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

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart (2008), 342 pages, 2008 National Book Award Finalist

my review:

Elite boarding schools often provide a popular backdrop for young adult novels. They also provide the young adult novelist numerous opportunities to create situations where parental involvement and adult supervision is lacking; money and resources may abound for the characters. Many times, these characters live in a world that most young readers have never experienced--that of a life of privilege and status. All of these elements are a part of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks but the title character of Frankie is such an odd (in a smarty, funny way) girl that she is more realistic and relatable for many readers than the usual prep or boarding school characters.

Frankie becomes obsessed with her plans to infiltrate and be a part of the all male secret society (the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds) at Alabaster Prep. At the same time, she is experiencing her first love and a relationship where she struggles to not lose her own identity. More than just a pretty girl, Frankie fights for her place in the academic institution and in the world where the “Old Boys Club” rules.

The Disreputable History… is filled with clever wordplay and even more boarding school and college pranks, ideas of interventionist art, subverting the institutions of power and notions of gender roles and breaking the rules (whether written or just understood). Written in the third person, the narration is a welcome change from the usual first person narratives of many young adult novels. This is a coming of age book that defies many of the conventions of this genre.

2009 Michael L. Printz Honor Book

Little Brother

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2008), 384 pages
a book review also available on my LibraryThing profile

From technology activist, Creative Commons proponent and self-proclaimed geeky guy Cory Doctorow is Little Brother. This is a realistic sci-fi novel for young adults that is packed with action, techno-speak and a scary but optimistic look at a possible near future for American citizens.

Marcus Yallow, our narrator, and his friends are able to sneak out of school by tricking the gait-recognition system and other surveillance tools the schools and city officials have implemented-- including a frighteningly invasive public that uses their phones and the Internet to snitch on possible truant students.

Skipping school to participate in an ARG (alternate reality game), they are caught at the site of a terrorist attack in San Francisco. Marcus and his friends are held by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at a secret prison. They are interrogated, terrified and treated like they are guilty. After this attack, paranoia, surveillance and distrust are amplified. California has become a police state. Marcus finds himself making choices that may endanger him, his friends and other citizens in his pursuit to take back the civil liberties and freedoms promised by the U.S. Constitution that the DHS has taken away.

This is a dystopian future, but not a future too far from now. It is easy to believe that all of these surveillance technologies are available today to those in power--and maybe they already are. Many of us- as Marcus points out- are guilty of not understanding the technologies all around us. We do not have them working for us.

At first I questioned how realistic this narrator is. Would a 17 year old boy be this advanced in computers, computer code writing and programming? And then I realized how old I am and more importantly, how dated my own experience with technology must be. Marcus is not so far-fetched. There are so many teens and young adults with these capabilities, experience and drive to tweak and hack and crack so many of the tools used on us and by us every day.

This book will be great for high school age and young adult readers and technology-literate and illiterate adults will enjoy it also. The book is jammed full of interesting ideas, questions and history. It could be very useful for discussions about privacy, terrorism and technology and surveillance and the role of a citizen in our democratic society.

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

Tattoo Machine

The following is a review for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. You can see more of my reviews by clicking on "my library" to the right. Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink by Jeff Johnson is nonfiction and should be available July 2009.

I have a feeling that there will be numerous uninspired blurbs about the book Tattoo Machine hailing it as the tattoo industry’s Kitchen Confidential. I wouldn’t go so far. Jeff Johnson does invite his readers into some of the seedier and funnier stories about his life as a tattoo artist and offers up some second hand stories that may cause you to laugh and/or cringe. Johnson has a clever and visual way with words and the book is a quick, enjoyable read. I appreciated getting a glimpse of who he was as a child and young man and how this has lead to who he is now. He is successful nowadays and drives a BMW--which he chose to point out. But his writing is somewhat disjointed and near the end of this read, I was left wanting a little more depth to his stories and a little less of what came off as slick and “cool” business owner-speak.

