Newes from the Dead
Mary Hooper
Anne Green is dead. All of Oxford was there to see her hanged for the crime of infanticide. Even Anne Green knows that she’s dead.
Told in alternating perspectives – that of Anne Green as well as that of the doctors examining her body following her public hanging – this is the [...]
Bright Young Things
Anna Godbersen
Cordelia Grey wants much more out of life than to be married young and stuck in her hometown of Union, Ohio with a whole bunch of babies and unfulfilled dreams. She wants to go to New York City and be somebody. So that plan is that she and her best friend, Letty [...]
Beauty Queens
Libba Bray
Libba Bray is either an unconquerable genius or a total loony-toon. Either way, she’s hilarious. Beauty Queens is a must-read, and if you can get it on audio (read by the author!), all the better. Think: the television series Lost, the movie Miss Congeniality, thrown in with some Lord of the Flies and [...]
Revolution
Jennifer Donnelly
Andi is from Brooklyn and because of her own depression, her severely depressed mom, and her rapidly failing academics, she’s being forced to stay with her dad in Paris for a short time while he works on some DNA research. Andi and her dad don’t get along all too well, and she’s not happy [...]
Zombies vs. Unicorns
Edited by Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black
Justine and Holly, the editors of this anthology, are engaged in a heated, friendly argument about which is cooler: zombies or unicorns? Justine is all about zombies; they are obviously much, much cooler. But Holly insists that beneath their glittery charm, unicorns are just as dangerous and [...]
Delirium
Lauren Oliver
Love kills. It’s a good thing that there’s a cure.
Lena can’t wait until her eighteenth birthday when she can undergo the government-mandated cure for Amor Deliria Nervosa, the condition that goes hand-in-hand with love. According to The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook (more commonly referred to as The Book of Shhh) love [...]
After
Amy Efaw
Devon doesn’t exactly know what’s happening to her, but she knows it isn’t anything good. She hates screwing up and she’s pretty sure that this time she screwed up big. But she wishes that everyone would leave her alone for now so that she could deal with it later. She’s so tired, and it [...]
The Orange Houses
Paul Griffin
Tamika Sykes is a high school student who hates to wear her hearing aids, loves the rhythm of a guitar, works hard in class, and draws pictures void of people. Fatima is a refugee living in NYC all alone, with dreams of visiting the Statue of Liberty, and has a passion [...]
Shadoweyes
Ross Campbell
Have you ever wished that you could be a superhero? That you could wipe out all the bad in the world? That you could make other people happy and be happy? That you could be the answer to pain and loneliness? Unfortunately, we’ve learned from many of our traditional superheroes [...]
A Room on Lorelei Street
Mary E. Pearson
Zoe feels pretty alone in the world. She has some good friends, but she doesn’t get to spend much time with them. She and school don’t seem to get along all that well. She spends most of her time waitressing at Murray’s, taking care of her alcoholic mother, and [...]
Lost & Found
Shaun Tan
Three beautifully illustrated tales tell simple stories of life as it truly is, was, or could be. “The Red Tree” offers hope to a little girl who feels all alone in a big, confusing world. “The Lost Thing,” without a home, finally finds a place to belong, and is happier for it. [...]
The Great and Only Barnum : the Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum
Candace Fleming
Did you know that P. T. Barnum — the “Barnum” in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus — didn’t become involved with circuses until he was 60 years old? Did you know that one of Barnum’s nicknames was [...]
The Hotel Under the Sand
Kage Baker
Ship-wrecked and alone, Emma finds a young man - a ghost - named Winston who tells her the story of his life as a Bell Captain at the Grand Wenlocke Hotel. This was a very special hotel, erected by a very special wealthy family of Wenlockes, inside of which [...]
Broken Soup
Jenny Valentine
Part mystery, part love story, Broken Soup is not the average “my brother died and now my family is falling apart” novel. Sure, Jack died unexpectedly, and now Rowan is left as the primary caregiver to younger sister Stroma because their mom just lies in bed all day and their dad has moved [...]
War Games
Audrey and Akila Couloumbis
Set in a Greek town during World War II, Petros, his brother Zola, and their cousins feel pretty safe. The war feels far away from their normal life. But first they have to navigate around Italian soldiers, and then the German military takes over. Petros’s older cousin is [...]
Going Bovine
Libba Bray
Cameron Smith is sixteen years old and his most outstanding quality is that he just doesn’t really care much about anything. He’s not incredibly social, but he’s not incredibly awkward either. Until weird things start to happen to his mind, anyway, and the doctors diagnose him with Mad Cow Disease. [...]
The Cardturner
Louis Sachar
The summer of his seventeenth year, Alton’s mother forces him to spend time with his “favorite uncle” in order to try to work the family’s way into the blind man’s last will and testament. Alton has to accompany his great-uncle, Trip, to his bridge games and act as his “cardturner.” Basically, [...]
Briar Rose
Jane Yolen
Jane Yolen’s rendition of Sleeping Beauty is a harrowing tale to tell. Unlike most of Disney’s famous and popular fairy tale interpretations, most of the original tales are far more gruesome and frightening, not meant for very small children to experience, and often have far-from-happy endings. Becca has been listening to her [...]
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
L. Frank Baum, adapted by Eric Shanower
Writer Eric Shanower and artist Skottie Young present a gorgeous retelling of the original novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, originally written by L. Frank Baum in 1900. The Wizard of Oz has become a classic of American and international culture as a result [...]
A Million Shades of Gray
Cynthia Kadohata
All Y’Tin ever wanted was to be an elephant handler, and at thirteen, he is the youngest handler in his Dega village. He has big dreams of one day opening a training school for elephant handlers, the would-be first in Vietnam. But war interrupts everything, and the Vietnam [...]
