The Graveyard Book

by Neil Gaiman with illustrations by David McKean. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, c.2008. 312 pages.

Nobody Owens, Bod for short, is a very alive boy who happens to call a graveyard home. After his family was murdered when his was only a baby, Bod found himself adopted by ghosts and given the freedom of the graveyard. This freedom not only lets him explore things the living never could but also keeps him safe from the man who killed his family and still looks to finish his job—murdering Bod! But this is only inside the gates of the graveyard, outside is a whole alive world where Bod cannot be protected.

The 2009 Newbery Medal. Winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize 2009 (UK). Suggested ages are from 8-12 but this book could easily be enjoyed by teens.

Audiobook on CD read by Neil Gaiman, 7 discs, 7 hours & 45 minutes

The Eyeball Collector

by F.E. Higgins. New York: Feiwel and Friends, c. 2009. 251 pages.

Hector Fitzbaudly gets his wish to experience the seedier side of Urbs Umida when his father is blackmailed with a secret form his past. Finding himself penniless and homeless, Hector realizes this is not the life he wants and he decides to seek revenge. Unfortunately, the Eyeball Collector is a master of disguise! This book is called a “polyquel” by the author, as it contains elements from both The Black Book of Secrets and The Bone Magician as well as its own mysteries.

The Bone Magician

by F.E. Higgins. New York: Feiwel and Friends, c. 2008. 273 pages.

Pin Carpue is orphaned in the in the crime-ridden city of Urbs Umida after his father runs off, accused of being a murderer. Pin finds work as a corpse watcher, ensuring that the dead are truly dead before they are buried. Eventually Pin ends up living in the same boarding house as a bone magician and his assistant—who seem to be able to raise the dead! This book is dubbed as “paraquel” by the author—the story occurs at the same as the tale in The Black Book of Secrets.

The Black Book of Secrets

by F.E. Higgins. New York: Feiwel and Friends, c. 2007. 273 pages.

Ludlow Fitch is running away from his past (and some tooth-thieving parents!). He finds himself in a remote village where he becomes the assistant to a mysterious pawnbroker, Joe Zabbidou. This pawnbroker specializes in people’s secrets and Ludlow is charged with transcribing them in the Black Book of Secrets. Lucky for Ludlow and Joe, this village is full of people with dark and dangerous secrets to pawn. For fans of historically-based fiction and notably that of late 1800s in England with its many gruesome details of teeth pulling (and selling) and grave robbing.

Unwind

Title: Unwind
Author: Neal Shusterman
Publication date: 2007
Number of pages: 352
Genre: young adult dystopian fiction
Geographical setting: North America
Time period: undated future, post “Heartland War” (the Second Civil War)
Series: N/A

Plot: To make peace and end the Heartland War, the federal government has outlawed abortion-- but with a catch. Parents can choose to have their children “unwound,” a retroactive abortion. The compromise is that every part and organ of the “unwind” must be used so that they are not really dead, but rather live on in a “divided state” in the many bodies of those who need their organs and limbs. Seen as a trouble maker and a hotheaded teen by his fed up parents, Connor is set to be transported to a “harvest camp” to be unwound. When he makes a daring escape, he begins a dangerous journey cross-country with fellow “unwind” Risa, a state ward. The only things that can save them from being unwound are living in hiding and making it to their eighteenth birthdays.

Appeal: Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (2008); ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers - Top Ten (2008); ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2008); fast-paced; Shusterman presents a terrifying future that does not seem so impossible.

Tags: survival, dystopia, abortion, civil war, science fiction, organ harvesting, runaways, orphans, troubled teens

If you liked Unwind, you might enjoy: Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Other Stories, Gail Giles’ Right Behind You, Mary E. Pearson’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Jellicoe Road

Title: Jellicoe Road (Australian title: On Jellicoe Road)
Author: Melina Marchetta
Publication date: 2006
Number of pages: 419
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: Australia
Time Period: present (early 2000s)
Series: N/A

Taylor Markham is visited many nights by a young boy in her dreams. She tells him her stories, stories about the children at her school and the manuscript Hannah has written about five friends. Hannah found Taylor when she was eleven and abandoned by her drug-addicted mother on Jellicoe Road. At seventeen, Taylor has been chosen as the leader of her boarding school dorm and their leader in the territory wars with the Cadets and the Townies. Soon Taylor’s memories and questions about her past begin to overtake her duties and she finds herself relying on some of her sworn enemies for the answers.