I had some high hopes for this book. I have spent some time in a few tattoo shops as someone who dates a tattoo artist. So I am nowhere near an expert on this “industry” but I have seen and heard a bit. My opinions may be colored by my relationship and interactions with other tattoo artists and customers. One thing I can’t help but mention is the use of illustrations to introduce parts of the book. They are some on the poorest and amateur drawings and I was surprised that someone like Johnson, who does appear to be a good artist, would allow them into his own book. Overall, I would recommend "Tattoo Machine" to someone who likes a fun memoir but I don’t think I can wholeheartedly recommend it to the tattoo artists I know.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Title: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Author: Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith
Publication date: 2009
Number of pages: 319
Genre: Classical Zombie Literature, Literature Mashup
Geographical setting: England countryside, village of Meryton
Time period: early 19th century
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: A plague has caused the dead return to life—and they are hungry for human brains! Luckily the town of Meryton has the Bennet sisters, trained in the deadly arts, to help defend the people of England against the “unmentionables.” Elizabeth Bennet has a duty to vanquish the spawn of Satan but she is soon distracted by the handsome, but arrogant, Mr. Darcy.

Subject Headings: 19th century England, zombies, romance, heartbreak, sisters, martial arts, classism, ninjas

Appeal: literature mashup of public domain work and zombie and ninja elements, comical and violent elements alongside original scenes of Austen’s work; illustrations; farcical reader discussion guide included; well received by critics; possible movie adaptation in the works

If you liked Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you might enjoy: S.G. Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie Lament, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Zadie Smith’s On Beauty

The School for Dangerous Girls

Title: The School for Dangerous Girls
Author: Eliot Schrefer
Publication date: 2009
Number of pages: 341
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical setting: Colorado
Time period: 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot summary: Most of her life Angela has been labeled “hyper,” a “troublemaker” and other not very nice things. Her parents don’t like her boyfriend and after her behavior seems to have led to a terrible accident, she is now labeled a “criminal” and “dangerous.” She is shipped off to a last chance school, Hidden Oak where she and the other dangerous girls began to realize the reasons their new school is so isolated—and these secrets just may cost them their lives.

Subject headings: boarding schools, reform schools, troubled teen girls, authority figures, mother/daughter relationships

Appeal: strong-willed teen girls fight back and resist being labeled what society may decide they are; twist on the boarding school genre; suspenseful

If you liked The School for Dangerous Girls, you might enjoy: Alex McAulay’s Bad Girls, Rita Williams-Garcia’s Jumped, Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied

I Am Rembrandt's Daughter

Title: I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter
Author: Lynn Cullen
Publication date: 2007
Number of pages: 292
Genre: Young Adult historical fiction
Geographical Setting: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Time Period: 1660s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Cornelia van Rijn’s mother has died of the Plague. As the daughter of the famous Rembrandt, one would expect to be living the life of a wealthy and prestigious young woman. This is not the life Cornelia has been given. Rembrandt is going mad and refuses to paint what will please the wealthy patrons. The budding friendship with the well-to-do and handsome Carel begins to stir passion in Cornelia’s heart. But the Westerkerk bells that toll death begin to ring again—and family secrets best kept hidden may come to light.

Subject Headings: the Plague, painters, father/daughter relationships, illegitimate children, adultery, gender roles, poverty, artist-as-genius, coming of age.

Appeal: story based on real characters; flashback chapters; descriptions of some of Rembrandt’s paintings and novelist’s imaginings behind their depictions; love triangle; fictional telling of Rembrandt’s daughter about whom very little is known.

If you liked I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter, you might enjoy: Katherine Sturevant’s A True and Faithful Narrative (historical fiction, takes place in London 1680s). Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days.

