Going Bovine

by Libba Bray. New York: Delacorte Press, c. 2009. 480 pages. ISBN 9780385733977

A disappointment to his parents and an embarrassment to his twin sister, lackadaisical Cameron Smith is simply getting by in high school when he gets the news he has a disease that is going to kill him--Creutzfeldt-Jacob or "mad cow" disease. Clues from a punk angel (or a hallucination?) lead Cameron to break out of the hospital with a video game-obsessed dwarf and take them on a quixotic road trip in search of a Dr. X, the cure and possibly a chance to save the world.

2010 Michael L. Printz Award Winner

Punkzilla

Punkzilla by Adam Rapp. Westminster, MD: Candlewick Press, c. 2009. 244 pages. ISBN 0763630314

Jamie, known as Punkzilla, has been living in a low rent hotel in Portland since he went AWOL from military school. He went off his meds and survives on money he makes stealing iPods and doing cheap drugs. When he finds out his older brother Peter, a gay playwright, is dying of cancer, he begins a harrowing journey to Memphis. Told in a series of unsent letters to Peter and mixed with old correspondences from family and friends.

A Junior Library Guild Selection and 2010 Michael L. Printz Honor Award, 2010 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, 2009 Booklist Editor’s Choice-Books for Youth-Older Reader’s Category.

If you liked it, try Steven Herrick’s The Simple Gift: a novel and Willo Davis Roberts’ Blood on His Hands

Three Girls and Their Brother: a novel

by Theresa Rebeck. New York : Shaye Areheart Books, c2008. 341 pages.

After one very successful photo shoot for The New Yorker, three gorgeous, red-headed sisters find themselves as the latest "It Girls" (think "Hilton sisters" plus some literary roots). Their brother in turn finds himself taking on the protector role against the unscrupulous and moral-lacking members of the entertainment/modeling world, the paparazzi and the hungry-for-scandal public. Told in four parts by each sibling. An Alex Award winner for 2009.

The Radioactive Boy Scout

Title: The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor
Author: Ken Silverstein
Publication date: 2005
Number of pages: 209
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction/Biography
Geographical setting: suburban Detroit
Time period: early to mid 1990s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: As David Hahn was earning his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, he was also fueling his obsession of nuclear energy. Posing as a Physics professor, 16 year-old Hahn persuaded the U.S. government and industry experts to provide him with information on reactors. He also consulted an out-dated textbook to aid him in his pursuit of constructing a nuclear reactor in his backyard tool shed.

Subject Headings: biography, breeder reactors, gifted boys, Boy Scouts of America, nuclear energy

Appeal: Hahn is child of divorced parents—very distant father, mother suffered from depression and alcoholism, author presents history of nuclear power including some of the reported danger and benefits, past accidents and the culture surrounding the use and fears of nuclear energy, some history of the Boy Scouts, reveals some of the danger of gifted children who are neglected or not encouraged (or guided by professionals or experts) to explore their strengths and interests in a safe environment.

If you like The Radioactive Boy Scout, you might enjoy these fiction books: Michael Simmons’ Finding Lubchenko, Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Mark Walden’s H.I.V.E.: Higher Institute of Villainous Education, Catherine Jinks’ Evil Genius.

The Complete Maus

Title: The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale
Author: Art Spiegelman
Publication date: 1973, 1986
Number of pages: 296
Genre: graphic novel

Geographical Setting: Poland, Auschwitz concentration camp, upstate New York

Time Period: late 1930s, the Second World War, 1970s, 1980s
Series: two books in this collection, “My Father Bleeds History” & “And Here My Troubles Began”

Plot Summary: Spiegelman, born after WWII, interviews his father about his experiences as a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Poland. In the first book, Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, recounts his life in pre-war Poland and marriage to Art’s mother and his enlistment in the army. Tales of life in the ghetto and their hidings as the Final Solution is put into effect by the Nazis are depicted in Spiegelman’s drawings. The second book depicts his father’s experiences in a concentration camp and his survival and new life in America. Spiegelman uses animal as characters with the Jews depicted as mice and the Germans as cats.

Subject Headings: the Holocaust, survival, Hitler, Nazis, the Jews, concentration camps, biography, memoir

Appeal: biographical, father and son relationship, historical fiction, Holocaust literature, effects of war on families, graphic novel, comic book, Young Adult Literature, suicide by a parent, winner of Pulitzer Prize, survivor guilt, anthropomorphic characters

If you liked the Maus books, you might enjoy: Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis- graphic novel about a young Iranian girl’s life during the Islamic Revolution through the Iran-Iraq war. E. Tina Tito’s Teen Witnesses to the Holocaust, Liberation: Teens in the Concentration Camps and the Teen Soldiers Who Liberated Them.