When you go into the Young Adult section of your public or school library, does it seem like all the books are for girls? Are The Clique and Gossip Girls threatening to overwhelm you with their glossy, lip-sticky covers? Well, never fear, Best Boy Reads are here! Believe it or not, there are some great books out there for the teen-aged males of the world who like a little more testosterone in their paperbacks.
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What would you do if your doppleganger suddenly walked up to you and offered to show you the parallel universes that existed right outside the thin fabric of your reality? One day when Ohio teenager John Rayburn heads to the barn to do chores, he is confronted by an identical man who claims he is actually JR himself, but from a parallel world. He calls himself John Prime, and offers JR a deal—a 24-hour vacation in a parallel universe, free of charge. What red-blooded adolescent wouldn’t take such a proposition? To travel to another time and place while your twin guards your life here? Except, that’s not exactly what happens. Turns out Prime’s device only works one way, and that’s forward. Once JR jumps ahead to another universe, he can no longer go back. And now Prime is living his stolen life and JR has no choice but to find a new place in the universe. At first JR stumbles around multiple universes (universi?), making newbie-universe-traveler mistakes like losing his money, accidentally bringing alien species into other universes, and referring to objects or technology that haven’t been invented yet in the universe he is currently visiting. But finally JR settles down in a universe not unlike his own and decides to study physics in order to learn how the device works—so he can throw the lever in reverse, kick Prime’s butt and take his life back. But first he’s going to finance his college education by inventing a little game called pinball…This mind-bending and thoroughly entertaining sci-fi will leave you pondering the possibilities of parallel worlds and appreciating the little things like reality TV, root beer and Rubik’s Cubes that make THIS universe so frickin’ awesome.
Seventeen-year-old football quarterback Cody Laredo never considered himself a good student. He maintained grades just high enough to keep his butt off the bench, hoping that a college football scholarship would be his ticket to the NFL. But now that he’s blown out his knee, lost his gorgeous upper-crust girlfriend Clea to boarding school and missed so many classes that he has no idea what is going on, he’s decided to drop out. Which is why he’s free to skip town and head east when he hears on the local news that Clea’s gone missing. When her beloved horse Bud comes back rider-less, the local authorities assume Clea was thrown in the woods and a search party is quickly assembled. Cody quietly joins their ranks, initially concealing his identity from the townies. But when Clea isn’t found in a few days, the search is called off and Cody begins to conduct his own investigation, based on little more than commonsense and intuition. As he begins to collect clues about Clea’s disappearance, Cody struggles with who to suspect and who to trust. Among the possible perpetrators are: Ike, the crabby old stable hand at Clea’s fancy school who seems to know more than he’s letting on; Sergeant Orton, the local fuzz who appears to be playing Cody just as much as Cody is playing him; and finally Townes, the rich boy who stole Clea’s heart—and maybe more. One of these men know what happened to his best girl. And it’s up to Cody to find out who before it’s too late. Reality Check is a solid, satisfying mystery with an earnest, blue-collar teen sleuth at it’s center. I love how Cody, who readily admits he’s not the biggest intellectual in the world, operates from the heart and realistically struggles with putting the pieces of the puzzle together, instead of snapping his fingers and solving it all in one fell swoop. This is the first book I’ve read by mystery author Peter Abrahams, but you can bet it won’t be the last!
Meet Bernie and Chet, the two hard-bitten P.I.’s of the Little Detective Agency. Though one has two legs and the other four, both are tough, not easily fooled dudes with hearts of gold. Bernie Little is a down-on-his-luck detective with a big debt and small checking account. Chet “the Jet” is his loyal-to-the-bone mongrel sidekick whose wandering nose and lack of impulse control often gets him into trouble. Chet is the star of this mystery-series opener, as he narrates Bernie’s life in an uber-realistic, easily distracted canine voice that often comes across as barkingly funny. In their first adventure together, Bernie and Chet are hired to find wealthy teen Madison Chambliss, whose divorced mother reports her missing. But there’s more to this apparent runaway case that meets the eye (or nose, in Chet’s case), and the dedicated partners soon dig up connections between Madison’s disappearance, a real estate development that’s gone bottoms up, and the Russian mafia. To make matters more complicated, both have recently become smitten: Bernie with local investigative reporter Suzie Sanchez and Chet with a mysterious furry female he only knows by her come-hither bark. Unlike some other best-selling doggerel, this book nails the dog’s-eye point of view perfectly and also serves as an excellent introduction to the detective genre if you haven’t had the pleasure of dipping into it before. A doggone good book that even a cat person can love. I can’t wait to go on a stake-out with Chet and Bernie again!
Seventeen-year-old James Hoff is the world’s biggest pessimist. He doesn’t believe that all this “green” action is really going to do any good, that humans “have ravaged the planet with our insane lust and greed, everywhere leaving behind horrendous pollution, toxic waste, and lethal contamination” and we are all destined to die slow, agonizing deaths from SUV carbon monoxide poisoning. So what’s a cynical guy like him doing with an idealistic optimist like Sadie Kinnell? NOTHING, because philosophical and political differences finally led to their break-up at the end of sophomore year. But no matter how hard he tries to convince himself otherwise through the writing of heated English assignment manifestos that his teacher Mr. Cogweiller has no idea what to do with, James is still in love with Sadie. And as he grapples with what to do about the Sadie situation, how to call off his eighth grade sister’s horny best friend and whether or not he should accept his corporate dad’s offer of an evil, pollution-spewing car (“I just don’t want one. I don’t want to put gas in it, I don’t want to insure it, I don’t want to park it, I don’t want to look at it. If I am the first teenager in the world to refuse a car, so be it.”), a funny thing happens. James grows a conscience and suddenly Sadie’s point of view starts making a lot more sense. But is it too late for this gloomy Gus to turn over a new (green) leaf? Part angsty “dude” lit. and part angry meditation on the sad state of the environment, Destroy All Cars is one teen’s timely, comic take on love, life and ecology. Blake Nelson is one of my fav authors because he writes some of the smartest and most realistic guy characters in YA lit. Plus his dry, deadpan delivery never gets old and often leaves me smirking at statements like this one from James: “Because I have cut holes in my sweater and have been seen reading books in the cafeteria, I have declared myself to be some sort of fringe, radical, intellectual type. Now I must face the consequences.” Ha! A great companion read to this book.
Marcelo isn’t your typical seventeen-year-old boy. He refers to himself in the third person, is often confused by verbal metaphors, and isn’t crazy about meeting new people. He has “special interests” in religion, classical music, Halflinger ponies and little else. That’s because Marcelo has an Asperger’s-like condition that limits the natural development of his social skills and causes him to be obsessively interested in only a handful of specific topics. Now his father, a high-powered attorney, wants him to take a summer job at his law firm in the mail room so he can learn how the “real world” works. Reluctantly, Marcelo agrees. But from the moment he sets foot in the firm, he is confronted by people and situations that defy the logical way he has always approached life. First there’s Jasmine, the smart and funny head of the mail room whose natural beauty causes Marcelo to feel butterflies in his stomach for the very first time. Then there’s Wendell, the boss’s son whose slick charm keeps Marcelo constantly guessing at his motives. And finally, there’s the picture of the injured girl Marcelo finds at the bottom of an office trash can. Who is she? And was she hurt by the company that Marcelo’s father is defending? By the end of the summer, Marcelo finds himself made much wiser and sadder in the ways of the real world. But also much more hopeful about his survival in it. While this fresh and unaffected novel will be compared to the ground-breaking Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, it deserves a pedestal all its own for Marcelo’s singular voice and the artfully constructed moral mystery that awakens his awareness of good and evil. The Candide-like Marcelo will leave you viewing your own real world in a whole new light.
There’s only one thing high school senior Liam Geller is good at—screwing up. No matter what he does or says, he just can’t seem to please his uber-strict dad, a controlling CEO who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Unfortunately, metrosexual Liam is his former runway model mother’s son—popular, gorgeous and impulsive, all qualities that his father despises. So when Liam finally screws up one time too many (getting caught drunk on his dad’s desk with a nearly naked girl), he is sent to stay with his gay, glam-rocking, trailer-park-living “Aunt” Pete in upstate New York. Aunt Pete is about as thrilled about the situation as Liam is, and the two strike an uneasy truce: Liam will ignore Aunt Pete’s large collection of animal-print and neon colored spandex pants if Aunt Pete will carve out a corner of the trailer as a make-shift closet for Liam’s select number of carefully chosen designer duds. In an effort to embrace trailer living and get back into his dad’s good graces, Liam resolves to squash all the aspects of his personality that his dad hates and become the biggest nerd the world has ever seen. There’s just one problem—his impeccably good taste and inherently good looks keep getting in the way. Even as a dork, Liam is a complete and utter failure. Will Aunt Pete ever be able to convince Liam that what his dad views as weaknesses are actually strengths? Or will Liam continue to hide his light under the bushel of his dad’s sky-high expectations and unrealistic demands? Liam struggles to see what the reader and Aunt Pete understand right away–he is massively talented, but what he and his father view as “talent” are two totally different things. Not just another “my parents are ruining my life” re-tread, this very funny fish-out-of-water tale is also about discovering what you’re good at and staying true to your personal vision, no matter how outrageous it may seem to others.
