Association Thumbs Up! Award: 2011
- Parents' Choice Awards - Fiction: 2010
- School Library Journal Best Books: 2010
- YALSA Best Books for Young Adults: 2011
Open End Booktalk: Who cares about some teenage girl who lived 200 years ago? Andi has a dead brother, a crazy mother, an absent father, and she just doesn't care about much of anything anymore, except for her music. When her father swoops in and drags her off to Paris where she can work on her senior project, she finds an diary of Alexandrine Paradis in an old guitar case. Andi can't stop reading the diary about Alexandrine's struggles through the French Revolution, and suddenly the line between Alexandrine's world and her own becomes blurred. Has Andi officially gone crazy? Will she ever find peace after the death of her brother or is her depression going to get the best of her?
Bruchac, Joseph. Hidden Roots. New York: Scholastic Press, 2004.
ISBN 0439353580 | Hardcover | 136 p. | $16.95 USD
Annotation: Sonny knows there is something different about his family, but he struggles to discover the secrets his mother and father are hiding from him. This slow paced novel allows the reader insight into the mind of an 11-year-old as he attempts to understand the world around him.
Awards / Honors:
- American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Young Adult Book (2006)
Wrap Back Booktalk: As Sonny is growing up, he begins to notice the strange atmosphere in his household. His father slips into angry rages at the drop of a hat. His mother seems fragile and scared next to his father. And his Uncle Louis keeps coming around, which makes his mother happy and drives his father crazy. As Sonny begins to ask questions, he beings to understand his family's Hidden Roots.
Read more about the author and listen to him perform Native American music and poetry on his website: http://www.josephbruchac.com
Smith, Sherri L. Flygirl. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008.
ISBN 9780399247095 | Hardcover | 275 p. | $16.99 USD
Annotation: Ida Mae Jones loves to fly planes, but there aren't many piloting opportunities for young black woman in the 1940's. When she hears about the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), she signs up to aid in the war effort. Ida uses her light skin to pass as a white woman to get into the program, but struggles to hide her true identity as she trains as a pilot.
Awards / Honors:
- Amelia Bloomer Lists - Young Adult Fiction: 2010
- TAYSHAS High School Reading List (2010)
- YALSA Best Books for Young Adults: 2010
Open End Booktalk: Would you deny who you were in order to follow your dreams? This is the dilemma Ida Mae Jones faces as a young black woman who wants to become a pilot during WWII. Ida has loved flying since her dad taught her as a young girl, but because she is black she is not allowed to become a pilot. Ida takes advantage of her light skin to pass as a white woman and is determined to aid the war effort as a pilot. But changing her identity is much harder than she bargained for. Will she be able to keep her secret in order to become a pilot?
Check out this video two students created after reading Flygirl:
Kindl, Patrice. Keeping The Castle. New York: Viking Children’s Books, 2012.
ISBN: 978-0670014385 | Hardcover | 272 p. | $11.98 USD
Annotations: When Althea's family faces financial problems, she must find a suitor to marry to support her family and save their castle. Althea is a sharp but lovable protagonist in this witty romantic novel.
Awards / Honors:
N/A
Wrap-Back Booktalk: Althea Crawley is seventeen and stuck. Her mother and little brother Alexander are relying solely on her marriage to a wealthy man in order to keep themselves and their broken down castle all in one piece (literally), while wicked stepsisters Prudence and Charity offer little in the way of help (and usually just cause more problems). Althea’s smart and sassy attitude scares off a number of potential suitors, and the situation looks grim until Lord Boring and his rude friend Mr. Frederick’s move in to Lesser Hoo. Boring seems like prefect husband material – he’s rich, young, handsome, and friendly to boot, and Althea quickly sets her sights on marrying him. Unfortunately for Althea, very few things ever go according to plan. What will Althea sacrifice, and what will she discover about herself along the way, as she faces the task of Keeping the Castle?
Hiebner, Leanna Renee. Darker Still: A Novel of Magic Most Foul. Chicago: Sourcebooks Fire, 2011.
ISBN 9781402260520 | Paperback | 336 p. | $8.99 USD
Annotation: Natalie Stewart is drawn into a painting and transported back to New York City in 1882 to try to free the young man trapped there. . Hiebner's suspenseful tale blends together historical fiction and paranormal romance.