What I Saw and How I Lied

Title: What I Saw and How I Lied
Author: Judy Blundell
Publication date: 2008
Number of pages: 284
Genre: Young Adult historical fiction
Geographical Setting: Palm Beach, Florida
Time Period: 1947, post-WWII
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Fifteen-year-old Evie Spooner’s stepdad Joe has survived his tour of duty in Europe during World War II. Before Evie and her gorgeous mother, Beverly, can enjoy this happy homecoming, Joe takes them on a sudden trip to Florida. In Palm Beach, Evie meets and falls for a young ex-GI, Peter--someone Joe is not too happy to see. Soon secrets surface and whispers start to be heard. Everything Joe has tried to keep hidden may soon be discovered.

Subject Headings: post-WWII, racism, prejudice, Noir, first love, espionage, mystery, coming of age, mother/daughter relationships, stepfamilies, adultery

Appeal: National Book Award Winner (2008); suspenseful, nourish drama set in a post-WWII Palm Beach, Florida, where Jews are not welcome; young woman living in the shadow of her mother’s beauty and allure; stylish, retro dialogue; author of Star Wars novelizations

If you liked What I Saw and How I Lied, you might enjoy: Mary Downing Hahn’s Look for Me by Moonlight, Siobahn Dowd's Bog Child

The Year the Gypsies Came

Title: The Year the Gypsies Came
Author: Linzi Glass
Publication date: 2006
Number of pages: 254
Genre: Young Adult historical fiction
Geographical setting: Johannesburg, South Africa
Time period: 1960s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Twelve year old Emily craves affection from her constantly quarreling parents. She is tomboy with few friends, only her kind older sister and their Zulu servant, Buza who tells her stories of wisdom and magic. When a mysterious family of wanderers comes to stay, Emily finds a kindred soul in one of the houseguests as she learns of the pain and struggles of those all around her in apartheid South Africa.

Subject Headings: apartheid, South Africa, 1960s, abuse, Zulu, rape

Appeal: Buza the servant as the true caregiver of Emily; the realization by Emily of her privilege and the South Africa of apartheid, racism and police brutality; class and race relationships of the time period; author was born and Johannesburg and many of the Zulu stories and folklore told by Buza are from her childhood memories; Afrikaans and Zulu glossary; Nelson Mandela’s speech in court recounted.; abuse led to the brain damage of a child.

If you like The Year the Gypsies Came, you might enjoy these nonfiction books: Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, Peter Godwin’s Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa.

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 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.

Give Me My Father’s Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo

Title: Give Me My Father’s Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo

Author: Kenn Harper
Publication date: 1986
Number of pages: 320
Genre: Biography

Geographical Setting: Greenland and New York
Time Period: late 19^th Century and early 20^th Century
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Six-year-old Minik is one of six Eskimos brought from Greenland as “specimens” to New York City by Arctic explorer Robert Peary in 1897. Soon Minik is an orphan in a strange land. As he matures to adulthood, he is stranger in his homeland of Greenland and his adoptive home of the United States. Minik’s plight to claim his father’s body from the American Museum of Natural History for a proper burial and his wanderings and eventual death are traced in this biography of marginalized “curiosity.”

Subject Headings: Eskimo, Inuit, racism, prejudice, Arctic, North Pole, exploration, biography,

Appeal: biography of an orphan and exile, photographs included, written by Canadian Historian who has lived over thirty years in Inuit communities and speaks the language, the book helped to publicize the wrongs done to the Inuits by the American Museum of Natural History and led to the eventual return of their bodies to their homeland and people.

If you like Minik, you might enjoy: S. Allen Counter’s North Pole Legacy: Black, White and Eskimo, Jennifer Owings Dewey’s Minik’s Story, Robert M. Bryce’s Cook & Peary: The Polar Controversy, Resolved.

Sold

Title: Sold
Author: Patricia McCormick
Publication date: 2008
Number of pages: 272
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Geographical Setting: Himalayan Mountain village of Nepal, Red Light District of Calcutta, India
Time Period: 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Thirteen year old Lakshmi leaves her small village and her mother, baby brother and pet goat to work as a maid in the city to help pay the debts caused by the damaging monsoon and her gambling stepfather. Her stepfather introduces her to a glamorous stranger to take her to the city. Her new “auntie” takes her to “Happiness House” in the slums of Calcutta and soon Lakshmi realizes her stepfather has sold her to a brothel that she may be indebted to for many years.
Subject Headings: sex trade, prostitution, child prostitution, sexual slavery, rape, poverty, human trafficking, HIV and AIDS

Appeal: novel told in verse-like prose, story of the very real and current issues of sex trade in Nepal and India , cultural myths about purity and curing of HIV through having sex with a virgin, contrast of poverty and struggles of those in the mountain village with those living in the slums of Calcutta, rights and status of women in Nepal and India.