In the latest episode of Kenneth Oppel’s Victorian steampunk fantasy, young pilot-in-training Matt Cruse and scientific wunderkind Kate DeVries go back up, up, up into the wild blue yonder, only this time they continue on—into the black maw of space. Since their last adventure in mid-air, Matt has been attending the Airship Academy to get his pilot’s license, while Kate has been busy presenting and promoting her zoological discoveries: the cloud cat and the electrifying aerozoanian. But when they are offered the chance to be members of the crew of the Starclimber, the very first vessel to go into outer space, they drop everything to be a part of the historic event. The project is plagued with problems from the beginning, including terrorist attacks by the Babelites, an underground group that believes Man shouldn’t tread on God’s doorstep, mechanical failure on an astronomical scale once they are aloft, and bizarre alien lifeforms that threaten to destroy their fragile ship. Still, cool-headed Matt has proven he can handle any situation, as long as he is confident of Kate’s love. But when Kate announces that she is to be married to another as soon as they land, Matt is plunged into a depression deeper than the blackest Black Hole. Can Matt and Kate put aside their romantic tensions to save the Starclimber and their fellow space travelers? Or will the ship fall from the sky on her maiden voyage like an astral Titanic, dashing her crews’ hopes and lives and the young lovers’ broken hearts onto the unforgiving ground? Oppel’s ability to write perfectly paced, page-turning prose has not lessened in this third volume of Matt and Kate’s sky-high adventures. I always know I’m in for a treat when I crack open one of Oppel’s books, and so far have never been disappointed. The pseudo-science in this one is especially fun, as Matt and Co. use actual principles of physics and biology to get themselves out of various stellar scrapes. While you can read this astral adventure/romance on it’s own, you’ll probably want to go back and hitch a ride with M &K in Airborn and Skybreaker.
Short and bowlegged with a snub nose, protruding chin and unfortunate tendency towards bad practical jokes, fourteen-year-old Halli Sveinsson is nobody’s idea of a hero. He loves to listen to the ancient tales of all-mighty Svein, the fearless founder of his House who never hesitated to settle a quarrel with cold steel and made the Valley safe by defeating and banishing the man-eating Trows to the windy moors. But that was long ago. Now the different Houses in the Valley settle disagreements by wielding lawsuits, not swords, and peace is maintained at any cost. As the second son of the House of Svein, Halli has little to do but twiddle his stubby thumbs and dream of adventure—until the arrogant Hakonsson family comes to call. Expecting hospitality from the House of Svein, the Hakonssons get food poisoning instead when fun-loving Halli dumps some dung into their ale. Incensed at having been made fools of, the Hakonssons retaliate with murder, an act that sends Halli on an odyssey of revenge. But unlike the warrior heroes of his favorite stories, Halli barely knows which end of a weapon is up and is soon in way over his head trying to bring honor back to his House. By relying on his wits and some unexpected help from the clever Lady Aud, Halli discovers that heroes are made, not born, and just because he doesn’t look the part doesn’t mean he isn’t fit to hold the sword. This is just a rousing, good old-fashioned Norse-flavored adventure tale, complete with an unlikely hero, a blood thirsty villain, a few terrifying monsters and an impossible quest. Author Jonathan Stroud, the hilarious voice of the canny Bartimaeus, inserts loads of his trademark humor here, even as he imparts a serious message about not putting too much stock in hero stories when our own adventures can be just as exciting. I quite enjoyed passing through Stroud’s Valley, and I think you will too!
On Todd’s planet, there is Noise, and nothing but Noise. Infected by the Noise germ since birth, he and all the other males around him are subjected to the unending bedlam of each other’s thoughts. The same virus that caused this mental chaos proved fatal to women, leaving Todd without a mother in a violent village of men, some teetering on the brink of insanity due to the constant Noise. As Todd nears his thirteenth birthday and the secret ceremony that will usher him into their mysterious adult world, he comes across a pocket of blessed silence in the swamps near his home. Astonished, he tries to uncover the meaning of this unnatural quiet. But as Todd delves deeper into the silence, he realizes that its presence heralds a terrible danger to himself and everyone he holds dear. So he embarks on an arduous quest to find the source of the silence, constantly hounded by enemies that can hear his every thought, only to discover that everything he knows about his own origin is a lie. Armed with only a knife and aided by loyal Manchee, the sweetest, stupidest dog known to man (“The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. About anything.”), Todd finally becomes a man when he faces down both an army and his single greatest fear. Though this intense and monstrously entertaining novel is just shy of 500 pages, it flies by at rocket speed. With an excellent sense of pacing and action, author Patrick Ness uses short, cliff-hanging chapters to slowly reveal the ugly truth that forms the basis of Todd’s world. Exquisite world building and well-rendered characterizations round out this stellar sci-fi offering. My only gripe? The abrupt ending, which left Todd in peril and several plot questions still unanswered. Luckily, this is only the first book in a trilogy, but oh, what sweet agony waiting for the next one! Though Knife is available now, you might want to wait until you have Book 2 in hand before starting down the path with Todd and sweetly muddled Manchee.
Fourteen-year-old Loren’s first mistake was torching the golf course. His next was trusting his mom’s slimy golf pro boyfriend when he said they were going “camping.” Instead, Loren’s mom and her vindictive beau end up dropping him off at Camp Ascend!, a run-down boot camp for wayward teens. The golf course fire was the last straw in a long line of military “maneuvers” the Green Beret-obsessed Loren carried out that finally land him in the dubious care of the “Colonel,” a professional scammer who wouldn’t know a Green Beret from a Navy Seal. The Colonel, his uber-high maintenance wife Kitty and her Neanderthal brother Donovan are the camp’s only staff, and their methods of tamping down turbulent teen behavior are less than orthodox. But they’ve never dealt with a kid like Loren, who actually has some knowledge of espionage & guerilla warfare–even if it only comes from movies. Loren proceeds to turn the camp on its ear by kidnapping Kitty, smoke-bombing Donovan, and stealing the Colonel’s Swiss bank account numbers. But Donovan, whose brain really is the size of a bottle cap, finally gets wily Loren under his ape-like paw. And that’s when the fun REALLY starts. This raucous send-up of a Dr. Phil-type teen boot camp special is a clever indictment of the pop psychology media that touts “tough love” as the answer to all teen troubles. At times Donovan’s pea-brained violent behavior is truly terrifying, but Kitty’s vapid obsession with mail-order spa products and Loren’s dumb-luck escapes help lighten the sometimes dark story. This is the perfect book for those of you who always suspected that adults aren’t nearly as smart as they pretend to be!
Brothers Sumo and Duffy are completely confused when they are abruptly yanked out of school one day by a mysterious cousin they’ve never met, Mister Come-and-Go, “the only man in the world to graduate with honors from Cambridge and…go three years undefeated in the International Extreme Street-Fighting Tourney.” When informed by their harried father that Come-and-Go will be taking them for a hastily planned visit to their eccentric, gout-ridden aunt Lulu’s island home of Kocalaha, optimistic Duffy is thrilled while pessimistic Sumo is bummed and more than a little frightened (“Shark attacks!” “Hostile natives!” “Tidal waves!”) Once there, the boys are informed that they will be accompanying Come-and-Go and his crew of native sailors and divers on a dubious “expedition,” presumably for the purpose of leading tourists through the maze of volcanic island paradises. But when Come-and-Go takes the boat straight into the heart of an active volcano, Sumo realizes that the adults aren’t setting a new tourist trap, they’re looking for something–something very valuable and somehow related to his scientist Mom, who is supposedly conducting research in Borneo. Sensing danger greater than that they have already faced, Sumo and Duffy set out on their own to discover the secret of the volcano for themselves. And that’s when the REAL adventure begins…my adolescent friends, I have never seen anything quite like Don Wood’s Into the Volcano. While the art and lettering remind me somewhat of my favorite indi-graphic novel, The Interman
“He’s Mexican because his family’s Mexican, but he’s not really Mexican. His skin is dark like his grandma’s sweet coffee, but his insides are as pale as the cream she mixes in.” Danny Lopez is torn between the private school world of his divorced white mother and the San Diego barrio of his Mexican father’s family. Feeling like he doesn’t fully belong in either, he focuses on his passion for baseball, and improving the erratic pitches that have kept him off the prep school team. When his mother decides to go live with her wealthy white boyfriend in San Francisco, Danny opts instead to spend the summer with his father’s family in San Diego. There he meets Uno, a trash-talking half black, half Hispanic kid, also with a divorced mom. Uno understands Danny’s split background and helps him use his fast pitch to cook up hustles at local ball fields. These two boys have Big League dreams. But they’ll both have to learn to come to terms with their mixed heritages and the confusing roles their absentee dads have played in their lives before they can achieve their goals. Matt de la Pena scores a home run with this richly characterized story of two boys struggling to discover the sort of men they want to be. Full of authentic, raw dialogue liberally peppered with Spanish, de la Pena’s follow-up to his thought provoking first novel Ball Don’t Lie
Height challenged freshman Sherman Mack loves the ladies. Really loves them. “Sometimes I think I might die of girls. Like one will get too close and I’ll just be over.” He blames this benevolent love of all female kind on his young mom, a burlesque dancer who he worries “may be trying to make me gay…my mother is into glitter. This is very damaging for a developing male.” Still, “living with my mother and her dancing and dressing up…has been an education in the ways of womankind.” Because of his “concern for the welfare of all ladies,” the brutal practice of ostracizing certain girls at his high school just because a mysterious “Defiler” posts their picture on all the bathroom mirrors bothers him more than it might the average teenage boy. So when his crush object Dini Trioli looks like she may be in danger of becoming Defiled, Sherman creates Mack Daddy Investigations, his own detective operation, planning to expose the Defiler once and for all. But between trying to spy on suspect lacrosse players and conduct interviews with the smokin’ hot “Trophy Wives,” (the most popular girls at school) Sherman also finds himself falling in love—and not with Dini. Instead, someone much closer is slowly stealing his heart. Can Sherman stay objective long enough to solve the case of the Dastardly Defiler? Or will his predilection for lovely ladies end up blinding his private eye? Susan Juby’s hilarious story of high school hierarchy and the one super nerd who’s determined to stand up for what’s right even if he has to topple Trophy Wives to do it is equal parts Say Anything and The Pink Panther. Sherman’s dialogues with his fellow dorks ring funny and true, as do his exchanges with his quirky mom, who is just a little too frank: “I won’t be here for dinner…We’re practicing some new routines. Adrienne just bought a pole. Lots of fun.” Don’t miss one of the sweetest little sleepers of 2008!
