Would You by Marthe Jocelyn

Natalie is a free-wheeling kind of teen.  She breaks into people’s swimming pools just to have a cool dip with her friends.  They play the would you game where you have two impossible choices:  Would you rather lose all your hair or all your teeth?  Would you rather die or have everyone else die?  They are secure in their own immortality, safe in their sheltered worlds.  Until the accident.  When everything changes.

The characters here are fresh and engaging.  Jocelyn has perfectly captured the mix of angst and hubris that teens feel.  The writing is equally vibrant, pacing itself with the story.  I really appreciate that during the crisis, Natalie’s friends do not abandon her.  Just because they are breezy free teens does not mean they are heartless and cold.  It is a small touch, but just one of many that make the book read so true to life.

Recommended for tween readers in particular, this book is appropriate for ages 12-15.  Readers of Lurlene McDaniel will enjoy this book and will find more than tears to revel in.

Paper Towns by John Green

Released October 2008.

Green has created another winner for teens, and it just might be his best book yet!

Quentin is a high school senior who lives a quiet but not horrible life.  He has two best friends, Ben and Radar, two loving and still-married therapist parents, and a natural abhorrence of the prom.  His quiet life is changed when his life-long crush, Margo Roth Spiegelman, comes to his window wearing black face paint and inviting him on an all-night revenge spree.  It is the longest and most amazing night of Quentin’s life, but when he heads back to school to see Margo she has disappeared.  Now all he has are baffling clues that she left behind to help him find her.

The characters here are so amazing it is hard to put it into words.  Green has captured what it is to be a nerd or geek in school.  It isn’t lonely or harsh, just unique.  Quentin and his friends are intelligent, esoteric and hysterically funny guys.  They are well-developed characters that readers will love spending time with.  Other characters are equally interesting. Green has created a living, breathing high school here with a deft tone with dialogue and humor.

Green’s inclusion of Whitman, Moby Dick and other works of literature does more than invite teens to pick those books up.  He makes these tomes and others come to life, intertwine with the modern world and be relevant and meaningful.  A masterful accomplishment.

This book will fly off the shelves with the great dual cover, but make sure that it gets into the hands of well-adjusted, bright and unique kids.  They are the ones who will love the jokes, the characters, the literature, and the quest.

A Printz contender to be sure.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Ivy by Julie Hearn.

Ivy is an orphan being looked after by her aunt, uncle and counsins in Victorian England.  She is sent to school, but lasts less than one day.  In running from school, her life is turned upside down when she is snatched by Carroty Kate, a con artist who steals clothes right off of children’s backs.  Kate sees potential in Ivy, who catches her eye because of her startlingly red hair.  Ivy is pushed into the con-artist business and because she has nightmares is heavily dosed with laudanum to keep her quiet.  Even as a teen, returned to her relatives, she is an addict, who struggles to make money to help support their family.  Ivy is glimpsed by a young painter, who decides that she is his muse, and once again Ivy’s life takes a sharp turn into danger.

I enjoyed The Minister’s Daughter by Hearn and this second novel is equally as successful.  Here Hearn has created a real historical fiction piece that doesn’t have the fantasy elements of her first novel.  The grinding nature of poverty in Victorian England is successfully explored as is the nature of theft and conning people.  Ivy is a vivid creation of a character who even to the reader remains aloof and distant, until she is ready to reveal herself.  It creates a beguiling novel of subterfuge and intrigue that is nearly impossible to put down.

Highly recommended for readers of historical fiction.  Appropriate for readers age 14-17. 

How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier

This is a charmer of a novel by the author of the Magic and Madness trilogy.  In New Avalon, almost everyone has a fairy of their own.  The fairies are invisible and some people question whether they exist, but 14-year-old Charlie knows that hers does.  Since she was tiny, she has been able to find a perfect parking space for whatever vehicle she is riding in.  She hates it!  Not only is it awfully inconvenient to always be asked to find someone a parking space, but she smells faintly of gasoline too.  Why can’t she have a cool fairy like her friends?  A fashion fairy?  Or all-the-boys-like-you fairy?  Maybe she can…

The lightness and freshness of this novel make it read like a frothy teen novel with little substance, but that isn’t the case.  Underneath the humor there are more serious questions lingering about fairies, faith, and friendship for those who want a little more depth.  Teens can read it on several levels, which means that it will appeal to a wide range of readers.  The teen characters are interesting and always more than their fairies seem to be.  The obsessive nature of the New Avalon society is a great commentary on American culture.  A great part of the fun of the book is Larbalestier’s teen language that is unique to New Avalon but easily understood by all.  It just makes the reading all the more enjoyable.

Recommended for teens age 12-15.  Little handselling will be necessary for this one.  It will fly off the shelves on fairy wings.

Impossible by Nancy Werlin.

Released September 2008.

Lucy is a normal teen, heading out to her prom, as long as she can ignore her mad birth mother, who is homeless and every so often returns to shout warnings at Lucy.  Lucy tries to protect her adoptive parents and her friends from her birth mother, but in doing so doesn’t hear the warnings in time.  Lucy comes from a long line of women, cursed for generations by an evil being.  At age 18, they are all pregnant with daughters and forced to try to undo the curse.  They have all tried alone until Lucy, who has a family who loves her and a boy who will fight along side her.

Werlin has crafted a novel filled with twists and turns, stomach wrenching surprises, and a timelessness but modern feel.  Lucy is a great female character who displays a winning innocence but amazing strength as well.  The adults in the story are also well portrayed with their own worries, lives and issues as they face the curse along with their daughter.  The book has deft pacing too, which works well along with the story, sometimes dashing headlong and alarmed and other times seeming as if there is all the time in the world. 

