by Nancy Pearl
To say that things get messy with her werewolf pack when the sexy Vivian falls for the sensitive and very human Aiden, a “meat-boy,” is an understatement—as you’ll discover in Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause.
Other horrific novels include Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz (in fact, Koontz, like Stephen King, is phenomenally popular with horror fans of all ages, but I chose this one because it has a particularly nice dog in it); Witch Child and Sorceress by Celia Rees (witches in the New World, i.e., Puritan New England); Lois Duncan’s Down a Dark Hall and Killing Mr. Griffin; the Demonata series by Darren Shan, including Lord Loss and Demon Thief; The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding (serial killers, evil beings called “wych-kin,” a wych hunter named Thaniel, and the key to the power behind the evil, the possessed Alaizabel Cray); Robert Cormier’s Tenderness (another serial killer); and Kit’s Wilderness by David Almond, a superior ghost story.
It should go without saying that fans of this category will not want to miss Stephen King’s entire œuvre. I’d begin with Firestarter (great adventure) or Christine (a car possessed).
UTOPIA—NOT!
I think that dystopian fiction is fun to read. It’s always interesting to see how writers imagine the unfortunate, often downright frightening, inevitable end to all the “improvements” we’ve made in contemporary society. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, two classic dystopian novels, are frequently assigned in high school English classes. But check these out, too:
In Uglytown your life changes on your sixteenth birthday—you turn pretty. And Tally can’t wait—no more pug-like face, mismatched eyes, or stringy hair. But when she meets Shay, who has decided to run away rather than have the required surgery, Tally begins to rethink her wish to be beautiful. Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies, continues Tally’s story in Pretties and Specials.
You know those annoying pop-up ads that appear unbidden on your computer? Imagine a world, as M. T. Anderson does in the brilliant and cynical Feed, where at birth everyone’s mind is hardwired into something closely resembling the Internet. Instant messaging, mind to mind, almost takes the place of talking; and there’s certainly no need to actually learn anything, since you can simply retrieve it from a Google-like database in your head. And then imagine what happens when the system crashes....
Teens who enjoyed Feed are also sure to like two novels generally found in the adult, rather than the young adult, section of bookstores and libraries: Jennifer Government by Max Barry (in which people’s surnames are indicative of where they work—so, for example, you know immediately what company employs John Nike) and William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition, whose heroine, Cayce Pollard is a “cool-hunter”—hired by companies to predict the next big thing.
In Gloria Skurzynski’s Virtual War, fourteen-year-old Corgan was genetically engineered to have faster reflexes than anyone else on Earth, so that he can play the ultimate virtual reality game that will determine who will win the war his federation is engaged in. But along with Sharla and Brig, two other genetically manipulated children, he must decide where his loyalties lie, and who he can trust.
In the world Garth Nix has created in his fast-paced Shade’s Children, people only live until they’re fourteen, at which time their bodies are used to create killing machines for the evil Overlords. But four children—Ella, Drum, Ninde, and Gold-Eye—band together, and, with the help of the mysterious Shade, are determined to bring the rule of the Overlords to an end.
When fifteen-year-old Daisy leaves New York and goes to live with her mother’s sister and her children in England, falling in love with her cousin Edmond and losing him when a world war breaks out are the last things on her mind, but she has to try to survive both, in Meg Rosoff ’s haunting story of life during and after war, How I Live Now.
WHAT’D I DO TO DESERVE THIS BIOGRAPHY?
Biographies for teen readers serve a couple of functions, besides being useful for homework assignments. The first is that the best biographies broaden and deepen a reader’s awareness of the complexities of well-known people.The second is that biographies are a good way to help less-than-enthusiastic readers discover the joy of books through reading about someone they admire or are curious about. Here are some excellent choices:
In the well-documented and clearly written The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, James Cross Giblin offers an in-depth (but not too long: only 246 pages) biography of one of the most powerful leaders of the nineteenth century.
When she graduated from high school, Valérie Zenatti, like all Israelis, male and female, spent two years in her country’s army, from 1988-1990.As she makes clear in When I Was a Soldier, she discovers, as others have before her, that “the army changes everything.”
Elizabeth Partridge’s love for The Beatles (she had a huge crush on George Harrison, originally) comes through on every page of John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth. From his childhood as the son of divorced parents, to the early days with the Beatles, to his marriage to Yoko Ono and the end of the band, John Lennon’s life is all here, in great photographs and insightful text.
Partridge also wrote This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie. Like the Lennon bio, this is filled with an inviting text that places the great folk singer and writer in the context of his times, accompanied by illustrations ranging from vintage photos to concert playbills to reproductions of posters.
Opening Our Eleanor: A Scrapbook Look at Eleanor Roosevelt’s Remarkable Life by Candace Fleming, readers will be struck by the intimacy of this peek into Roosevelt’s life and times; it’s filled with quotations, anecdotes, pictures, and all sorts of relevant information that not only makes for quality report fodder, but is also entertaining to read. Fleming’s Ben Franklin’s Almanac: Being a True Account of the Good Gentleman’s Life does the same thing for its subject.
Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan teamed up to write two excellent biographies that open up the world of art and artists for teens. Take a look at Andy Warhol: Prince of Pop and Runaway Girl, about sculptor Louise Bourgeois.They both offer insights into the life and work of these two iconoclastic artists in a way that many adult biographies fail to accomplish.
INDEX
A
Abarat
Abel’s Island
Abracadabra Kid: A Writer’s Life
Abrahams, Peter
Absent Author, The
Absolute Zero
Abuela
Acceleration
Accent on April
Acquainted with the Night
Across Five Aprils
Across the Nightingale Floor
Addams, Charles
Adèle & Simon
Adler, David A.
Adopted Jane
Adventures of Blue Avenger, The
Adventures of Captain Underpants, The
Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon, The
Aesop’s Fables
Afanas’ev, Aleksandr
Afterlife, The
Agee, Jon
Aiken, Joan
Airball: My Life in Briefs
Airborn
A is for Alibi
Akhenaten Adventure, The
Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars
Alanna: The First Adventure
Alarcón, Francisco X.
Albert, Susan Witting
Al Capone Does My Shirts
Alexander, Anne
Alexander, Lloyd
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good,Very Bad Day
Alia’s Mission
Alice, I Think
Alice in Wonderland
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Aliens in the Family
Aliki
Allard, Harry
Alligator Arrived with Apples
Alligator Pie
All-of-a-Kind Family
All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown
All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown
All Over Bu
t the Shoutin’
All Rivers Flow to the Sea
All That Remains
Almond, David
Alphabet Under Construction
Alphin, Elaine Marie
Alvin Ailey
Alvin Webster’s Surefire Plan for Success (And How It Failed)
Amanda Pig, Schoolgirl
Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, The
Amber Spyglass, The
Amelia Bedelia
America
American Heroes
American Indian Myths and Legends
American Indian Trickster Tales
American Plague, An
American Practical Navigator, The
Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence
Among the Brave
Among the Enemy
Among the Hidden
Amulet of Samarkand, The
Amy and Isabelle
Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock
Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti
Anastasia Krupnik
And Both Were Young
Anderson, Hans Christian
Anderson, Laurie Halse
Anderson, M.T.
Anderson, Susan Carol
And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon
And Then There Were None
And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
Andy and the Lion
Andy Warhol: Prince of Pop
Angel, Cal
Angela and Diabloa
Angelina Ballerina
Angel on Skis
Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging
Angus and the Cat
Angus and the Ducks
Angus Lost
Animal Family, The
Animalia
An Innocent Soldier
An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio
Annabel the Actress Starring in Gorilla My Dreams
Anne Frank
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of the Island
Annie on My Mind
Anno, Mitsumasa
Anno’s Counting Book
Anno’s Italy
Anno’s Journey
Anno’s Spain
Another Heaven, Another Earth
Anshaw, Carol
Anything to Win
Apple Pie 4th of July
Apples to Oregon
April Morning
Arakawa, Hiromu
Archambault, John
Arctic Incident, The
Are There Any Questions?
Are You Going to Be Good?
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Argueta, Jorge
Aria of the Sea
Armageddon Summer
Armour, Maureen W.
Armstrong, Alan
Armstrong, Jennifer
Armstrong, Louis
Armstrong,William H.
Armstrong-Ellis, Carey
Arnie the Doughnut
Arnold, Louise
Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose, The
Aronson, Marc
Arrow to the Sun: A Pueblo Indian Tale
Artemis Fowl
Arthur
Arthus-Bertrand,Yann
Aruego, Jose
Asai, Carrie
Asch, Devin
Asch, Frank
Ash, Sarah
Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions
Ashes of Roses
Ashley, Mike
Ashman, Linda
Asimov, Isaac
As Simple as Snow
Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast
At the Crossing-Places
At the Sign of the Star
Atwater, Florence
Atwater, Richard
Atwater-Rhodes, Amelia
Auch, Mary Jane
Auschwitz: The Story of a Nazi Death Camp
Auseon, Andrew
Austen, Jane
Autobiography of a Face
Autobiography of My Dead Brother
Avalanche Annie: A Not-So-Tall Tale
Avi
Aylesworth, Jim
Azarian, Mary
Azuma, Kiyohiko
B
Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave
Babbitt, Natalie
Babe: The Gallant Pig
Baby Beebee Bird, The
Baby Can’t Sleep
Baby Island
Babymouse: Beach Babe
Babymouse: Our Hero
Babymouse: Queen of the World!
Baby Sister for Frances, A
Back to School for Rotten Ralph
Back to School Is Cool!
Bacon, Paul
Bad Beginning, The
Bad Boy: A Memoir
Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl, A
Badger’s Parting Gifts
Bad Kitty
Bagdasarian, Adam
Bagthorpes Unlimited
Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin
Balakian, Peter
Baliliett, Blue
Balit, Christina
Ball Don’t Lie
Ballet Shoes
Bamboozlers, The
Bang, Betsy
Bang, Molly
Banks, Joseph
Banks, Kate
Banks, Lynne Reid
Banyai, Istvan
Barefoot Heart
Barker, Clive
Barnard, Bryn
Barner, Bob
Barrett, Angela
Barrett, Anne
Barrie, J. M.
Barron, T. A.
Barry, Max
Barry, Robert
Bartimaeus Trilogy, The
Bartoletti, Susan Campbell
Base, Graeme
Baseball in April and Other Stories
Bass, L. G.
Bates, Ivan
Bauer, Joan
Bauer, Marion Dane
Baum, L. Frank
Beany and the Beckoning Road
Beany Malone
Bear, Greg
Bear Noel
Bear’s New Friend
Bear Snores On
Bear Stays Up for Christmas
Bear Wants More
Beast
Beast Feast
Beast in Ms. Rooney’s Room, The
Beatrice Doesn’t Want To
Beautiful Blackbird
Beautiful Joe
Beauty
Beauty and the Beast
Bebé Goes Shopping
Because of Madeline
Because of Winn Dixie
Bechard, Margaret
Becoming Naomi León
Bee-bim Bop!
Beethoven Lives Upstairs
Beezus and Ramona