Benjamin and Tom are two entrepreneuring eighteenth-century grifters who need a sympathetic third body to help them tug at potential marks’ heart and purse strings. Enter Ren, a small dirty orphan with only one hand. Grateful to have found a new “family,” Ren agrees to play his part, though his sensitive conscience (well developed at the Catholic orphanage) often pains him. Using Ren’s wan face and prominent disability, the two crooks clean up until they turn their illegal attentions to grave robbing. Caught at the dirty deed, the trio are targeted by a shady local mill owner, who holds an entire small New England town in his tight fist. As they try to escape his murderous intentions, a surprising secret about Ren’s past comes to light, changing, well…everything. This quirky historical yarn, reminiscent of the writing of Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, is full of colorful characters and unexpected twists. Both absorbing and exciting, often absurd and sometimes deeply sad, The Good Thief is a darn good read.
This epic story of a lonely boy, his loyal dog, and his family’s betrayal at the hands of his bitter uncle has haunted me (in a good way) since I read it, and I hope it will resonate with some of you as well. Set in rural 1970’s Wisconsin and employing some of the same elements as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the novel explores the inner life of mute boy Edgar Sawtelle and his family’s amazing fictional breed of near-mind-reading dog, simply called the Sawtelle dogs. (You can’t get one, because they don’t exist, but by the end of the book, you’ll want one!) Edgar’s life raising and training dogs on his family’s farm is idyllic until his father dies suddenly and Edgar suspects his uncle was involved. Determined to bring the man to justice, Edgar makes several crucial decisions that will change the course of his life and the fate of the Sawtelle dogs. Now, just because this buzz book is going to be all the rage in your mother’s book club next year is no reason to dismiss it out of hand. Trust me, underneath all the heaps of praise from frou-frou literary critics, a passionate, frustrated heart of adolescent angst beats at the center of this big book. (And don’t complain about the length, either. You ran right out and bought that monstrously huge Stephanie Meyer book, and didn’t even blink at the number of pages of the last Harry Potter. I just don’t buy that “I don’t read books this long” argument anymore.) So drop by your local library and grab it off the best-seller table or your dad’s desk and have at it. Then come back here and tell me about it…
Seventh grade P.I. Matt Stevens has just been handed his toughest assignment to date: discover who took out Nicole Finnegan, a.k.a. “Nikki Fingers,” the most dangerous middle school squirt gun assassin since Machine Gun Kelly was a lad. Just when Nikki had decided to quit wise-guy Vinnie Biggs’ crime ring of hall pass forgers and Pixy Stix dealers and go straight, she is nailed by a mystery shooter using her past favorite weapon of choice: a giant-sized Super Soaker. At Franklin Middle School, once you’ve been soaked in the crotch with a squirt gun in front of everyone, it’s nowhere but the Outs for you. And as Matt has observed far too many times, once you’re Out, it’s impossible to get back In. Lives are RUINED with a single pump of the Soaker. Now Vinnie Biggs has hired Matt to find out who had the guts to splatter his former favorite shooter. Could it be Kevin Carling, Vinnie’s second-in-command, whose heart was broken by Nikki when she was at the height of her sixth-grade fame? Or maybe it was Joey “the Hyena” Renoni, whose signature high-pitched “hehehe” was heard at the scene of the soaking. What Matt is rapidly discovering is that anyone who knew and loved someone splashed by Nikki Fingers isn’t sorry to see her get her just desserts, and they’re clamming up faster than a bunch of eighth-graders who are on their third warning from the middle school librarian. Will Matt be able to solve the crime and earn the twenty bucks Vinnie is waving under his nose like a Snickers to a starving man? (“Twenty bucks was a lot of money. I mean, there’s stuff I wouldn’t do for twenty bucks, but the list was pretty short.”) Or will Nikki just fade away into the ranks of the Outs, a sad victim of her own squirt gun karma? Newbie author Ferraiolo brings the laughs with this hard-boiled middle school homage to classic detective tales like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. Ferraiolo cleverly mixes Mafioso with middle school in a way that is witty and fresh, while always making sure the bad guys get detention and the good guys get their homework in on time. Like Joey Renoni, I couldn’t stop giggling at the end of every Sam Spade-inspired exchange or turn the pages fast enough to find out whodunit.
“To find Margo Roth Spiegelman, you must become Margo Roth Spiegelman.” High school senior Quentin Jacobsen has suffered unrequited love for alterna-hipster-grrl Margo Roth Spiegelman since the two of them discovered a dead body in the park of their Orlando subdivision when they were nine years old. Q never forgot how Margo seemed more fascinated by than terrified of the dead man, a fact that began to form the basis of his admiration from afar. Though Q trods the Nerd trail during high school while Margo glides down Popular path, when Margo is wronged by an ex-boyfriend, its’ Q she turns to for help in exacting her revenge. After a fun-filled night of creative pranks from the driver’s seat of his mom’s mini-van, Q is looking forward to exploring his new and improved relationship with the one and only Margo Roth Spiegelman. Except, the next day, Margo disappears. And if Q wants to know what it feels like to kiss those lips he’s worshiped from a distance, he’s going to have to follow the series of cryptic clues Margo left behind. But graduation is looming and time is running out. As the trail grows cold, Q wonders if Margo even wants to be found. And then his thoughts wander to an even darker place: was the best night of his life the last time he would ever see Margo Roth Spiegelman alive? John Green scores again with his own particular brand of smarty-McSmart adolescent-angst awesomeness. His intricate, intimate portraits of intellectual band geeks, gamers and fringe kids are so refreshing in a teen lit. world drowning in the superficial sea of Gossip Girl and her ilk. Plus, he just makes me laugh out loud with descriptions like this: “Those of us who frequent the band room have long suspected that Becca maintains her lovely figure by eating nothing but the souls of kittens and the dreams of impoverished children.” Margo comments that the planning is often more fun than the actual doing, and while I would agree that the end of Q’s crazy quest left me wanting more, I wouldn’t have traded the journey for anything!
Fourteen-year-old Henry lives in a classic, been-in-the-family-for-generations Massachusetts house with his perfect mom, dad, sister, and uber-perfect older brother, Franklin. Henry’s life is, in a word, perfect. But while PERFECT is all very well and good, the one thing it doesn’t prepare you for is TROUBLE. One cold spring day, on Henry’s birthday no less, Franklin is struck by a car while out running and falls into a coma. The driver is a Cambodian classmate named Chay Chouan, and the accident serves as fuel to an already smoldering racist fire between the old New England families in Henry’s town and the immigrant Cambodian families who have begun to settle there. Bricks are thrown, harsh words are said, and Henry’s perfect world is turned upside down. His father never leaves the house, his mother barely speaks, and his sister refuses to set foot outside her bedroom. The only thing Henry knows will make him feel better is to make a pilgrimage to Mount Katahdin in Maine, a hiking trip he had planned with his brother. Henry does eventually make that climb. But how he ends up doing it with Chay and a wonderful canine character simply named “Black Dog,” by his side is a powerful, subtle story of ultimate sacrifices, surprising secrets, and hard-won forgiveness. By book’s end, Henry has painfully learned that perfection comes at a price, and trouble can lead to truth. Penned by the author of one of my top ten favorite books of 2007, this smart, literary character study/mystery is a book worth lingering over and quoting from. Whatever you do, don’t let the humdrum earth-tone cover dissuade you from digging into the crackin’ good story underneath.
Meet Nobody Owens. He hasn’t had a haircut in well, ever, his usual uniform is a gray winding sheet, and his best friends are a vampire named Silas and a long-dead girl named Liza. That’s because Nobody (or Bod for short) has been raised in graveyard with ghosts (Mr. and Mrs. Owens, to be specific) for parents and tombstones for playthings. When Bod was a toddler, an assassin known only as Jack crept into his house and murdered his entire family. While the monster was at his diabolical work, Bod quietly wandered out of his room and into the nearby graveyard. He was discovered by the Owenses, who decided to raise him themselves with the help of Silas, who could move about in human society and and secure food for the child. As Bod grows, he learns many useful things from his adopted family, like how to Fade, Dreamwalk, and make Fear, all the while knowing that the man who killed his family is still out there—and eventually he will have to face him. While the creepy quotient is not quite as high as Gaiman’s insta-classic Coraline, The Graveyard Book has a certain Burton-esque Nightmare Before Christmas quality that gives it an all-ages appeal. Both frightening and funny (and sometimes frighteningly funny) this latest supernatural goody from Master of Magic Gaiman is hopefully haunting a library or bookstore near you.