Awards / Honors:
- Daphne du Maurier Award Finalist
- Indie Kids' Next Lists: 2012
Open End Booktalk: What would you do if you fell in love, only to realize that your soul mate was trapped in a picture frame? When Lord Denbury’s dark and mysterious picture enters Natalie Stewarts’ life, she quickly realizes that she has a stronger attachment to the picture than most people – she can interact with the man in the frame. Although Natalie is mute, she finds herself able to communicate with the trapped Denbury, and realizes he is a man desperately in need of her help. Natalie is quickly pulled into his dark world and must come face to face with demons and other creatures only encountered before in her nightmares. Will Natalie be able to find her voice and save her love, or will they both end up trapped forever?
Check out the official book trailer:
"I'd say I'm more into fantasy horror books. I don't read a lot of historical fiction, but I like to read...I find out about good books from my friends, we read a lot of the same types of books." - Nicole F.
Doctrow, Cory. Little Brother. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2008.
ISBN 9780765319852 | Hardcover | 384 p. | $17.95 USD
Annotation: Seventeen year old Marcus Yallow is arrested after a terrorist attack and grilled by the Department of Homeland Security. After he is released, his home city of San Francisco has been turned into a police state. Marcus uses his computer skills to fight the police state and struggles to set things right.
- New York Times Notable Books - Children's Books: 2008
- School Library Journal Best Books: 2008
- Texas Tayshas Reading Lists: 2009
- White Pine Award (Ontario)
- YALSA Best Books for Young Adults: 2009
- YALSA Outstanding Books for the College Bound - Science and Technology: 2009
Open End Booktalk: How would your life change if your city was attacked by terrorists? Marcus is a 17 year old computer whiz living in San Francisco it the very near future and when the city is attacked by terrorists, Marcus is arrested by Homeland Security and cruelly questioned. Once he's released, he uses his computer skills to create an underground network to fight back against the cruel government. But the plans he makes to high back don't always have the results he hopes. Security keeps getting stepped up in the city. Can Marcus keep up his crusade against the police and government? Or will he be arrested because everyone thinks he's the terrorist?
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
ISBN: 9780316013680 | Paperback | 230 p. | $9.99 USD
Annotation: Sherman Alexie chronicles the struggles of Junior, a teen growing up on an Indian reservation near Spokane, Washington. When Junior decided to go to a school off of the reservation, he struggles to find his place in two very different worlds.
Awards / Honors:
- Amazon.com Best Book of the Year
- Boston Globe Horn Book Award: Fiction and Poetry
- California Young Reader Medal: Young Adult
- Kirkus Reviews Best YA Book
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
- New York Times Bestseller
- Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
- School Library Journal Best Books: 2007
- YALSA Best Books for Young Adults: 2008
- YALSA Outstanding Books for the College Bound - HIstory and Cultures: 2009
Snap and Read Booktalk: Junior lives on an Indian reservation, in world thats very segregated from the towns just beyond the borders. He's smart, way too smart for the schools on the rez, so he decides he wants to go to a better school, twenty-two miles away. He knows he'll get a better education in Rearden, but being the only Indian boy isn't going to be easy:
"Then the white kids began arriving for school. They surrounded me. Those kids weren't just white. They were translucent. I could see the blue veins running through their skin like rivers. Most of the kids were my size or smaller, but there were ten or twelve monster dudes. Giant white guys. The looked like men, not boys. They had to be seniors. Some of them looked like they had to shave two or three times a day. They stared at me, the Indian boy with a black eye and swollen nose, my going away gifts from Rowdy. Those white kids couldn't believe their eyes. They stared at me like I was Bigfoot or a UFO. What was I doing at Reardan, whose mascot was an Indian, thereby making me the only other Indian in town?" (p. 56)
Will Junior manage to make his way at this new school? Learn what happens to Junior as he ventures off the reservation in search of a better life.
Find out more about the The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian from Priscilla, a vlogger who reviews tons of YA books on YouTube:
Eisner, Will. The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.