If you like Sold, you might enjoy: Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel, Somaly Mam’s The Road of Lost Innocence: As a girl she was sold into sexual slavery, but now she rescues others. The true story of a Cambodian heroine, Ellen Hopkin’s Burned.

Copper Sun

Title: Copper Sun

Author: Sharon Draper
Publication date: 2006
Number of pages: 302
Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction
Geographical Setting: Ashanti village in Africa, Cape Coast, Carolinas (America)
Time Period: 1738 (Colonial America)
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Fifteen year old Amari watches as her parents and younger brother are murdered by the men who take her away to her fate to travel the Middle Passage to be auctioned on the American shores. Amari is purchased as a gift for a rice plantation owner’s son on his 16^th birthday. Newly-purchased indentured servant, Polly, becomes an unlikely friend as they both learn to survive their new fates.

Subject Headings: slavery, rape, racism, African American, historical fiction, Middle Passage, murder, Colonial America, plantations

Appeal: narrative switches focus back and forth from Amari to Polly, author did extensive research for this book, Little-known Florida’s Fort Mose sanctuary for runaway slaves is introduced, the incidents of rape, violence and murder may be too graphic and emotional for readers under 12.

If you like Copper Sun, you might enjoy: Octavia Butler's Kindred, Yuval Taylor's Growing Up in Slavery: Stories of Young Slaves Told By Themselves, Don Jordan and Michael Walsh's White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America

Before We Were Free

Title: Before We Were Free
Author: Julia Alvarez
Publication date: 2002
Number of pages: 163
Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction
Geographical Setting: Dominican Republic & New York City
Time Period: 1960-61
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Twelve year old Anita lives in the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of Trujillo, El Jefe. The secret police begin terrorizing and interrogating her family as her uncle and father are suspected of planning the assassination of Trujillo. Instead of school work, friends and first love, Anita must learn to survive and escape the only life and country she has ever known.

Subject Headings: dictatorship, military dictatorship, oppression, revolution, assassination, ajustaciemento (“bringing to justice”), secret police, survival

Appeal: author’s first young adult novel, inspired by historical events and author’s own family, story told by twelve year old narrator and includes diary entries, ALA Best Book for Young Adults, portrait of Latin American country under dictatorship and the lives of “ordinary” people and children, taking up of arms in order to be free and the dilemma between murder and ajustaciemento.

If you like Before We Were Free, you might enjoy: John Marsden’s Tomorrow, When the War Began, Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars, An Na’s A Step from Heaven.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
Publication Date: 2002
Number of Pages: 226
Genre: Fiction (Young Adult appeal)
Geographical Setting: England
Time Period: 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Somebody killed Mrs. Shears’ dog Wellington—but it wasn’t Christopher. But he is going to find out who did it. Christopher’s dad isn’t too happy though about him sticking his nose in other people’s business and forbids him from doing any “detecting.” Christopher finds some ways around his promise to his dad to not look for the dog murderer and through the encouragement of his teacher at a special needs school, Christopher writes a book about his experiences as he tries to solve this murder mystery.

Subject Headings: autism, savant, Asperger syndrome, mathematics, murder mystery, special needs

Appeal: protagonist and narrator is a 15 year old boy with “special needs”—it is not stated explicitly that he has a form of autism (Asperger syndrome). Protagonist is a mathematical savant, has a photographic memory and struggles with understanding other peoples’ behaviors, gestures and expressions; illustrations; use of well-know math and logic puzzles with answers in the appendix; chapters are numbered by prime numbers; struggles of parents to raise and live with a child with extreme reactions to everyday experiences like hugging and being in a busy store; lies parents tell children to ‘protect” them.