Subject Headings: identity issues, abandonment, orphans, boarding schools, drug addiction, death of a parent, first love, coming of age

Appeal: 2009 Michael L. Printz Award; war game of the Territory Wars at first gives the story a sinister almost dystopian feel but as the story progresses, the reader begins to understand how the “game” began; story of first love rings very true and the pains of separation; nontraditional families.

If you liked Jellicoe Road, then you might enjoy: John Marsden’s So Much to Tell You, John Green’ s Paper Towns

Cherry Heaven

Title: Cherry Heaven
Author: L.J. Adlington
Publication date: 2008
Number of pages: 458
Genre: Young Adult fiction, dystopian fiction, science fiction
Geographical Setting: the New Frontier (on another planet, not Earth)
Time Period: the future
Series: sequel to The Diary of Pelly D

Plot Summary: In the New Frontier, people are supposed to be able to live in peace, no matter what the genetic ID stamp says on their wrist. Kat and Tanka have arrived from the war-torn City Five to start over. Their new peaceful home is amongst an old cherry orchard but there is a terrible past in their new home. They don’t believe in ghosts but something or someone has come to show that the New Frontier may not be the perfect society.

Subject Headings: dystopia, science fiction, war, racism, genetics, future, orphans

Appeal: story is told in alternating fashion between Kat’s experiences and Luka’s narration; in this future, humans have already populated a new planet and have been genetically altered to have developed gills, people can breathe underwater and enjoy time in water; themes of racism, totalitarianism and slavery.

If you liked Cherry Heaven, you might enjoy: Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Bernard Beckett’s Genesis, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, John Wyndam’s The Chrysalids

The Book Thief

Title: The Book Thief

Author: Markus Zusak

Publication date: 2005

Number of pages: 550

Genre: Young Adult historical fiction

Geographical setting: Nazi Germany, town of Molching

Time period: WWII

Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Liesel is a young orphan sent to live with her foster parents in a small town in Nazi Germany. Death (or if you would like to call him, the Grim Reaper) recounts her story and the lives of those around her, including the young Jewish man hiding in her basement. Her stolen books and the words she learns to fill her stories become some of the few salvations in her life on Himmel Street.

Subject Headings: Germany, Jews, World War II, Holocaust, survival, war, Death, orphans, foster families

Appeal: allows readers to see a different side of this time in history as the story of the Holocaust period is told from the lives of Germans, everyday people trying to hide Jewish friends, resisting the Nazis as much as they could and still be safe and live their lives; the rifts between father and son when ideologies clash; Liesel’s parents are not examined too much but enough to know that they were at least branded communists and one may assume her parents did not fare well under Hitler; creative use of illustrations; Death, as the narrator, is at times poetic and lyrical in his descriptions and saddening in his exhaustion of his taking of souls during the war; love of adoptive and foster parents for children they take care of; book thievery of Liesel and her love of words as a stark contrast to the censorship, banning and control by the Nazis over books and words.

If you like The Book Thief, you might enjoy these fiction books: Jerry Spinelli’s Milkweed, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, Mary Ann Shaffer’s The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Outsiders

Title: The Outsiders
Author: S.E. Hinton
Publication date: 1967
Number of pages: 192
Genre: teen fiction

Geographical Setting: Oklahoma City

Time Period: late 1960s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Recently orphaned Pony Boy Curtis is 14 years old and growing up on the East Side of town with his brothers and friends. They are in the poor class known as the Greasers and are very different from the other kids from the wealthy West Side who are known as Socs (short for Socials). One terrible night changes Pony Boy and his best friend Johnnys’ lives forever. Now Pony Boy questions everything about his life as a Greaser and his place in a world amongst other people like the Socs.

Subject Headings: friendship, loyalty, cliques, orphans, poverty, outsiders, gangs, 1960s

Appeal: author wrote novel when she was 16, coming of age, gang rivalries, violence and abuse in families, young adult heroes, older brother as head of household, have and havenots, ALA’s top 100 “Frequently Challenged Books,” film version from 1983

If you liked The Outsiders, you might enjoy: other S.E. Hinton novels like Tex, Rumble Fish, That Was Then, This is Now. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Walter Dean Myers’ The Scorpions.