Monday, July 23, 2012

Best of the Best Young Adult Books

As promised, here is my list. I've included some "bonus" titles at the end. These are high-demand titles that will be released soon, as well as a few highly anticipated stand-alone titles.  You can also download the list in a Word file. (coming soon!

Note: The book descriptions come from the CIP data provided by the LoC.


Best of the Best 2012
Young Adult Books
Prepared by Emily Davenport


Amir and Khalil           
Zahra's Paradise
Follows the efforts of Zahra and her oldest son, an Internet blogger, to locate another son, Mehdi, after the young man vanishes during the protests in the aftermath of Iran's fraudulent elections of 2009.

Jodi Lynn Anderson           
Tiger Lily
Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily receives special protections from the spiritual forces of Neverland, but then she meets her tribe's most dangerous enemy--Peter Pan--and falls in love with him.

Jessica Anthony           
Chopsticks
Glory, having been raised by her father as a piano prodigy after the death of her mother, is drawn to her new neighbor Frank and begins a downward spiral into madness before disappearing.

Paolo Bacigalupi           
The Drowned Cities
Companion to Ship Breaker. In a dark future America that has devolved into unending civil wars, orphans Mahlia and Mouse barely escape the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities, but their fragile safety is soon threatened and Mahlia will have to risk everything if she is to save Mouse, as he once saved her.

Leigh Bardugo                       
Shadow and Bone
Orphaned by the Border Wars, Alina Starkov is taken from obscurity and her only friend, Mal, to become the protege of the mysterious Darkling, who trains her to join the magical elite in the belief that she is the Sun Summoner, who can destroy the monsters of the Fold.

Rae Carson                       
The Girl of Fire and Thorns
A fearful sixteen-year-old princess discovers her heroic destiny after being married off to the king of a neighboring country in turmoil and pursued by enemies seething with dark magic. Sequel will be published September 18, 2012.

Kristin Cashore           
Bitterblue
Companion book to Graceling and Fire. Eighteen-year-old Bitterblue, queen of Monsea, realizes her heavy responsibility and the futility of relying on advisors who surround her with lies as she tries to help her people to heal from the thirty-five-year spell cast by her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities.

Cath Crowley                       
Graffiti Moon
Told in alternating voices, an all-night adventure featuring Lucy, who is determined to find an elusive graffiti artist named Shadow, and Ed, the last person Lucy wants to spend time with, except for the fact that he may know how to find Shadow.

emily m. danforth           
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
In the early 1990s, when gay teenager Cameron Post rebels against her conservative Montana ranch town and her family decides she needs to change her ways, she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center.

Huntley Fitzpatrick           
My Life Next Door
When Samantha, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a wealthy, perfectionistic, Republican state senator, falls in love with the boy next door, whose family is large, boisterous, and just making ends meet, she discovers a different way to live, but when her mother is involved in a hit-and-run accident Sam must make some difficult choices.

Madeleine George           
The Difference Between You and Me
School outsider Jesse, a lesbian, is having secret trysts with Emily, the popular student council vice president, but when they find themselves on opposite sides of a major issue and Jesse becomes more involved with a student activist, they are forced to make a difficult decision.

Holly Sloan Goldberg           
I'll Be There
Raised by an unstable father who keeps constantly on the move, Sam Border has long been the voice of his silent younger brother, Riddle, but everything changes when Sam meets Emily Bell and, welcomed by her family, the brothers encounter normalcy for the first time.

John Green                       
The Fault in Our Stars
Sixteen year old Hazel, who has cancer, meets Augustus at a kids-with-cancer support group and as they fall in love they both wonder how they will be remembered.

Paul Griffin                       
Stay With Me
Fifteen-year-olds Mack, a high school drop-out but a genius with dogs, and Cece, who hopes to use her intelligence to avoid a life like her mother's, meet and fall in love at the restaurant where they both work, but when Mack lands in prison, he pushes Cece away and only a one-eared pit-bull can keep them together.

Shannon Hale                                   
Palace of Stone
Sequel to Princess Academy. Miri goes to the capital city to help Britta prepare for her marriage to the prince and to begin her education at the Queen’s academy. The students she meets there are preparing for something else--revolution.