If you liked The Curious Incident…, you might enjoy: Judy Barron’s There’s A Boy In Here, Marti Leimbach’s Daniel Isn’t Talking, Martha Witt’s Broken As Things Are

Speak

Title: Speak

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson

Publication date: 1999

Number of Pages: 198

Genre: Young Adult fiction

Geographical Setting: Syracuse, NY

Time Period: late 1990s

Series: N/A

Plot: Melinda starts her first year of high school as an outcast. Her friends have deserted her because she called the cops on an end of the summer party. Something happened to her at that party but she has not told anyone. To the frustration of her parents and teachers, she has become almost mute. As she explores her art assignment for the year, Melinda struggles with being able to find the girl she used to be before the night of the party.

Subject Headings: rape, post traumatic stress disorder, trauma, alienation, depression, cliques

Appeal: 2000 Printz Honor Book, ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adult, SLJ Book of the Year, film adaptation, first person narrative, sarcastic and funny narrator, author’s first novel, young woman dealing with rape and seeing her rapist almost daily in school, parents are wrapped up in their own lives and unhappy marriage, story is told over the course of the first year of high school, art as therapy

If you liked Speak, you might enjoy: Patricia McCormick’s Cut, Patricia Kindl’s Woman in the Wall, Go Ask Alice

Nineteen Minutes

Title: Nineteen Minutes
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publication date: 2007
Number of Pages: 455
Genre: Adult fiction (with Young Adult appeal)
Geographical Setting: small town New Hampshire
Time Period: late 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: In nineteen minutes, the quiet town of Sterling, New Hampshire is changed forever. The often bullied Peter Houghton opens fire on his high school. Alex Cormier is the judge assigned to the trial while her own daughter, Josie, is a surviving witness.

Subject Headings: school shooting, school violence, abuse, mother-daughter relationship, justice system, crime victim, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bullies

Appeal: examination into minds and experiences of many sides to school violence and school shootings: victims, the shooter, lawyers, law enforcement, parents of victims, parents of shooter; recurring characters from author’s previous novels; discussions of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); character suffers abusive relationship with boyfriend; cliques of high school students and acts of hazing/bullying; main female character is a successful judge, the struggles with her career and relationship with her teenage daughter; parent’s loss of a child; series of flashbacks reveal the events leading to the shooting; book has been challenged in school libraries because of sexual references, violence including bullying, suicide and profanity.

If you liked Nineteen Minutes, you might enjoy: Dorothy Allison’s Cavedweller, Alice Hoffman’s Local Girls, Sue Miller’s Family Pictures

Uglies

Title: Uglies
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Publication date: 2005
Number of Pages: 425
Genre: Young Adult fiction (grade 6 and up)
Geographical Setting: United States, location is unclear, near a large city Time Period: future
Series: yes, first in trilogy

Plot: In the future, people have learned ways to avoid war and destruction of the earth by the wastefulness of human beings. Their cities care take care of them, every need can be fulfilled. At the age of sixteen, each citizen gets an operation to turn them from an Ugly to a Pretty. But Tally, soon to be turned pretty, begins to question if the equality of the pretty world comes at too high of a price.

Subject Headings: science fiction, authoritarianism, individuality, conformity, free will

Appeal: futuristic society including “hoverboards” and “hovercars,” operation that re-sculpts the body and face/features to create “ideal” of beauty including light skin and symmetry of the face, dystopian image of the future, disquieting vision of our current society (known as the “Rusties” in the future): the wastefulness of the Rusties with their natural resources compounded by a virus that destroys all petroleum leads to their demise, fast-moving first book of a trilogy and cliffhanger ending.

