3. Anna is driving a very drunk
friend home from a party.
Moments into the journey, a
head-on collision leaves
Ellen with serious injuries,
Anna with a lacerated eye,
and the other driver dead.
The dead teen happens to
be her brother's girlfriend.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
4. 16-year-old Alex decides to get
even. His parents are
separated, his father is dating
his former third-grade teacher,
and being 16 isn't easy,
especially when it comes to
girls. Instead of revenge
though, Alex ends up in trouble
with the law and is ordered to
do community service.
5. Dreamland
By Sarah Dessen
Strange, sleepy Rogerson, with his
long brown dreads and brilliant green
eyes, had seemed to Caitlin to be an
open door. With him she could be
anybody, not just the second-rate
shadow of her older sister, Cass. But
now she is drowning in the vacuum
Cass left behind when she turned her
back on her family's expectations by
running off with a boyfriend. Caitlin
wanders in a dream land of drugs and
a nightmare of Rogerson's sudden
fists, lost in her search for herself.
6. The God of Animals
By Aryn Kyle
When her older sister runs away to
marry a rodeo cowboy, Alice Winston is
left to bear the brunt of her family's
troubles -- a depressed, bedridden
mother; a reticent, overworked father;
and a run-down horse ranch. As the
hottest summer in fifteen years unfolds
and bills pile up, Alice is torn between
dreams of escaping the loneliness of her
duty-filled life and a longing to help her
father mend their family and the ranch.
7.
8. Jack Falla follows up his gem of
a book, Home Ice, with this
exquisitely crafted collection of
essays on hockey as he has
seen and experienced it for fifty
years. Funny, poignant, joyful,
and occasionally melancholy,
Open Ice is one man’s witness
to fifty years of the game he
loves.
9. It’s about a boy. It’s about
sports. It’s about being a
serious dork. It’s about a paper
route. It’s about bullying and the
opposite. It’s about a girl. It’s
about hair growth. It’s about a
little brother. It’s about piano.
It’s about a depressed mother.
It’s about learning to be who
you are. It’s about not hiding.
10. DiMaggio's achievement lives on as
the greatest of sports records.
Alongside the story of DiMaggio's
dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly
examines the peculiar nature of
hitting streaks and with an incisive,
modern-day perspective gets inside
the number itself, as its sheer
improbability heightens both the
math and the magic of 56 games in
a row.
11.
12. Nobody Owens, known to his friends as
Bod, is a normal boy. He would be
completely normal if he didn't live in a
sprawling graveyard, being raised and
educated by ghosts, with a solitary
guardian who belongs to neither the
world of the living nor of the dead.
There are dangers and adventures in
the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod
leaves the graveyard, then he will come
under attack from the man who has
already killed his family.
13. All 16-year-old Cameron wants
is to get through high school—
and life in general—with a
minimum of effort. It’s not a lot
to ask. But that’s before he’s
given some bad news: he’s sick
and he’s going to die. Which
totally sucks. Hope arrives in
the winged form of Dulcie, a
loopy punk angel/possible
hallucination with a bad sugar
habit.
14. The White Darkness
by Geraldine McCaughrean
I have been in love with Titus Oates for quite a while
now—which is ridiculous, since he's been dead for ninety
years. But look at it this way. In ninety years I'll be dead,
too, and the age difference won't matter. Sym is not
your average teenage girl. She is obsessed with the
Antarctic and the brave, romantic figure of Captain Oates
from Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. In
fact, Oates is the secret confidant to whom she spills all
her hopes and fears. But Sym's uncle Victor is even
more obsessed—and when he takes her on a dream trip
into the bleak Antarctic wilderness, it turns into a
nightmarish struggle for survival that will challenge
everything she knows and loves.
15.
16. In Mary's world there are simple
truths. The Sisterhood always
knows best. The Guardians will
protect and serve. The
Unconsecrated will never relent.
And you must always mind the
fence that surrounds the village;
the fence that protects the village
from the Forest of Hands and
Teeth.
17. A year ago, Cal Thompson was a college
freshman more interested in meeting girls
and partying than in attending biology class.
Now, after a fateful encounter with a
mysterious woman named Morgan, biology
has become, literally, Cal's life.
Cal was infected by a parasite that has a truly
horrifying effect on its host. Cal himself is a
carrier, unchanged by the parasite, but he's
infected the girlfriends he's had since
Morgan. All three have turned into the
ravening ghouls Cal calls Peeps.