In a San Francisco of the near future, seventeen-year-old Marcus Yallow is a master hacker with a monster grudge. When the San Fran Bay Bridge is blown to smithereens by terrorists, Marcus and three of his best friends are hauled away as suspects by the Department of Homeland Security. They are interrogated, beaten, and denied food—FOR DAYS–just for being in the vicinity of the blast. After finally convincing his captors he knows nothing about the bombs, Marcus is released after signing documents swearing he’ll tell no one about his terrifying experience. He goes home to parents who are so happy that he’s alive that they buy his story of being quarantined due to possible exposure to biological toxins. But the world is not the way he left it. His beloved hometown has turned into a place where 24/7 surveillance is the name of the game. Law-abiding citizens are routinely shaken down if they deviate from their usual patterns by one iota. The DHS treats everyone like a potential terrorist threat. But Marcus refuses to accept the new police state and instead hatches a radical plan to jam the government’s circuits and return power to the people once and for all! How he manages to pull that off is the basis for this amazing sci-fi novel by tech-blogger Cory Doctorow. Clearly influenced by the events of September 11, 2001, stories from Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act and George Orwell’s classic 1984, Doctorow gives us a frighteningly contemporary glimpse at how easily the government can take away our civil liberties under the guise of keeping us “safe.” Totally timely and full of fascinating techno-talk that even the Google-challenged can understand, Little Brother is a fast-paced, thought-provoking read that will leave you searching for your own way to “jam” the Man! Want to know how Marcus does some of his techno-tricks? Check out Doctorow’s LB blog or connect with him on MySpace or Facebook.
In a fictional island kingdom off the Irish coast in the 1880’s, young Conor Broekhart leads a charmed life. As the beloved son of the head of King Nicholas’s sharpshooters, Conor is treated like royalty himself. He plays and plots with Princess Isabella, and learns self-defense and aeronautical design at the knee of the king’s best friend and Parisian scientist Victor Vigny. Together, they dream of creating the first heavier-than-air flying machine that will catapult man into the heavens. But all those dreams come to an abrupt end the day teenage Conor accidentally witnesses the double murder of his king and his adored tutor. Framed for the murders by the traitorous commander of the king’s army, Hugo Bonvilain, Conor is condemned to rot in an inescapable prison while his parents and Isabella are led to believe he is dead. At first, Conor wishes that were the case. But slowly, his resolve to escape grows until he fashions an outrageous plan that will either win his freedom or take his life. It is impossible to dig or swim your way off the prison island of Little Saltee. But if Conor’s plan works, he’ll just take to the air and fly…this historically flavored fantasy is pure white-knuckled pleasure from start to finish. Full swash-buckling swordplay, dizzying rescues from great heights and breathtaking escapes, Airman takes off quickly and lands with a satisfying thump. If you enjoy the adventures of Alex Rider, Matt Cruse, or even the clever machinations of Andy Dufresne, the brilliant hero of Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption, then you’re going to want to book a flight with Conor Broekhart.
Seventeen-year-old Luke is a self-described loser skate punk who begins to ponder the meaning of life after he correctly predicts the day, time, and method of his best friend’s untimely demise. Hailed as “the prophet of death” by the media and hounded by the local minister to come to Jesus, Luke nearly self-destructs under the intense public scrutiny. Until he finally figures out what it is he wants to live for–his dead friend’s girl. Can Luke handle both the guilt of loving dead Stan’s gorgeous girl Faith and the feeling (if not the seeing) of dead people who keep passing through his nerve endings on their way out? This outrageous, day-in-the-life chronicle of a basement-dwelling, pot-smoking burn-out turned modern day mystic manages to be philosophical, sad, and uplifting all at once. It powerfully reminded me of one of my all time fav teenage male manifestos, Rule of the Bone. Take a walk on the Other Side with Joanne Proulx’s semi-supernatural debut.
Jose is small, fast, and knows how to use his impressive six-pack to charm the neighborhood shorties into giving him more than the time of day. Ray is big, slow-moving (but not slow-thinking) and can usually ONLY get the shorties to give him the time, nothing more. These two best friends, complete opposites but brothers in every way but blood, found each other after they were lost in the NYC foster care system. Now, far from the dubious care of over-scheduled social workers and grim foster parents, Jose and Ray have formed their own family off of Ten Mile Park, past 145th Street in Harlem. There, they share a vacant station house with a pack of abandoned pit bulls and enjoy all the comforts of a real home, courtesy of a streetlight feed that powers their stolen appliances. But when Ray meets Trini, she of the dreamy black eyes and warm laugh, Ray and Jose’s relationship shifts from a comfortable twosome to an uneasy threesome. Trini makes Ray want to do something more with his life than commit petty crimes for pocket change. But how do you tell your best friend that you’ve outgrown him? And were do you find the tools to survive in the straight world when all you know is the street? This gritty debut novel by newbie author Paul Griffin reminded me of my favorite book by E.R. Frank. If you like her work, or that of Coe Booth, you’re definitely going to want to take a sail down Ten Mile.
In the early 1980’s, long before cell phones and iPods arrived on the scene, Jack, his friend Eddie, and Eddie’s sister Weezy spend most of their time either playing Pole Position on Atari, or biking through the spooky Pine Barrens that border their suburban New Jersey neighborhood. One hot summer day as they are exploring the Barrens, the trio come upon what looks like an ancient burial mound. Poking around in search of treasure, they are rewarded instead with the discovery of a far more recent (although still pretty decomposed and gross) body and a mysterious black box, covered with cryptic symbols that will only open for Jack, much to Weezy’s vast disappointment. Turns out the body is a ex-member of the town’s oldest and most exclusive society: The Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order. And he wasn’t just murdered, he was carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey! Soon after Jack and Co. report what they have found, other members of the Order begin to bite it, one after another. What’s going on here? Is there a serial killer on the loose? If so, why is he only targeting Order members? The answer may lie in the secrets of the black box, but until they can figure out what the symbols mean, they’re stumped. So Jack, using only his Hardy Boy-like powers of deduction and trusty bike, starts poking around in all the wrong places. Will Jack discover who the murderer is before he becomes the killer’s next victim? This highly entertaining mystery is the little brother of the adult published Repairman Jack series. But you don’t have to have read the original books to enjoy the heck out of this one. Even though F. Paul Wilson spends a little too much time explaining to readers that they are in 1983, it’s great fun watching amateur sleuths solve mysteries without the help of Google or past episodes of C.S.I. Why, it’s almost like Nancy Drew! Or Scooby Doo and the gang riding around in the Mystery Machine! (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here.)
Uber-nerd Denis Cooverman (aka “The Coove,” as dubbed by his equally dweeby and possibly closeted best friend, Rich) decides to go for broke in his valedictorian speech and declare his love for head cheerleader Beth Cooper for all to hear. Unfortunately, “all” includes her huge military boyfriend, Kevin, who drives a Hummer and wouldn’t mind driving it over Denis after learning of his latent love for Beth. Even though perpetually sweaty Denis does manage to entice the intrigued Beth over to his house for a little “fat-free sourdough Gorgonzola pretzel dip” and then on to Queen Mean Girl Valli Woolly’s parent-free graduation party, they are dogged by Kevin and his squad of muscle-bound goons every step of the way. Will Denis ever get Beth alone long enough to figure out of they are meant-to-be, or just meant-to-be-friends? This Say Anything send-up is so freakin’ funny that I pretty much giggled my way through each page. Each chapter starts with a quote from some teen movie, (which is a party game in and of itself to try and figure out which movie is being referenced) along with a cartoon image of Denis, showing his increasing anxiety and worsening facial contusions as he continues to collect punches from Kevin and Co. each time they make a pit stop in Beth’s Cabriolet convertible. There were so many priceless moments of almost peeing my pants in this naughty teen sex dramedy that if I started listing them, I’d never stop. I’ll leave it at this: If you heart Superbad, then you are going to be McLovin’ I Love You, Beth Cooper.
Tyrell’s life is in the trash—literally. Everything he owns fits in two black garbage bags. His dad’s doing time, his moms makes endless excuses about why she can’t get a job, and he and his little brother are living in one of the rattiest, roachiest family shelters around. But even though he’s down, don’t count Tyrell out. He’s still got his girlfriend Novisha on his side, and if he can only get ahold of his dad’s DJ equipment, he just might be able to throw down the party of the century, and make enough dough to get outta the shelter and back into the projects. Will Tyrell make it? Only God knows, but He sure ain’t been doing Tyrell any favors lately, so the only person Tyrell can count on is himself. Coe Booth’s debut novel for older teens reminds me of the work of my fav author E.R. Frank. (Both Booth and Frank are social workers who have worked with at risk teens) Tyrell is so real you won’t be able to believe he’s fiction. And his desire to do good in the face of overwhelming odds cuts through the tired stereotype of the fast-talking street thug who’s just trying to get over. Walk a few blocks of the Bronx in Tyrell’s kicks, and see what it’s really like living on the streets.
Eighteen-year-old New Yorker James Sveck is happiest by himself. “People, at least in my experience, rarely say anything interesting to each other. They always talk about their lives and they don’t have very interesting lives. So I get impatient.” So now it’s his last summer before college, and James isn’t even sure he WANTS to go to college. He may just chuck it all and use his tuition money to buy a house in Kansas where he can be completely and utterly ALONE. But his divorced parents, worried about his strange love for the Mid-West and the fact that he may be gay (even though it supposedly “wouldn’t bother them one bit!”) send him to a shrink to in order to clear up his issues and go off to Brown like a good boy. Though James is skeptical about therapy at first, Dr. Adler manages to get him talking about all the things he never thought he’d share—his disastrous school trip to Washington D.C., his unacknowledged attraction to his mother’s sophisticated male gallery employee, and what he might have seen from the windows of his downtown Manhattan high school on 9/11. Suddenly, James realizes he is completely and utterly SAD, and has been for a long time. What he decides to do in order to change his depressed status forms the basis of this neurotic, funny, Woody-Allen-film of a YA novel. Its’ twin sister in the world of YA lit. is Garret Freymann-Weyr’s brilliant My Heartbeat
“Love and hate in seventh grade are not far apart, let me tell you.” In 1967 on Long Island, NY, Holling Hoodhood’s English teacher, Mrs. Baker, hates him about as much as she loves William Shakespeare. How does he know? Because every Wednesday afternoon, when half his class leaves for catechism lessons and half leave for Hebrew school, Holling, the only Presbyterian, is left alone with Mrs. Baker…and Shakespeare. When Mrs. Baker first proposes that they read and study the Bard’s plays together, Holling is less than thrilled. But that’s before he discovers Caliban’s curses in The Tempest, or how to use lines from Romeo and Juliet to woo the fair Meryl Lee. Suddenly, Shakespeare doesn’t seem so stupid anymore. In fact, the long dead playwright’s words help Holling in all sorts of situations: facing a bullying neighbor, speaking up to his overbearing father, and winning a coveted place as the only seventh grader on the school’s new cross country team. And even though it’s harder to find comfort in plays while the Vietnam War rages on and Martin Luther King is assassinated, Mrs. Baker shows Holling that what Shakespeare wrote about wars and kings is just as relevant in 1967 as it was in 1587. Schmidt’s warm, solid autobiographical read is getting mad love from teachers and librarians because even though she’s prickly, Mrs. Baker is smart and cool (like we like to think we are) and well, it’s about the power of SHAKESPEARE! But don’t worry, Schmidt filled his story with lots of funny, subversive stuff for teens too–think Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story. Take a look at this one yourself and see if you agree that its a book that both a teacher AND a student could love.
On the surface, seventh graders Kirsten and Walk couldn’t be more different. Kirsten is an overweight secret eater who hides her unhappiness over her parents’ constant fighting behind mountains of candy bars and bags of potato chips. Walk is a smart loner trying to make it as one of the only black students in Kirsten’s mostly white private school. But they become unexpected friends when Walk stands up for Kirsten when she is falsely accused of stealing a teacher’s wallet. When they each begin to talk about their new friendship at home, their families become suspicious, and neither Kirsten nor Walk can understand why. Is it because Kirsten is white and Walk is black? While that seems to be the rationale at first, there is another reason their parents don’t want them to become friends, a secret that will shake the growing tree of their relationship to its very roots when they find out. What looks like a benign school story from its innocent, colorful cover is actually a pretty deep read that will challenge the way you think about race and economic class, and help you understand that even though they often try to convince you otherwise, adults mess up too. And if you haven’t read her stuff before, you’ll definitely want to go back and check out Choldenko’s hip historical fiction, Al Capone Does My Shirts.
When it came to his life, Sam was pretty easy going–like his idol, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk. Basically, he intended to skate (as in board, not roller) his way through high school, get into a good college and make his single mum (who had him when she was a teen and therefore never got to go to college herself) proud. That was the plan anyway. Until he got slammed. But this wasn’t like all the other times he took a tumble off his board. This time it felt like, “The wheels had come off the trucks, the trucks had come off the deck, and I’d shot twenty feet into the air and gone straight into a brick wall…and there wasn’t even a mark on me.” That’s because Sam’s been slammed with the hard fact that his ex-girlfriend Alicia is pregnant. And no matter how much he’s like to run away (and does briefly, in a comic sequence that literally defines the phrase “in denial”) Sam knows he has to do the right thing. But when one of your main coping stategies is to ask your poster of Tony Hawk for advice, you know you aren’t ready for fatherhood. Sam couldn’t be more unprepared. But life isn’t about to wait around for him to catch up. Since one of my Top Ten Books of All Time is his slacker masterpiece High Fidelity, I couldn’t be more pleased to see that Nick Hornby has finally turned his attention to the teen peeps. Though his subject is serious, Hornby writes with a light and humorous touch that will have you laughing even as you feel for the poor guy. Like when Sam is actually confronted with the reality of birth: “Would Alicia make those noises? Could I ask her not to?” and “I’m still not sure what the cervix is. It doesn’t seem to come up in normal life.” If you enjoyed Judd Apatow’s riotously funny summer flick Knocked Up, you’re gonna love Hornby’s Slam. Though each writer approaches the topic of unplanned pregnancy in his own unique way, both stories share the same great sense of humor.
P.S. If you’d rather cry than laugh when it comes to baby drama, check out Hanging on to Max by Margaret Bechard instead.
There’s nothing I like better than a good survival story, and debut author Watt Key has penned a fantastic one! It’s 1980, and Moon Blake has never been to school, had a sleepover, or eaten at McDonald’s. That’s because his Pap, a disgruntled Vietnam vet who distrusts the government, has raised him entirely in the deep woods, far from any cities or people. Moon knows how to shoot and skin a deer, and how to make an impromptu shelter out of bay boughs and pine needles, but has no clue how to make small talk or interact with anyone other than his Pap. So when Pap has an accident and subsequently dies, unsuspecting Moon is left to his own devices, and is quickly taken into custody by the state. However, he surprises everyone when he not only busts out of the toughest boys’ home in Alabama, but takes a busload of boys with him, determined to live free or die trying! Alabama Moon is both a deep-hearted adventure story and an amazing character study of a unusual boy you will soon come to root for. This book was brought to my attention by the teens at the 2007 BBYA Teen session at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., who all had good things to say about it. So thanks, guys! I loved it!
Sixteen-year-old New Yorker Max Whooten is angry and bored. (He’s mostly angry because he’s so bored, and people are so stupid. I can sympathize.) His whole summer is one big nothing, until his ancient cat, Mozart (aka “Crappy” due to his inability to utilize the litter box) finally kicks the bucket. Max’s mother, in a fit of conservationism, decides to forgo the usual options and instead sends Max, along with Mozart’s body, to upstate New York, where Mozart can be naturally laid to rest in his hippie Aunt Ginny’s backyard, and Max can learn how to get a life and get his anger under control. In Woodstock, Max discovers Kurt Vonnegut, first love, and the power of poetry. He even has an epiphany, which, despite popular belief, “doesn’t hurt at all.” This slim summer comedy reminded me of Blake Nelson’s equally spare The New Rules of High School
“Once I was a boy who became a man. Then I was a man who became a head.” Frank Marder had one too many, and still tried to drive his date home. Riding high on five beers and his girlfriend’s laughter, he hit a tree. His girlfriend Meredith was killed. A pedestrian unlucky enough to be between Frank’s car and the tree was killed. But Frank was not. Instead, Frank, broke his neck in the crash and will live the rest of his life as a quadriplegic, or as Frank likes to say, “a head.” Without the use of his arms and legs, Frank faces endless days full of his mother’s worrying, his father’s blustering and his own gnawing guilt. He tortures himself by reading an internet site set up just to debate whether or not he should have gone to prison for his crime, and constantly wonders, is life worth living if you’re just a head? “If you can’t have, can you still want?” The answer is yes, and Frank learns that life as a head still has meaning–especially when the last person he ever expected offers him the forgiveness he needs to move on. First time novelist Sarah Aronson’s take on a situation that most people would consider nightmarish manages to not only be hopeful, but also full of humor and the strength of the human spirit. Pair this one with Cynthia Voigt’s Izzy, Willy-Nilly
Capricorn “Cap” Anderson isn’t just working the retro-hippie vibe, he IS the genuine, tie-dyed article. Homeschooled by his grandmother Rain, he’s grown up on a commune where the most exciting event in his week is going into town to pick up more tofu and duct tape. But when Rain breaks her hip and must go into the hospital, Cap is forced to live in the suburbs with a social worker and attend the local middle school. Though he is disturbed by all the noise and confusion, Cap is able to meet the new challenge with his usual Buddhist calm, practicing tai chi during lunch, and leading Beatles singalongs in the music room. But what happens when the most popular guy at school decides to set Cap up as the mock eighth grade president? Suddenly Cap is being peppered with questions about the annual Halloween dance and whether or not he intends to press the issue of getting all the water fountains converted to Gatorade. Utterly confused by the bizarre behavior of his peers (and not even quite sure how he came to be president) can this homeschooled zero turn the tables and become a middle school hero? Gordon Korman, author of Born to Rock and Son of the Mob
If you saw someone die right in front of you, what would you do? Run? Scream? Pull out your cell and dial 911? Or would you go home and pray no one ever found out you were there? The terrified narrator of Paranoid Park does exactly that—see, he wasn’t supposed to be hanging out at the notorious skate park, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to be hopping trains and joy-riding into the old freight yards. But he was and he did. So he was there when the freight yard security guard who tried to chase him tripped and fell under the deadly wheels of the train. Our boy takes one look and runs for the hills. Now he is consumed with fear and guilt. Did anyone see him? Will he be blamed for the man’s death? Has he ruined his life forever? As you read the choices the unnamed narrator makes, you can’t help but put yourself in his shoes: what would YOU do? Loosely based on the Russian classic Crime and Punishment, this white-knuckle nailbiter was an especially popular title with the 8th grade boys at my school this year. And don’t miss Paranoid Park: the movie, directed by Gus Van Sant, out in spring ‘08.