If you liked Uglies, you might enjoy: Lois Lowry’s The Giver, M.T. Anderson’s Feed, Rodman Philbrick’s The Last Book of the Universe, Ned Vizzini’s Be More Chill, Ellen Dee Davidson’s Stolen Voices, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New Word

How I Live Now

Title: How I Live Now
Author: Meg Rosoff
Publication date: 2004
Number of Pages: 194
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: English countryside
Time Period: 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Fifteen year old New Yorker Daisy is shipped off to England by her father and stepmother to live with the aunt and cousins she has never met. Soon after she arrives, war has broken out and England is occupied by an unnamed enemy. Daisy and her cousins find themselves alone on the isolated farm but soon the war reaches them. Now they must figure out how to live through it.

Subject Headings: war, terrorism, anorexia, England, survival, family

Appeal: dystopian view of now/near future, protagonist battles anorexia, mother of protagonist died in childbirth, the pain in the loss of a parent and the strain of the relationship with a step parent, incestuous relationship, sensitive and emotional narrative of life for a young person forced into survival mode

If you like How I Live Now, you might enjoy: Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It, John Marsden’s Tomorrow, When the War Began (series), Gloria Milkowitz's After the Bomb (out of print, find at your library)

The Secret Life of Bees

Title: The Secret Life of Bees

Author: Sue Monk Kidd

Publication Date: 2002

Number of Pages: 302

Genre: Fiction with Young Adult appeal

Geographical Setting: South Carolina

Time Period: 1964

Series: N/A

Plot: Fourteen year old Lily flees her isolated home on a peach farm with her nanny Rosaleen. They are fleeing the police because Rosaleen defended her right to register to vote. But Lily is also fleeing from her abusive father and trying to escape the memory of the accidental shooting of her mother by her hands. Amongst her mother’s few remaining possessions is a picture of a Black Madonna with “Tiburon, SC” written on it. Lily follows her hope that she will find out more about her mother in this town. There Lily and Rosaleen find the Black Madonna—a honey farm run by three middle-aged black sisters and they stay to help harvest the honey crop.

Subject Headings: African American, Civil Rights, racism, abuse, 1960s South, beekeeping, depression

Appeal: in the tradition of Southern Gothic, strong African American female characters, glimpses in to the era of Civil Rights in the South, successful film adaptation in 2008, female friendship, escape from abusive parent, an era that did not recognize depression as a treatable illness

If you liked The Secret Life of Bees, you might enjoy: Nancy Kincaid’s As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me, Monica Wood’s Any Bitter Thing, Dori Sander’s Clover, Jennifer Chiaverini’s Quilter’s Apprentice

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Title: Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Author: Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Publication Date: 2006
Number of Pages: 183
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Geographical Setting: New York City
Time Period: late 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Nick meets Norah at the club where his band is playing. He asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes to avoid the girl who broke his heart. These five minutes turn into a night-long first date full of moments of passion, awkward silences and some great music.

Subject Headings: music scene, boy meets girl, bands, New York City, broken hearts, true love, straight edge

Appeal: story is told by both title characters in alternating chapters, nice guy doesn’t “finish last” message, music and pop culture references, popular movie adaptation, Nick is a bassist for a queercore band but he is not gay, both characters are straight edge, Norah is Jewish and some talk of concepts of Judaism, coarse language and descriptions of sexual experiences

If you liked Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, you might enjoy: Robin Benway’s Audrey, Wait! Susane Colasanti’s When it Happens.

Gender Blender

Title: Gender Blender
Author: Blake Nelson
Publication Date: 2006
Number of Pages: 182
Genre: Young Adult Fiction (age 10 &up)
Geographical Setting: Seattle, Washington
Time period: mid-late 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: At George Wilson Middle School something very unlikely and very inconvenient has happened. Tom Witherspoon and Emma Baker have switched bodies! And now they are about to learn how hard it is to be a girl and to be a boy.

Subject Headings: gender roles, middle school

Appeal: Balanced perspective of the trials and tribulations of both boys and girls experiences in the middle school years. Events of puberty and physical development are presented.

If you liked Gender Blender, you might enjoy: Terence Blacker’s Boy2Girl. James Howe’s The Misfits.