Rachel Hartman           
Seraphina
In a world where dragons and humans coexist in an uneasy truce and dragons can assume human form, Seraphina, whose mother died giving birth to her, grapples with her own identity amid magical secrets and royal scandals, while she struggles to accept and develop her extraordinary musical talents

Geoff Herback           
Stupid Fast
Just before his sixteenth birthday, Felton Reinstein has a sudden growth spurt that turns him from a small, jumpy, picked-on boy with the nickname of "Squirrel Nut" to a powerful athlete, leading to new friends, his first love, and the courage to confront his family's past and current problems.

Faith Erin Hicks           
Friends With Boys
After an idyllic childhood of homeschooling with her mother and three older brothers, Maggie enrolls in public high school, where interacting with her peers is complicated by the melancholy ghost that has followed her throughout her entire life.

Patrice Kindl                       
Keeping the Castle
In order to support her family and maintain their ancient castle in Lesser Hoo, seventeen-year-old Althea bears the burden of finding a wealthy suitor who can remedy their financial problems.

Jo Knowles
See You At Harry’s
Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible in her family, where grumpy eighteen-year-old Sarah is working at the family restaurant, fourteen-year-old Holden is struggling with school bullies and his emerging homosexuality, and adorable, three-year-old Charlie is always the center of attention, and when tragedy strikes, the fragile bond holding the family together is stretched almost to the breaking point.

Nina LaCour                       
The Disenchantments
Colby is dismayed when his best friend, Beth, announces her post-high school plans, sharing her intentions to start college after her band's tour instead of spending a year in Europe with Colby, and as Colby struggles to understand why she changed her mind, he begins to question what losing Beth would mean for his future.

R. L. LaFevers           
Grave Mercy
Seventeen-year-old Ismae avoids an arranged marriage by making a place for herself at the convent of St. Martin, where she learns of her unique gifts and must determine whether she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death.

David Levithan
Every Day
A wakes up everyday inside the mind and body of a different person. One day he meets and falls in love with Rihannon, and despite the obstacles, tries to return to her every day.

Mark Long                       
Silence of Our Friends
A black family and a white family in 1960s Texas find common ground during the Civil Rights Movement.

Marie Lu                       
Legend
In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, fifteen-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy. The sequel Prodigy will be released January 29, 2013.

Barry Lyga                       
I Hunt Killers
Seventeen-year-old Jazz learned all about being a serial killer from his notorious "Dear Old Dad." Believing he can fight his own urges and right some of his father's wrongs, Jazz helps the police catch the town's newest murderer, "The Impressionist," but, in doing so, he discovers he may have more in common with his father than he thought.


Maile Meloy
The Apothecary
Fourteen-year-old Janie Scott, newly arrived in London from Los Angeles in 1952, becomes friends with a mysterious apothecary and his son, Benjamin Burrows, and is drawn into a dangerous adventure with Benjamin when his father is kidnapped and Russian spies try to steal his book of secrets.

Patricia McCormick           
Never Fall Down
When soldiers arrive in his hometown in Cambodia, Arn Chorn Pond is separated from his family and sent to a labor camp, where he works in the rice paddies until he volunteers to learn to play an instrument--a decision that both saves his life and lands him in battle. Fictionalized account of a true story.

Morgan Matson           
Second Chance Summer
After Taylor Edwards' family gets devastating news, they decide to spend one last summer all together at their lake house in the Pocono Mountains, they get to know each other again and bond, and Taylor remembers her past friends and crush.

Walter Dean Meyers
All the Right Stuff
The summer after his absentee father is killed in a random shooting, Paul volunteers at a Harlem soup kitchen where he listens to lessons about "the social contract" from an elderly African American man, and mentors a seventeen-year-old unwed mother who wants to make it to college on a basketball scholarship.

Marissa Meyer           
Cinder
Cinder, a gifted mechanic and a cyborg with a mysterious past, is blamed by her stepmother for her stepsister's illness while a deadly plague decimates the population of New Beijing, but when Cinder's life gets intertwined with Prince Kai's, she finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle.

Jennifer Nielsen           
The False Prince
In the country of Carthya, a devious nobleman engages four orphans in a brutal competition to be selected to impersonate the king's long-missing son in an effort to avoid a civil war.

Sarah Ockler                       
Bittersweet
Hudson Avery gave up a promising competitive ice skating career after her parents divorced when she was fourteen years old and now spends her time baking cupcakes and helping out in her mother's upstate New York diner, but when she gets a chance at a scholarship and starts coaching the boys' hockey team, she realizes that she is not through with ice skating after all.