18. When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to
the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she
hardly expects to witness a murder—much less
a murder committed by three teenagers covered
with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre
weapons. Then the body disappears into thin
air. It’s hard to call the police when the
murderers are invisible to everyone else and
when there is nothing—not even a smear of
blood—to show that a boy has died. Or was he
a boy?
19. Before he knew about the Roses, 16-year-old
Jack lived an unremarkable life in the small Ohio
town of Trinity. Only the medicine he has to take
daily and the thick scar above his heart set him
apart from the other high-schoolers. Then one
day Jack skips his medicine. Suddenly, he is
stronger, fiercer, and more confident than ever
before. And it feels great—until he loses control
of his own strength and nearly kills another
player during soccer team tryouts.Soon, Jack
learns the startling truth about himself: He is
Weirlind; part of an underground society of
magical people who live among us.
20. Darren Shan and his best friend, Steve, get
tickets to the Cirque Du Freak, a wonderfully
gothic freak show featuring weird, frightening
half human/half animals who interact
terrifyingly with the audience. In the midst of
the excitement, true terror raises its head
when Steve recognizes that one of the
performers-- Mr. Crepsley-- is a vampire!
Steve remains after the show finishes to
confront the vampire-- but his motives are
surprising!
21.
22. Eighteen-year-old Kate
finds herself losing control
in her senior year as she
faces difficult neighbors,
the possibility that she may
not be accepted by the
college of her choice, and
an unexpected death.
23. Sometime in the near future,
Jenna Fox, 17, awakens from an
18-month-long coma following a
devastating accident, her
memory nearly blank. She
attempts reorientation by
watching videos of her
childhood, "recorded beyond
reason" by worshipful parents,
but mysteries proliferate.
24.
25. In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen
year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can
only recall what happened afterwards, watching her
own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little
by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to
figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the
very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly
beautiful, this will change the way you look at life, love,
and family. Now a major motion picture starring Chloe
Grace Moretz, Mia's story will stay with you for a long,
long time.
26. According to her best friend Frankie,
twenty days in ZanzibarBay is the perfect
opportunity to have a summer fling, and if
they meet one boy ever day, there's a
pretty good chance Anna will find her first
summer romance. Anna lightheartedly
agrees to the game, but there's something
she hasn't told Frankie---she's already had
that kind of romance, and it was with
Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before
his tragic death one year ago.
27. Sara and Tobey couldn't be more
different. She is focused on getting
into her first-choice college; he wants
to win Battle of the Bands. Sara's
other goal is to find true love, so
when Dave, a popular jock, asks her
out, she's thrilled. But then there's
Tobey. His amazing blue eyes and
quirky wit always creep into her
thoughts. It just so happens that one
of Tobey's goals is also to make
Sara fall in love with him.
28. For years, Grace has watched the wolves in
the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed
wolf--her wolf--is a chilling presence she can't
seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has
lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods,
the protection of the pack, and the silent
company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few
precious months of being human . . . until the
cold makes him shift back again. Now, Grace
meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity
takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to
be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to
stay human--or risk losing himself, and Grace,
forever.
29.
30. When first met, 15-year-old Evie
and her best friend are buying
chocolate cigarettes to practice
smoking. Evie sheds that
innocence on a trip to Florida,
where her stepfather, Joe, back
from the war in Europe, abruptly
takes her and her beautiful mother,
Beverly, and where Evie falls in
love with glamorous Peter, an army
buddy whom Joe is none too
happy to see.
31. Karl Stern has never thought of himself as a
Jew. But the bullies at his school in Nazi-era
Berlin, don't care that Karl has never been in
a synagogue or that his family doesn't
practice religion. Demoralized by attacks on
a heritage he doesn't accept as his own,
Karl longs to prove his worth.
So when Max Schmeling, champion boxer
and German national hero, makes a deal
with Karl's father to give Karl boxing lessons,
A skilled cartoonist, Karl has never had an
interest in boxing, but now it seems like the
perfect chance to reinvent himself.
32. Rush is in the company of his
faithful companion talking horse
named Liberty, while travelling
back in time to Boston of 18th
century. There he will lead reader
through the turbulent events which
set fire for the American
Revolution…
33. When Robey Childs's mother has a premonition
about her husband, a soldier fighting in the Civil
War, she does the unthinkable: she instructs her
only child to find his father on the battlefield and
bring him home. At fourteen, wearing the coat his
mother sewed to ensure his safety—blue on one
side, gray on the other—Robey thinks he is off on
a great adventure.