Forget bad day, Logan’s having a bad year. It all started when he saw something at his best friend Zyler’s house. What he saw was so terrifying that he couldn’t do anything but run. Now Zyler’s gone, and Logan has moved, but the memory of that night still makes his head ache and his stomach churn. What’s worse is that rumors of what happened that night have spread everywhere–even the kids at Logan’s new school have heard about it. Hardly anyone will even speak to him, and the guys in his Scout troop call him a pervert or worse. Only Logan knows the truth about what really happened that night. But it will take a therapist’s patient questions, the kindness of a girl named Laurel who loves palindromes and the safety of becoming someone else in the school play that will finally allow Logan to stand up and say to himself and everyone else, “This is what I did.” Powerful beyond words, this debut novel from Ann Dee Ellis reminded me of the equally amazing Perks of Being a Wallflower. Part screenplay and part verse novel, this compelling read will keep you turning pages to find out the secret of Logan’s private pain and the steps he takes to heal.
The only thing fifteen year old Will has in common with his brother Denny is a small scar that they each have on their hand from an ill-fated attempt when they were little to liberate their father’s penknife from his dresser. Other than that, they are completely different. Will is a practiced roper and rider on his father’s ranch in Colorado and his most fervent wish is to become a professional rodeo cowboy. Denny likes to ride, but if left alone, would prefer to daydream over an anthill all day. Will’s thoughts are as quick and sharp as the falcons that circle the endless skies over the ranch, while Denny’s are hampered by his Down’s Syndrome. All his life, Will has had to watch over Denny and keep him safe. Now, he has a chance to compete in his first rodeo and start a new life as a professional cowboy, free of Denny forever…But after all this time, can he really stand to leave his only brother behind? But after all this time, can he really stand to leave Denny behind? And will Denny, strong-willed in his own right, allow Will to leave? This unusual historical fiction, set in 1925, is a great guy story about the meaning of brotherhood and family. But don’t let the warm and fuzzy sentiment fool you—Nuzem packs plenty of action in this slim novel, including an electrifying rattlesnake showdown, a flash flood, and of course, plenty of rodeo bucking and slamming.
Sixteen-year-old Iggy wants to do something great with his life, he just doesn’t have the tools. His parents are drug addicts, his apartment building is a den of down-and-outers and his only friend is a pseudo-hippie, law school dropout named Mo. But when Mo mentions getting some money off his wealthy, too-nice mom, Iggy sees his chance to turn his life around. He just knows that if Mo’s mom comes through he will be able to make his own mom come home, get his act together at school, and rescue that sad, gray girl he saw sitting all alone at a party. What Iggy doesn’t know yet is that by just being himself, he is going to do something great for Mo and his mom, something that will allow him to make the kind of sacrifice usually reserved for saints…sad, poignant, and powerful, Saint Iggy will leave you thinking about the ways you can help make the lives of the people around you a little better.
Why can’t Nick Park score? Is it because he’s just too desperate around the female objects of his desire, and has been since he discovered Playboy in third grade? Is it because he lives on uncool Summit Road while all the popular kids live up in the tony suburb of Renfield Hills? Is it because he lacks the He-Man pectorals of his fellow varsity soccer players no matter how many push-ups he does? (I mean, GOD, he’s up to 50!) Or could it be that everyone thinks he is a “whitewashed Banana”—white on the inside and yellow (Korean) on the outside? Nick’s secret fear is that his very Korean-ness in the lily white suburb of Renfield Connecticut is what’s keeping him from realizing his dream of getting past third base with a girl - ANY girl. Deeply funny and painfully realistic, David Yoo’s novel does what Melvin Burgess’s flashy Doing It fell short of—gives readers the true inner life of an adolescent boy, warts and all. It isn’t pretty, and it isn’t at all comfortable, but man oh man, is it compulsively readable. A+++!
In clearly the best debut of 2005 so far, a pissed off teenage midget named Arty screws with his bullying fraternal twin’s mind by hiring a skinhead named Kerouac to come up with a prank so diabolical, it will set their entire school on a mad goose chase for a giant, concrete….turtle. Weird? Yes. Bizarre? Heck ya! One of the most original coming of age stories I’ve ever read? Abso-frickin’-lutely. If you’re into David Sedaris or like-minded writers who pull no punches when dealing with the absurdity of life, you simply cannot afford to miss Funny Little Monkey.
Miles is looking for the “Great Perhaps,” and he knows he’s not going to find it in any of the ordinary places. So he’s off to boarding school, where he will be free to reinvent himself and shed his safe (read, “boring”) image. Once ensconced at Culver Creek, he is befriended by the Colonel, a Culver Creek veteran who shows him the ropes, and the unbelievably sexy Alaska, who’s husky voice and gorgeous face keep him up at night. Miles finally learns what it is like to belong, as he is adopted into Alaska’s inner circle and nicknamed “Pudge,” (because he is so skinny) The novel starts each chapter with a countdown that is marching towards what? Miles’ discovery of his “great perhaps”? He and Alaska’s first kiss? Or something deeper, more sinister? As Alaska’s self destructive behavior is demonstrated over and over, readers will begin to fear not only for her, but also for the fragile Miles. Head over heels for the first time in his life, what will Miles do if something happens to Alaska? Is this your typical coming of age novel? Yes, but in many ways it is so much more. If you’re tired of the same old “life lesson learned” YA novel, try Looking for Alaska. I promise you’ll find something different and better within these pages.
During the late 70’s and early 80’s, Jacob Green comes of age in a Jewish family where his narcissistic father Abram rules supreme. There is no getting around his father’s demand for perfection in all things, so Jacob just tries to hide his worsening learning disability from Abram’s prying eyes. He lives a vicarious life through his older brother, Asher, who never shrinks from confronting their father, and often belittles the one thing Abram reveres most–their Jewish religion. Jacob also escapes by having “unthinkable thoughts”–fantasies about his hippie babysitter and what he wishes he could REALLY write on his bar mitzvah thank you cards. But when Jacob’s mother Claire leaves Abram for another man, the shaky family finally falls apart and Jacob is left to pick up the pieces of his father’s shattered ego. You may have noticed that the author shares a last name with a certain brilliant actor/writer who penned the incredibly cool “Garden State” screenplay. You go on with your bad selves, burgeoning literary genius Braff brothers!!
Fifteen Luther Farrell wants a lot of things: to win the state wide science fair, to ask out Shayla Patrick, the secret love of his life, to save up enough money that he can someday blow out of the depressed factory town of Flint, Michigan and never look back. There’s only one thing standing in the way of all these dreams. Luther’s tight-fisted, tough-talking mother, the Sarge. The Sarge needs Luther too much to let him waste his time with a girlfriend or leave her after graduation. Otherwise, who will help her run her evil empire of illegal housing projects and shady half way houses? But when Luther learns that the Sarge never intended to give him the money she claimed to be saving for his college education, he hatches an ingenious plan to hit her where it will hurt her most–in the wallet. At turns funny and achingly sad, this is Christopher Paul Curtis’s most edgy novel to date. Taking a risk with both audience and fan base, the author dared to take the image of the self-sacrificing single African American mother and literally turn it on its head, with great success. Fans of former CPC novels be warned, this is no Watsons Go to Birmingham. So don’t go reading it aloud to your little brother or sister!
Edwin Hanratty and his only friend, Flake, are two marginalized 8th graders who spend their miserably long days at school dodging the twin bullets of bullying jocks and sarcastic teachers. Edwin, who worries chronically about getting his locker open, spends many sleepless nights reminiscing about his childhood, when he felt connected to his parents and school was a place he enjoyed going. As Flake’s unstable temper grows shorter, he begins to convince Edwin that the only way to solve their problems is to kill themselves with his father’s guns and take as many people as they can with them. Edwin loves his parents and little brother Gus, but can’t see his future ever being anything but wretched. But when the moment of truth comes, and the gun is in his hands, Edwin is surprised and humiliated by his own extreme reaction…This is one for parents and teens to read together, to start discussions that help us avoid another Columbine. There’s powerful stuff between these pages–don’t be fooled by the short length. It really packs an emotional wallop.