Werlin has created another book that teens will love to immerse themselves in.  Highly recommended for fans of fantasy, but it will also appeal to teens who don’t usually read that genre.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Released October 2008.

If there was one book I really wanted to get my hands on at ALA, this was it.  Scholastic was only giving them out for a limited time at their booth when Suzanne Collins was signing, which didn’t work with my schedule.  I left disheartened, but then my husband surprised me with a signed copy!  Definitely worth cutting his session short for!  And now, I will actually let him read it too.  Aren’t I sweet?

Anyway, back to the book. 

Katniss regularly escapes the Seam by going outside the fence and into the forest to hunt.  She is great at using a bow and at trapping.  Using this skill, she keeps her mother and younger sister fed.  Every year, two names are drawn from each region of the country to join the Hunger Games.  This isn’t an honor, it’s a death sentence, because the youth who are selected are forced to fight to the death in a unique arena run by the government.  At the selection, Katniss’ younger sister is selected and Katniss offers herself instead.  Now she must leave everything she knows behind and head to the Capitol, a place where people live in luxury and the Hunger Games are entertainment.  Katniss must package herself to be interesting and worthy of investment if she is to find sponsors who will help keep her alive.  So the games begin even before the arena.

I adored Collins’ Gregor series, and consider it one of the best fantasy series for preteens that is out there.  This new series is a natural extension of Gregor.  It is even darker, more political, and more haunting.  As in Gregor, Collins’ characters are filled with flaws, face impossible decisions, and remain true to themselves.  They are gutsy characters who rebel and refuse to be trodden upon.  In short, they are a joy to read. 

Collins’ world building here is very well done as well.  Dystopian societies in books for teens can be disappointing, but Collins knows just how much detail to offer to make it fascinating and leave you wanting to know just a little more.  Best of all, her details fit together like puzzle pieces as you discover them.  Perfection.

Highly recommended, this is a contender for the best science fiction for teens this year.  A perfect book for booktalking to middle school audiences. 

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Society has decided that while abortion is not moral, deciding to unwind a teen before their 18th birthday is.  Teens get nominated for a program in a variety of ways but the same thing happens to all of them, their body parts are taken and used as donor organs for other people.  This way they are not truly dead, but still in some way live on.  Connor discovers that his parents have decided to unwind him because of his rebellious nature.  Risa is a ward of the state and her piano playing is just not quite good enough to save her from being unwound.  Lev has known his entire life he is going to be unwound because of his family’s religion.  All three of their lives come crashing together on an interstate highway as they head off to their unwinding.

In this novel, Shusterman has created a science fiction world that examines the abortion debate in our own society, taking it to an extreme that sheds light on our own moral questioning and convictions.  His world is horrific in its logic, haunting in its simplicity, and amazingly gripping and terrifying. 

The writing is taut with tension most of the novel, making it almost impossible to put down.  Shusterman’s three main characters are as different as people can be, but all three are human and interesting.  Many of the characters in the novel are surprising and none of them are stereotypes.

Highly recommended for science fiction fans, particularly those who enjoy a good dystopian setting.  I would also recommend this to teens who enjoy books that ask ethical questions, it will open their eyes to the fact that science fiction can read this way without aliens or laser guns.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Ben has been raised near the royal castle, but not as part of it, thanks to her mother.   When she is ill and unable to attend the ceremony by her grandfather’s tomb, she awakens to find her entire world changed.  Her mother’s body is brought back as is her uncle’s, the king.  And her father is missing along with the guard who had attended them.  Taken into the royal castle by her aunt, Queen Sophia, Ben is looked upon as a girl who needs to be taught how to be a princess from the ground up.  Her wardrobe is changed, her waistline scrutinized, her meals cut back, and her every move watched.  As Ben fights to not be broken by the Queen, her real adventure begins when she discovers a hidden passage in her room that works only for her.  It leads to a room where a magical book shows her the powers that are part of her royal lineage.  But what good are minor magical powers when Ben is about to be auctioned off as a bride to local princes? 

Murdock is the author of one of my favorite series that began with Dairy Queen.  She has an ear for dialogue, especially the internal dialogue of teen girls.  In Ben, she has created a princess worth cheering for, a young woman who is rarely daunted, unless it is by dieting.  Though this is a fantasy, Ben is a character who vibrates with truth, a remarkably strong female character.  Murdock has also masterfully moved to a new genre with this novel, which reads as though she has only ever written fantasy fiction.  Her pacing is well done, and her storytelling powerful and interesting.

Highly recommended for lovers of fantasy.   Murdock has created a readable fantasy that will appeal to readers of Tamora Pierce.  Appropriate for ages 10-14.

Newes from the Dead by Mary Hooper.

Hooper has taken a true story of Anne Green, a girl hanged for killing her newborn infant in 1650, who survived the hanging.  Anne Green, guilty of nothing more than being seduced by the lord’s son and bearing his child, is caught in a world ruled by hierarchy and wealth.  Being a poor housemaid, there is little she can do in her own defense or to remedy the situation she originally found herself in.  Her survival is due to her body being donated to the scientists and physicians for dissection.  Just as the knife is about to be used on her, one of the students spots her eyelids fluttering. 

This book is a thriller made powerful by being a true story.  Hooper has written Anne’s voice with an unflinching honesty and clarity that never leaves the reader in doubt about the truth of the tale.  Written in chapters that move between Anne’s memories and the dissection room, readers will find themselves unable to put the book down.  To have a gripping read even when the audience knows the end of the story is testament to Hooper’s skill as a writer.

This is perfect teen fiction that will appeal to a wide range of readers.  Those interested in historical fiction will adore it and you can also recommend it to kids who read horror or thrillers.  Add to that the vivid cover with its staring blank eyes, and it just may check itself out of the library!