When he returns to his mother, Robey Childs
will be the best a man can be, and the worst,
irrevocably scarred by all he has seen—and all he
has done.
34.
35. One ordinary Monday morning in
May, Hilmer Eriksson walks into his
high school classroom and
discovers that he has become
invisible. No one can see him, no
one can hear him. In fact, a police
detective arrives at school that very
morning to investigate Hilmer’s
disappearance. He’s frightened,
and he’s starting to forget things,
including what happened to him a
few nights earlier.
36. DIGGING FOR PEAT in the mountain
with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the
body of a child, and it looks like she’s
been murdered. As Fergus tries to
make sense of the mad world around
him—his brother on hunger-strike in
prison, his growing feelings for Cora,
his parents arguing over the Troubles,
and him in it up to the neck,
blackmailed into acting as courier to
God knows what—a little voice comes
to him in his dreams, and the mystery
of the bog child unfurls.
37. To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world. .
. . It's where he was born, it's where he and
his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. At
night, his Ma shuts him safely in the
wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep
when Old Nick visits.
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma it's the
prison where she has been held for seven
years. Through her fierce love for her son,
she has created a life for him in this eleven-
by-eleven-foot space. But with Jack's
curiosity building alongside her own
desperation, she knows that Room cannot
contain either much longer.
38. Str-S-d:
I’ll begin with Lucy. She is
definitely first on the list. You
can’t believe how it feels to be in
the cafeteria and turn around
and there she is staring at me
like I’m some disgusting bug or
vermin. Does she really think I
WANT to be this way? I hate
you, Lucy. I really hate you. You
are my #1 pick. I wish you were
dead.
39. Standish Treadwell — who
has different-colored eyes, who
can’t read, can’t write, Standish
Treadwell isn’t bright — sees
things differently than the rest of
the "train-track thinkers.“
Standish and his friend Hector
make their way to the other side
of the wall, they see what the
Motherland has been hiding.
40.
41. How does an honor student at
one of Los Angeles's finest prep
schools–a nice girl from a happy,
loving home–trade school
uniforms and afternoons at the
mall for speedballs in the back of
a truck in rural Indiana? How
does her devoted mother emerge
from the shock of finding that her
daughter has not only
disappeared but had been living a
secret life for more than a year?
42. Since their mother's death, Tip
and Teddy Doyle have been
raised by their loving, possessive
and ambitious father. As the
former Mayor of Boston, Bernard
Doyle wants to see his sons in
politics, a dream the boys have
never shared. But when an
argument in a blinding New
England snowstorm inadvertently
causes an accident that involves
a stranger and her child, all
Bernard Doyle cares about is his
ability to keep his children, all his
children, safe.
43. It's true: After 17-year-old
Ben’s father announces
he’s gay and the family
splits apart, Ben does
everything he can to tick
him off: skip school,
smoke pot, skateboard
nonstop, get arrested. But
he never thinks he’ll end
up yanked out of his city
life and plunked down into
a small Montana town with
his dad and Edward, the
Boyfriend.
44. If you've ever wondered what your dog is
thinking, Stein's novel offers an answer. Enzo is a
lab terrier mix plucked from a farm outside
Seattle to ride shotgun with race car driver Denny
Swift as he pursues success on the track and off.
Denny meets and marries Eve, has a daughter,
Zoë, and risks his savings and his life to make it
on the professional racing circuit. Enzo, frustrated
by his inability to speak and his lack of opposable
thumbs, watches Denny's old racing videos,
coins aphorisms that apply to both driving and
life, and hopes for the day when his life as a dog
will be over and he can be reborn a man. When
Denny hits an extended rough patch, Enzo
remains his most steadfast if silent supporter.
45.
46. Hijuelos, the Pulitzer Prize-
winning author of The
Mambo Kings Play Songs of
Love, has said that his first
YA novel is a novel he
wished he'd read as a teen.
His themes are classic-
alienation, the search for
identity-but his approach is
pure Hijuelos: Cuban-
American, musical and very,
very funny.
47. In this re-imagining of
Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, it
is Ophelia who takes center
stage. A rowdy, motherless girl,
she grows up at Elsinore Castle to
become the queen’s most trusted
lady-in-waiting. She catches the
attention of the captivating, dark-
haired Prince Hamlet, and their
love blossoms in secret. But
bloody deeds soon turn Denmark
into a place of madness, and
ultimately, Ophelia must choose
between her love for Hamlet and
her own life.