Colt Trammel is masquerading as a dumb jock. He plays a mean game of baseball, which is what most of school career is riding on, since his grades are nothing to write home about. However, Colt’s first-person narrative reveals a sharp wit underneath his coarse exterior, and a painful self-knowledge of how stupid he appears to others. But the whole school scene is nothing compared to dealing with the women in his life. There’s his gorgeous girlfriend Grace who refuses to give him any real play; green-haired Corinne who is the first person to ever stand up to his wisecracks and see beneath his carefully constructed surface; and finally quiet Dory, with a rep. as the school slut, who would give him what Grace won’t, even though Colt knows he shouldn’t take it. Not much happens plot-wise in this book, but it is one of the best character-driven novels I have ever read, and gives great insight into the mind of a guy. Teenaged males, do you agree? Leave a comment if you think Jenkins has nailed the male high school persona.
In a few memorable days, Chuy makes it a point to fulfill all the dreams he’s ever had as a 17 year old chico growing up in the barrios of Fresno, California. He asks out a beautiful girl, gets great seats to a Raiders game, and tells his mother how much he really loves her. Why is Chuy doing all this now, when he never had the courage to do it before? Because on page 2 of Soto’s daring novel, Chuy is knifed to death on the dirty bathroom floor of a club, and as his spirit begins to float away, Chuy decides to make the most of his quickly dissolving Afterlife. A sort of Lovely Bones for guys (and the girls who love them)
Christopher Boone’s life is full of rules. Rule #1: No touching. Rule # 2: No lying. Rule #3: 5 red cars in a row on the way to school=Super Good Day. Rule #4: 4 yellow cars in a row on the way to school=Black Day. Rule #5: Nobody goes to heaven when they die because there is no heaven, only the universe, and so on and so forth. Christopher’s rules make sense to him because he has a mental illness called autism. Because of his illness, he feels very little emotion, and needs strictly enforced routines and patterns to make himself feel safe. When he discovers his neighbor’s dog dead on her lawn in the middle of the night during one of his nighttime rambles, he is frightened (because it doesn’t conform to his rules and routines) but also intrigued (because it seems like the beginnings of a good mystery; who killed the dog? and why?). As Christopher begins to conduct an amateur investigation into the dog’s mysterious death, he uncovers not only who was behind this brutal neighborhood crime, but also some deep and uncomfortable truths about himself and his family. Christopher’s voice is utterly unique, and I have found this original, brilliant book impossible to forget. I think you will, too.
Boobie is a teenage pyromaniac who has killed his parents and kidnapped his baby brother with the intention of selling him to the highest bidder. Custis is an orphan who, for most of his wretched life, has been the sexual slave of middle-aged pedophile. Curl is a teenaged prostitute who has a dangerous crush on Boobie. These three miserable outcasts have formed a tenuous bond and are all on the run for Boobie’s murder. The heartbreaking struggles they experience together as a sort of nightmarish family unit will leave two of them dead, and only one left to learn what real love and trust feel like through the kindness of an elderly black man named Seldom, and his chicken Deuce. This is a hard, hard book to read. It is disturbing and graphic and strange and sad. Snowfish contains great rewards for those who can handle its horrific descriptions, but go easy on yourself if you think this sounds like something you’re not ready for yet. I’m 30-something, and I wasn’t ready for how truly sad this book is. Read this one cautiously, maybe even with a friend or parent, so you can help each other understand the terrible beauty of this story.
Just as Nick is getting confident that he can handle the straight and narrow life, ghosts from his old life as rich, upper east side Manhattan punk graffiti artist start beckoning him back with a spray can and a smile. Almost against his will, he’s getting drawn back into the gang life when he tries to help out the mixed-up little brother of his best friend and secret crush, Kris. Now he’s found himself in the middle of a turf war, when all he wanted to do was to see how close he could get to Kris before she pushed him away–again. Can Nick save himself a second time, and make Kris see how much he really cares about her? It feels like author Jake Coburn is channeling the voice of Ponyboy, the amazing narrator of S.E.Hinton’s classic The Outsiders, and giving that voice an urban spit and polish through Nick. This is an authentic and strongly felt first novel.
Percy Montmount is the ultimate loner. Ever since his dad, an anthropologist, died on the Congo three years ago from a tsetse fly bite, Percy’s been acting a little strange–not like he was Mr. Popularity before, but stranger than usual. He’s started keeping an extensive field journal of his observations of that exotic group known as Grade Twelve. He has identified several different strains of that larger group, including the Lipstick/Hairspray tribe, the Logo tribe, and the Madonna Cult. All this observation leaves very little time for actual human interaction, but Percy doesn’t mind. As long as he’s writing, he doesn’t have to think about his dad’s death, his mom’s weird hippie habits, or his best friend’s suicide that resulted from an unrequited love with a member of the Lipstick/Hairspray tribe. But then, Graduation, that huge Rite of Passage, approaches, and with it, a secret about Percy’s family that could be just what Percy needs to shock him out of observation mode and back into the real world.(and I don’t mean the TV show)
America started out in this world with a lotta strikes against him. Born to a drug-addicted mother and shuffled through foster home after foster home, America has been molested, abandoned and broken too many times to count. Now, after a botched suicide attempt, he has ended up in the office of Dr. B, a caring psychiatrist who has decided to help America no matter what, despite his potty mouth and huge attitude. Rock-star YA author Frank (who is my all-time fav., check out my rave for her first book on the Short Cuts list) avoids the notorious sophomore slump and scores another hit record with her awesome follow-up to Life is Funny. America is a smart, scared teen whose heart of gold can be glimpsed periodically under his nasty exterior. And Frank can write in both a convincing kid and teen voice. My favorite part of this book is when America is forced to go and visit his crack-head mom and she leaves him and his two half brothers (all under the age of eight) alone for days and America, in a confused, little boy way, keeps writing his foster mom’s phone number over and over on any surface he can reach, because he doesn’t want to forget it since there’s no working phone in the apartment. Both heartbreaking and amazing, America is so moving that Rosie O’Donnell has already bought the film rights. Which means America could be coming soon to a theatre near YOU! Keep your peepers peeled for it!
Just some good, James-Bond-ian fun, Point Blank is an exciting, thrill ride of a spy story, that grabs you from the first line of the first chapter, and rockets you all the way to the end. Alex Rider is a 14 year old spy who works for MI6, England’s version of the CIA. His latest assignment is to check out what’s going on behind the scenes of the posh, ultra-exclusive French boy’s boarding school, Point Blanc. Outfitted with all kinds of cool spy toys (including a single gold stud he wears in his ear that, if pulled out, becomes a tiny bomb that detonates into a big explosion!) Alex discovers that the evil, red-glasses wearing headmaster and his goony female assistant (who is built like WWF’s former Chyna, but has the face of a bulldog) are using the school in the remote French Alps as a cover-up for a much nastier, diabolical plot to take over the free world!! Evil clones, secret passageways and heart-stopping snowmobile chases are just a few of the close encounters Alex has as he searches for the truth hidden in the walls of Point Blanc. And the ending is a kick-ass cliff hanger that can only be answered in a follow-up sequel that I can’t wait to read! If you become as hooked on Alex’s “Alias”-like existence, be sure to read about how he first came to work for MI6 in Horowitz’s first Alex Rider book, Stormbreaker.
High school juniors McCallister, Beaterson and Deshutis are the four-man flag football team Three Clams and an Oyster, except there’s only three of them. There used to be four, but their best bud Cade Savage can’t be depended on anymore since he’s become so interested in drinking and partying. Now it’s the final weekend before the September deadline of listing your team members on the roster, and the three Clams are up a creek. Do they officially dump Savage for a.) Big Man on Campus Thor, who’s a local football legend, but smokes a little too much weed, b.) Tim Goon, he of the unfortunate last name, “man breasts,” and Wayne Newton resemblance, but also owner of a ski cabin he might let the guys use, c.) or Rachel Summerfield, the best jock of them all, but so pretty and confident that the guys aren’t sure they can deal with her upstaging them. Over the course of one weekend, these three dudes have some of the most realistic conversations and arguments I’ve ever read in a teen novel that range from hilarious to heart-breaking as they try to make the most mature decision, learning a lot about themselves and each other in the process. And if you’re not a huge fan of flag football, don’t worry about it. Because this super-smart, funny book is about just about everything else BUT football.
TJ, a high school senior of black, Japanese and white heritage, is tired of all the jocks making the rules at his school, especially when he’s just as gifted athletically—he just chooses not to be a “team player.” He decides to challenge all the muscle-heads by assembling a swim team made up of the school’s biggest “losers,” knowing it will just kill all the jocks to see the guys they make fun of on a daily basis sporting letter jackets. Can he handle the fallout and his own uncontrollable anger when the situation gets out of control? A great guy read full of flying fists, brave hearts and tough decisions.
Jason is a loner, and one of those sweet guys who likes babysitting and helping out with younger kids. Except now one of his little friends Alicia has been murdered and dumped in the woods, and Jason was the last one to see her alive. Now the local police have brought in their top interrogator, Trent, a mysterious man known for ALWAYS getting his confession. And Jason has a secret…or does he? Will Trent force Jason to confess, whether he’s guilty or not? Become a fly on the wall of the interrogation room in this tense, hyper-suspensful psychological thriller by the late, great Robert Cormier.