Kenneth Oppel           
This Dark Endeavor
Victor and Konrad Frankenstein are inseparable twin brothers who stumble upon The Dark Library, where secret books of alchemy and ancient remedies are housed, but after their father forbids them to ever return to the library Konrad falls gravely ill and Victor seeks out a cure for his brother beyond traditional medicine. The sequel, Such Wicked Intent, will be released on August 21, 2012.

Stephanie Perkins
Lola and the Boy Next Door
Budding costume designer Lola Nolan has big plans for the future but is pretty content with her life right now, until the Bell twins move back in next door and Lola must deal with a lifetime of feelings for Cricket and her longtime rivalry with his twin sister.

Matthew Quick           
Boy 21
Finley, an unnaturally quiet boy who is the only white player on his high school's varsity basketball team, lives in a dismal Pennsylvania town that is ruled by the Irish mob, and when his coach asks him to mentor a troubled African American student who has transferred there from an elite private school in California, he finds that they have a lot in common in spite of their apparent differences.

Veronica Roth                       
Insurgent
Sequel to Divergent. Tris Prior survives the Erudite simulation attacks that occur during the time she expected to be celebrating her achievement of being ranked first among the initiate class of her chosen faction, Dauntless. Even though the Dauntless have been freed from Erudite mind control, a war develops and secrets emerge.

Benjamin Alire Saenz           
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.

Laini Taylor                       
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters--the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known. The sequel Days of Blood and Starlight will be released November 6, 2012.

Siobhan Vivian           
The List
Emily and seven other high school girls struggle with the way they see themselves and the way others see them after a list ranking the prettiest and ugliest girls is posted.

Robin Wasserman           
The Book of Blood and Shadow
While working on a project translating letters from sixteenth-century Prague, high school senior Nora Kane discovers her best friend murdered with her boyfriend the apparent killer and is caught up in a dangerous web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all searching for a mysterious ancient device purported to allow direct communication with God.

Elizabeth Wein           
Code Name Verity
In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.

Jacqueline Woodson           
Beneath a Meth Moon: An Elegy
Laurel Daneau, having lost her mother, grandmother, and home in Hurricane Katrina, thinks things are going well with her new life as a cheerleader and the girlfriend of basketball start T-Boom, but after T-Boom introduces her to meth and she finds the drug helps her deal with her past, she must rely on the help of an artist named Moses and her friend Kaylee to overcome the addiction.


High-Demand Sequels
Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver
Crossed by Ally Condie
The City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare
Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
The Sorceress by Michael Scott
Fever by Lauren DeStefano
Rapture by Lauren Kate

Coming Soon (Release dates subject to change)
Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure by James Patterson (August 6, 2012)
UnWholly by Neal Shusterman (Unwind, #2) (August 28, 2012)
The Rise of Nine (Lorien Legacies Trilogy #3) by Pittacus Lore (August 21, 2012)
Tilt by Ellen Hopkins (September 11, 2012)
The Diviners by Libba Bray (September 18, 2012)
Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan (Heroes of Olympus, #3) (October 2, 2012)
Ask the Passengers by A. S. King (October 23, 2012)
Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia (Beautiful Creatures #4) (October 23, 2012)
The Crimson Crown by Cinda Williams-Chima (Seven Realms Trilogy #4) (October 23, 2012)
Finale (Hush, Hush #4) by Becca Fitzpatrick (October 23, 2012)
Rebel Heart by Moira Young (Dust Lands #2) (October 30, 2012)
Reached by Allie Condie (Matched, #3)  (November 13, 2012)
Shades of Earth (Across the Universe, #3) by Beth Revis (January 15, 2013)
Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver (March 5, 2013)
The Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare (The Infernal Devices, #3) (March 19, 2013)

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Best of the Best Workshop 2012

This Friday, I will be presenting at the Best of the Best Workshop at the East Tennessee History Center.  This event is cosponsored by the CCYAL and the KCPL.  I have the honor of sharing some of the best (in my humble opinionbooks of 2012 (and 2013!) This is my second year to present, and I am really looking forward to talking with the librarians and book lovers who will be in attendance.  I'll post my list and PowerPoint after the workshop, but for the time being here is my 2011 list. If you have a spare hour want to see AND hear my talk can watch it here.


Overall, I think 2012 has been a strong year for YA. The variety and quality of books being published is one of the reasons the YA market is so strong.  The Fault in Our Stars got the year off to a strong start, living on the New York Times Bestseller list for several weeks. Even though I don't think another book will be published this year that compares to TFiOS, there are several titles that are getting great press and will be popular among teens (and coughcough adults like me).