ISBN: 0393061051 | Hardcover | 498 p. | $29.95 USD
Annotation: This trilogy combines three major works by comic legend Will Eisner, all centered around New York City Jewish life. The Contact with God is a collection of graphic short stories following the residents of a 1930's Bronx neighborhood. A Life Force explores the Depression era struggles and the rise of Nazism. Lastly, Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood tells the story of the neighborhood as it changes over the course of more than 100 years.
Awards / Honors:
The Contract With God is credited with launching the popularity of graphic novels as a literary form.
Index Card Booktalk:
Short stories
Detailed drawings [graphic form - show pages to audience]
Life in a New York City tenement neightborhood
Russian immigrant, street singer, superintendent, summer vacationers
The "original" graphic novel
Learn more about Will Eisner's life and work on his website: http://www.willeisner.com or watch this conversation between Eisner and legendary comic creator Stan Lee:
"Nope. I don't read. Except graphic novels, but thats different from reading. I like manga and that kind of stuff...it different from reading regular books." - Talia P.
Annotation: Winter Santiaga leads a privileged life as the daughter of a wealthy drug lord, until her father's arrest causes her whole world to come crashing down. This brutally honest novel describes Winter's vain efforts to recapture her once luxurious lifestyle while trying to survive on the streets of Brooklyn.
Awards/Honors:
- YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults: Hard Knock Life - 2010
Rinaldi, Ann. The Last Full Measure. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
ISBN: 978-0547389806 | Hardcover | 224 p. | $17.00 USD
Annotation: The Last Full Measure follows the life of Tacy, a 14-year old living in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during the Civil War. The story focuses on the challenges she faces with her family off at war, and the aftermath of the terrible battle.
Awards / Honors:
- N/A
Wrap Back Booktalk: While her hometown of Gettysburg attempts to prepare for one of the most difficult and defining battles of the Civil War, 14-year old Tacy just attempts to keep her life a little bit normal. With her Father and two eldest brothers already off to war, she is stuck at home with her ever-optimistic but naïve mother and moody older brother David, and things are never easy. Since David was wounded as a child, he is unable to fight with his brothers and neighbors, and he hates not being able to help almost as much as he hates being in charge of the rebellious and strong-willed Tacy. He often takes his resentment out on Tacy, and she struggles to deal with this while still finding her way through an incredibly difficult time. Tacy and David discover just how much they also must sacrifice at home, as the soldiers on the battlefield give The Last Full Measure.
Kraus, Nicola and McLaughlin, Emma. The Real Real. New York: Harper Collins, 2009.
ISBN: 9780061720406 | Hardcover | 310 p. | $16.99 USD
Annotation: Hampton High senior Jesse is cast in a reality show about the "real" lives of high school students. Jesse's normal life gets turned upside down as the producers manufacture drama among her friends for the sake of entertaining television.
Awards / Honors:
N/A
Wrap Back Booktalk: Jesse O'Rourke gets a chance of a lifetime when she is picked to be one of the stars of a reality show about high school students. TV crews follow her around trying to find glamor in her everyday life. When Jesse's life seems to average for TV producers, they try to add some glamour and drama. Jesse gets wrapped up in a whirlwind of dates, drama, filming and flirting. Before she knows it, she can't figure out the difference between TV real and The Real Real.
Watch an interview with authors Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin about The Real Real and hear why they love writing for teens:
Armstrong, Kelley. The Summoning. New York: Harper Collins, 2008.
ISBN-13: 9780061662690 | Hardcover | 390 p. | $12.06 USD
Annotation: When Chloe Saunders starts seeing ghosts trying to communicate with her, she is sent to the Lyle House, a group home for mentally disturbed teens. She realizes strange things are happening to her and the other residents of the house and fights to figure out what is going on in this first installment of the Darkest Powers horror series.
Awards/Honors:
- Stellar Awards (British Columbia)
- Texas Tayshas Reading Lists: 2009
Open End Booktalk: When Chloe Saunders turns around one day at school and sees a ghost, her family and teachers ship her off to a group home for mentally ill teenagers. Is she crazy? Or is Chloe really contacting the dead? Everyone in the house seems to be hiding something. Chloe knows the ghost are real, but who can she trust with her secrets?