Sura has been thrown into a hard core juvie center for “clipping hoodies.” His cock-sure, sensitive, yet unsentimental voice chronicles the abuses and brutal conditions he suffers in authentic sounding street slang that sounds like The Clockwork Orange meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. While madness and rage swirl all around him and threaten to beat him down, Sura manages to keep the evil of the place at bay by concentrating on the sanctity of his home, which he never plans to take for granted again. With more instinct than intellect, he knows how to keep his head low even as both of his roommates get sucked in and destroyed by the system. With a perfect ear, Adam Rapp has done the nearly impossible–written a book about a boy that sounds like it was written by a boy and not a well-meaning adult. He joins the ranks of Laurie Halse Anderson and E.R. Frank as one of my all-time, stand-out YA favs.
Hardcore skater Grady Grennen isn’t too thrilled about what life’s been dishing out to him lately. First, his heavy metal rock star mom overdosed a year ago, leaving him high and dry with his grandma. His half-brother, Louie, while loveable, is mentally retarded, which doesn’t exactly make him the greatest sounding board for Grady’s thoughts and feelings concerning his mom’s death. Now, he’s been sucker-punched with more bad news: his grandma wants to take off across America in a Winnebago with her octogenarian lover, so Grady has to decide if he wants to go to school abroad on his mom’s remaining fortune, or live with Louie and his rigid, religious-right stepmom (and she’s no Julia Roberts!) Plus, there’s going to be this big concert in honor of the first anniversary of his mom’s death, and the band wants Grady to say a few words. But all Grady can do is wonder what the hell he’s going to say about his absentee mom who toured constantly and died choking on her own vomit. This book is just too cool for school. I recommend reading it as soon as possible before it is watered down and made into a CW Wednesday night series.
Steve Harmon is on trial for a crime he may or may not have committed. And by using a unique viewpoint, W.D. Myers turns you, the reader, into Steve’s judge and jury. By telling Steve’s story in alternating chapters of his personal journal entries and a transcript of the trial proceedings, you are presented with all the evidence of the supposed crime and allowed to come to your own conclusions by novel’s end. Did Steve act a lookout in a convenience store robbing and murder, or was he just an unsuspecting witness who happened to be at the crime scene? Will Steve’s dream of becoming a screenwriter be fulfilled, or will he spend the most important years of his life behind bars? Well? What do YOU think?
Everybody’s good at something. Most of us have a talent for stuff like soccer, playing the piano, or even geometry. In the book Stone Cold, 16 year old Denn finds out what he’s REALLY good at–playing poker. And not just for matchsticks, either. Denn is so good that he’s winning thousand dollar pots from adult players and buying cars and jewelery with no problem, because money talks. But the more Denn wins, the colder he feels–towards his parents, his friends, even his best girl. Denn may be raking in the dough, but he’s selling his soul doing it. Everybody’s good at something. But the thing you’re good at isn’t always good for you. If you liked the movie Rounders, give the reading roulette wheel a spin with Stone Cold–you’ll come out a winner.
Rock Kindle is a Revolutionary War buff. He knows every battle, general, and weapon. But all those facts and figures don’t always help Rock when it comes to the war he wages with his father. Rock’s dad is a militaristic control freak who enjoys snapping orders at his two sons and his fearful wife, who rarely leaves the house. When Rock and his brother Cliff help their friend Liza run away from her abusive home, Rock starts to wonder if he should start making plans to leave his own. But Rock doesn’t know if he has the courage to turn traitor against his father, even it means saving his brother, his mother and even himself. A good read for the teenage underdog in all of us.
Paul Fisher may be a geek with glasses, but he can see a lot of stuff that his clueless parents seem to miss. For one thing, Paul is the only one who notices that his older brother Eric is a registered psycho, who tortures his classmates with his goonish buddy. But dear old dad is too caught up in the “Eric Fisher Football Dream” to notice that his place-kicking son is also a wacko, and Paul’s too busy trying to get in good with the soccer-jocks to try and explain. It’s going to take a bolt of lightening and a lost memory to finally make his family see what he’s seen all along. A gripping, suburban gothic read.
Robbie Jones has just shot the local convenience store owner with his father’s gun and nobody really knows why, least of all Robbie himself. Robbie’s story is told by all the bystanders of this crime that jumps right out of the headlines: his parents, his one good friend, the store owner’s wife and the girl that he wanted as his girlfriend, but who wanted nothing to do with him. The only way Robbie communicates at all after the shooting is through drawing his comic strip of Megaboy, superhero and protector of Earth. Was Robbie pretending to be Megaboy when he shot the gun? Or did he imagine that his crush, Tara, would be impressed with his actions? The reader has to come to his own conclusions about why Robbie did it, which is really the greatest strength of this slim, graphic-packed novel. You can read it over lunch, then think about it all day.
I should have included this book a long time ago, but as the pregnant chick said on the way to the shot-gun wedding, better late than never. If you were bored out of your skull reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in English class, than ditch that dusty classic and pick up Rule of the Bone. Russell Banks has basically re-written the Huck Finn epic and made it way, way hipper. Huck is now Chappie, a fourteen year old trailer-park punk who gets kicked out of his house, hangs with bikers, and gets a tattoo. It’s only when he meets I-Man, a pot-smoking enlightened Rastafarian (who makes a great contemporary Jim) and travels with him to Jamaica, that Chappie realizes the potential that his life has and the man he will become. So much stuff happens in this book, including fires, break-ins and homeless people living in abandoned school buses that now you HAVE to read it to find out how it all ties together! It’s hokey for me to say it, but this is really a gem of a boy book.
Nick Twisp is man with a plan–which is to ultimately drive his selfish divorced parents insane, keep his hapless friend Lucky out of trouble, and bed his beautiful long-distance girlfriend Sheeni Saunders as soon as possible. There are only a few roadblocks on his highway to heaven–he’s 14, car-less, job-less and broke. But with sheer will and a very silly sense of humor, Nick can and will conquer all. Not too terribly deep, this over-thick novel is good for a few laughs on those long car-trips with your parents.
Eric Poole may be a reformed teen serial killer. But when beautiful prey like Lori Cranston throws herself at him, what’s a murderous madman to do? The only one who can save Lori is old Lt. Proctor, one of the only people who doesn’t buy Eric’s cool line of bull. These three people will be drawn together into an ever tighter triangle of murder and mayhem. Who will get the axe in the end, if anyone? If ya wanna know, ya gotta read…
Does that author look familiar? It should, since you’ve probably been assigned to read The Outsiders in about every English class since 6th grade. But did you also know that Hinton wrote other books about guys on the outs? (She writes pretty good boy books for a girl author!) Tex, our title hero, is just trying to get through life with as little conflict as possible, despite the fact that his dad is never around, he’s in love with his best friend’s sister, and his big brother just sold his horse. It may sound corny as a Garth Brooks song, but it’s not. There’s just enough rodeo grit in this story to make it real, and I promise you won’t fall off. (I could date myself by linking to the book cover with Matt Dillon on it, who starred in the cheesy but heartfelt Disney movie version, but I’ll save both you and me the humiliation!)
Where do you find the strength to get out of a bad neighborhood, a bad family, and a bad life, without losing your sense of humor? Well, if you’re Mick, a skinny Irish kid with an awakening conscience, you get “by with a little help from your friends,” but a lot of it has to come from within yourself. Follow Mick’s trials, in the three named books above, as he tries to make a clean break from his bigoted brother, his alcoholic parents and his narrow-minded neighborhood. But breaks like those are never clean, and Mick fights hard to resist the pull of his violent up-bringing to find a place where he can be himself. Don’t be scared off by the serious themes, because there’s a lot of laughs in between the fist fights and racial tension– just like life. These books are so real it’s scary.
What’s a Stotan? Walker, Nortie, Lion and Jeff are about to find out as they undergo the hardest week of their lives. They agree to accept the Stotan Challenge — a series of difficult physical tests of endurance. Four best friends on the swim team in their senior year, they think they are ready to face anything as long as they face it together. Don’t be fooled–despite the plot this is not just a book for swim jocks. No matter what group you belong to or belonged to in high school, you will dive into this read and swim all the way to the end!
Yeah, yeah, you’ve seen The Shining and Children of the Corn half a dozen times at Halloween parties, and you know Stephen King supposed to be a really scary writer-dude. But what a lot of teens don’t realize is that what King writes are books about REAL people, people who are a lot like you and your friends. Then he just kind of adds a supernatural twist. Take Christine for instance. It’s just a book about a nerdy guy named Arnie who finds this great old car and decides to buy it and fix it up. How can he possibly predict that the old car that he affectionately calls Christine is POSSESSED BY AN EVIL SPIRIT THAT IS DETERMINED TO CRUSH OUT ALL THE POSITIVE THINGS IN ARNIE’S LIFE INCLUDING HIS CUTE GIRLFRIEND!!!! Whew! Not for the faint-hearted, this book packs a punch–between Christine’s playful antics(oh, just running over the bullies that make Arnie’s life hell) and the great characterization of teens, this is not a novel to be passed over like some used car on the lot! Take Christine for a test drive and I promise you’ll be hooked. This ain’t no Christopher Pike, baby!
Steve’s got a problem. His famous astronaut dad is getting on his nerves, he’s flunking out of school, and he just lost his girlfriend. The answer?? His school counselor thinks he needs to write about the last year of his life so that he can figure out where it all went wrong. Steve isn’t crazy about the idea (would YOU want to write a 100 page paper all about your life??) but he starts to write and finds out a lot about himself–maybe more than he wanted to know, but enough to find out what happened in his life–and how to make it right. And what’s with that funky title? Well, as they say here in library land–check it out, baby, and find out!