Where She Went by Gayle Forman



Nitty Gritty
This is a sequel to Forman's 2009 stunning If I Stay. If you haven't read it, then skip this review and GO READ IT NOW!  Spoiler alert: This book is narrated by Adam, Mia's introspective, rocker boyfriend.  Mia survived the crash, but what happened to the broken pieces of Mia's heart? Find out what happened when Mia and Adam reunite for a memorable evening in New York City.


Touchy Feely
This book. Amazingness.  Rarely do I literally cry *into* books, but I did this one.  As in my copy now has wrinkly pages. It is a rare book that moves me to tears of sadness and joy at the same time.  Reading this book was so emotionally satisfying, like getting a massage for your soul.  Some bad stuff emerges, you cry it out, and you feel infinitely better.  Reading about how Adam and Mia changed after the crash really gives this book a more grown-up feel than your average young adult book.  They've started careers and began and ended significant relationships with other people.  They're looking for meaning in a terrible event. They're incredibly talented and beautiful people looking for love.  This is an indelible love story.  Now, if only it could be a movie! Swoon!

Nerdy Bits
Mia develops a relationship with a conductor who reminds me a lot of Gustavo Dudamel, the virtuosic Venezuelan conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  Mia names female cellist Jacqueline du Pre as her most inspirational musician. And of course, Yo Yo Ma is mentioned.  If you've read If I Stay, this gorgeous piece played by Yo-Yo plays a pivotal role in the story. (For you music nerds out there, It's Andante con Moto e Poco Rubato from Three Preludes.) 


Full Coverage

This cover pairs with the paperback cover, wherein cover model-Mia appears to be laying flat on a hospital bed.  

The hardback cover was gorgeous, and I'm a little sad it wasn't incorporated into the sequel cover. It's also odd to have a girl on the cover of a book narrated by a man. I wouldn't have minded an Adam Levine look alike on the cover, but nobody asked me.

Dewey Love
Let's here it for multimedia!
COMPACT DISC MA CLASS: Music plays a crucial role in Adam's and Mia's lives, so this book is chock full of music to explore. I was inspired to listen to cello music after reading If I Stay and Where She Went, so I hit up Appassionato by Yo-Yo Ma and others.
DVD BEFO FEAT: Several reviewers compared this story to the 1995 movie Before Sunrise.  I haven't seen it, so I can't say how it compares.

Inspirational Moment
Simply put, the music makes this story.  Check out Forman's playlists for If I Stay and Where She Went. Also, her website features this slightly spoilery book trailer.



Final Thoughts
Sequels rarely live up to their predecessors because it is difficult to capture the tone and voice presented in the first.  Mia's story, while not strictly complete, was self-contained.  In this book, the reader moves into an entirely different character and setting. I loved If I stay for its glimpse into a I loved Where She Went for its insight into the mind of a man rocked by love, loss, and the power of second chances.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Hunger Games: Pride and Popularity

The past few weeks have brought a tidal wave of publicity for The Hunger Games and its record-breaking movie.  Many of my students (and several teachers and principals) are reading it.  I'm so excited to see students, adults, and the media talking about books and reading.

My reluctant readers embrace it without question and come back to me the next day, breathlessly declaring their love for the book and hungry for the next installment. However, I have encountered a few students who are hesitant to read The Hunger Games.  They tend to be good students who are voracious readers.  They tell me that they don't want to read it because "it's so popular right now" or they give me a scrunched up look that means "If I read it now I'll just be like one of those people who never reads anything but now they're reading The Hunger Games and I don't want to be in THAT crowd." They feel left behind, like they missed the boat.  They pride themselves on reading a book before it becomes a sensation.  They have bragging rights--"Oh, that book? I read that thing two years ago!"  They take pride in their reading, for better or worse. They also think that just because something is popular, that it also has to be bad.  Unfortunately a lot of things that are popular right now are (from a critical standpoint) terrible.  Mindless reality shows. Simplistic music. Cliched literature. Cliched everything.

I read The Hunger Games about a week after it was published, way back in 2008.  I had just started my career as a high school librarian, so I was eagerly snatching up any book promised to be the "next big thing."  All my book review sources were raving about it, so I bought a copy for our library. The next thing I remember was coming up for air a day later. I knew this book lived up to its hype.  Could I imagine it as a worldwide sensation? Not at the time, but as I saw students react to the book, I knew it would be big.  I was the first to read the book in my circle of friends, both personal and professional.  I told all my friends and family about it, and they told others. I admit I am prideful in that fact.  Thankfully, my pleasure in seeing people fall in love with books and reading is stronger than my pride in being first. But not by much.  Part of being a librarian involves being up on what's hot and what's coming soon.  I'm so lucky that I have a job wherein my conscience requires me to read young adult books.  It's a wonderful life, truly.  Seeing how teens react to books is just icing on the cake.  Thankfully, my pleasure in seeing people fall in love with books and reading is stronger than my pride in being first. But not by much.

So what do I tell my students who have missed out  The Hunger Games and have to read it with the rest of the world?  I've been pondering this for the past few days. This question has forced me to think about how I approach the books I read. Witnessing students' hesitancy to read a book has helped me to see that to be a fair reader of a book requires that I put aside any and all expectations.  It's just me and the text.  I'm sure there are a lot of literary and critical analysis people out there who have wiser and better things to say about this topic than I ever will.  But for me, this experience has helped me to see that I can't let other people's expectations (or my own) cause me to give a book an unfair chance.  I can be prideful about my reading and my desire to "be the first."  I can't dismiss something just because it's popular.  Sometimes the masses get it right. The Hunger Games and Suzanne Collins deserve every laud and honor that come their way. My deepest hopes for the phenomenon around these books and movies is that the media and teens will continue to talk about reading and question how their lives are transformed because of it.  I hope that kids will read more and better books and that critics and elitist culture-types will see that young adult literature and the people who read it are a force to be reckoned with. That is something I can be proud of.

PS If you want to read a book that I think will be the next big thing....see my review below.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green




Nitty Gritty
Hazel has thyroid cancer that's metastasized into her lungs. She meets Augustus (Gus) who has osteosarcoma and a prosthetic leg at a cancer support group for teenagers. They begin to fall in love and embark on a remarkable journey to find answers for the big questions they might not have time to answer.

Touchy Feely
This book: be still my heart. I really can't say enough wonderful things about this book.  I heeded Jennifer Hubert's advice to read it slowly, to savor it.  It's the kind of book (for me at least) like Harry Potter, wherein I can only read it for the first time once, and I'm subsequently jealous of everyone else who hasn't read it yet.  I've always been a big fan of John Green, but I had forgotten how much I liked his books and his person in general.  Now I've been trust head-over-heels back into Nerdfighteria.  He writes for my favorite kind of teenager: the proud-to-be-nerdy, wise-cracking, grammatically-correct, philosopher-referencing kind.  Green mixes sweet romance and piercing grief, travelogue and family drama, philosophy and shoot-em-up video games into a book that I read a month ago and still haven't stopped thinking about.  This is Green's best book, and probably one of the best book that will come out in 2012. Every student I've given it to has read it quickly, given it five stars on Goodreads, and just generally loved it.

Nerdy Bits
Hazel and Gus travel to Amsterdam to meet Hazel's favorite author.  The descriptions of the city make it come alive (Green lived there while writing TFiOS).  One scene in particular stands out to me.  One night in Amsterdam, Hazel and Gus are eating at a fancy restaurant along a canal. The leaves are blowing off the trees and I imagine it looks something like this. Gorg!



Other tidbits about TFiOS

  • The release date was moved to January 10 from May.  I didn't realize the significance of that date until I reread Looking for Alaska.
  • The original title of the book was The Sequel.  The current title comes from Julius Caesar: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." (I, ii, 140-141).
  • The book is dedicated to Esther Grace Earl, who helped run a Nerdfighter Tumblr and died of cancer in 2010.  A foundation, This Star Won't Go Out, exists to help families in the Boston area affected by cancer. 


Full Coverage
The cover is designed by Rodrigo Corral, who's designed such books as The Glass Castle, The Marriage Plot, and Super Sad True Love Story.  So he's what they call a "big deal" in the biz.  I think it's iconic and the colors just make me want to wear it. If you see one with a yellow sticker, then you've stumbled upon one of the 150,000 first printing copies signed by the man himself (and even rarer are the Hanklerfish and Yeti copies).




Dewey Love
I can't think of a particular non-fiction book to pair this with (other than a travel guide to Amsterdam), but for extra credit, watch any and/or all of the Vlogbrothers videos on YouTube. DFTBA!

Inspirational Moment


Final Thoughts
This might be one of my favorite YA books of all time.  I hope this thing wins the Printz, the movie wins a bunch of Oscars, and that one day John and Hank Green will win the Nobel Peace Prize for P4A. Then I will be satisfied. Maybe.