48.
49. In the model community of Candor,
Florida, every teen wants to be like Oscar
Banks. The son of the town's founder,
Oscar earns straight As, is student-body
president, and is in demand for every club
and cause. But Oscar has a secret. He
knows that parents bring their teens to
Candor to make them respectful, compliant
perfect through subliminal messages that
carefully correct and control their behavior.
And Oscar' s built a business sabotaging
his father's scheme with Messages of his
own, getting his clients out before they're
turned. After all, who would ever suspect
the perfect Oscar Banks?
50. Without his job at the hospital, Clay would be lost. The
hard work, the struggles of the patients, the drama in the
ER makes his days worth something, and gives focus to
his dream of someday becoming a doctor. Clay can't
afford to go away to college like the rest of his graduating
senior class, but what other 17-year-old has delivered a
baby or helped save a life? Still, Clay wishes his life could
be more like his best friend Joey's. Joey has it all—a great
family, a good college waiting for him at the end of the
summer, money, a car. Clay has to bike everywhere, and
the miles are starting to wear him down. But Joey's
golden future shatters one day when he overdoses at a
party. Now he's clinging to life at the hospital where Clay
works, and Clay may even be implicated in Joey's injuries.
51. Fifteen-year-old Matt Gratton and his two
best friends, Coop and Sean, always set
themselves a summertime goal. This
year's? To see a real-live naked girl for the
first time — quite a challenge, given that
none of the guys has the nerve to even ask
a girl out on a date. But catching a girl in
the buff starts to look easy compared to
Matt's other summertime aspiration: to
swim the 100-yard butterfly (the hardest
stroke known to God or man) as a way to
impress Kelly West, the sizzling new star of
the swim team.
52. Darius and Twig are an unlikely pair:
Darius is a writer whose only escape is
his alter ego, a peregrine falcon named
Fury, and Twig is a middle-distance
runner striving for athletic success. But
they are drawn together in the struggle
to overcome the obstacles that life in
Harlem throws at them. The two friends
must face down bullies, an abusive
uncle, and the idea that they'll be stuck
in the same place forever.
53.
54. The women of Brewster
Place are "hard-edged,
soft-centered, brutally
demanding, and easily
pleased". In their
stories, Gloria Naylor
has created a
community of women
that has touched
thousands of readers
across the country.
55. Sticky is a beat-around-the-head foster kid
with nowhere to call home but the street,
and an outer shell so tough that no one will
take him in. He started out life so far
behind the pack that the finish line seems
nearly unreachable. He’s a white boy living
and playing in a world where he doesn’t
seem to belong.
But Sticky can ball. And basketball might
just be his ticket out . . . if he can only
realize that he doesn’t have to be the
person everyone else expects him to be.
56. Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of
a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun
and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their
mother’s death and their father’s disappearance,
bound together by a preternatural connection and
a shared fascination with medicine, the twins
come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of
revolution. Moving from Addis Ababa to New
York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an
unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine
and ordinary miracles--and two brothers whose
fates are forever intertwined.
57. Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-
sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town,
Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of
abandonment and the prejudice of the local
“powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her
mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a
man many times her age–and has to live with the
consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San
Francisco, Maya learns about love for herself and
the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and
the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love
with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be
free instead of imprisoned.
58.
59. This childhood classic relates a small-town boy's
pranks and escapades with timeless humor and
wisdom. In addition to his everyday stunts
(searching for buried treasure, trying to impress
the adored Becky Thatcher), Tom experiences a
dramatic turn of events when he witnesses a
murder, runs away, and returns to attend his own
funeral and testify in court.
60. Henry Fleming, a private in the Union Army, runs
away from the field of war. Afterwards, the shame
he feels at this act of cowardice ignites his desire
to receive an injury in combat—a “red badge of
courage” that will redeem him. Stephen Crane’s
novel about a young soldier’s experiences during
the American Civil War is well known for its
understated naturalism and its realistic depiction
of battle.
61. Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not of
her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when
her husband left the little row house on Baltimore's
Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three
children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and
determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to
those she loves; the older son, Cody, a wild and
incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power
and money; and sweet, clumsy Ezra, Pearl's
favorite, who never stops yearning for the perfect
family that could never be his own.
Now Pearl and her three grown children have
gathered together again-with anger, hope, and a
beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell.