Leviathan (2009) - Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan (2009) – Scott Westerfeld (Keith Thompson, illustrator)

(Leviathan #1)

Simon Pulse, 440 pages, ISBN 9781416971733

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

AWARDS:

Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book, 2010

An ALA Notable Children’s Book for Older Readers, 2010

Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards Nominee for Young Adult Book Award, 2010

Goodreads Choice Award for Science Fiction, 2009

Aurealis Award for Young Adult Novel, 2009

Annotation: Two groups, the machine-driven Clankers and the Darwinists, who develop new species with the aid of technology, clash in this action-filled adventure set during World War I.

Booktalk: World War I has just begun. Your parents, the most powerful people in 1914 Austria, have been assassinated, leaving you an orphan on the run from your parents’ political enemies, people you don’t even know. But at least you have loyal servants (or do you?), ready to help you flee to safety inside a Cyklop Stormwalker war machine.

You have no idea what awaits you and nothing you can imagine can prepare you for an encounter with the enemy’s massive airship Leviathan: part whale, part machine, completely deadly. You once thought you knew you were on the right side, that the machine-driven Clankers would win out over the nature-altering Darwinists. But you’ve discovered something that makes you wonder if you’ve been on the wrong side all this time.

The Sterkarm Handshake (1998) - Susan Price

The Sterkarm Handshake (1998) – Susan Price

Scholastic Point, 384 pages, ISBN 9780439978965

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

AWARDS:

Guardian Fiction Prize, 1999

Carnegie Medal Finalist

Annotation: When a 21st century corporation funds a time travel device for the purpose of ravaging the 16th century’s gold and natural resources, the local Sterkarm clan decides this means war.  

Booktalk: Sure, in the 21st century you’re just another average-looking, slightly overweight girl, but in the 16th century, you’re every young man’s idea of the perfect woman. You understand these people, the Sterkarms, even though they’re warlike and sometimes deceitful. But are they any worse than the 21st century corporation who sent you to talk them out of their gold and precious resources? Could you betray the corporation and spend the rest of your life in the 16th century? There’s certainly a young man there who would be happy if you did. If you stay, you’ve betrayed the corporation and can never go home. If you leave, you’ve become a part of ruining the Sterkarm way of life forever. What choice will you make?

Tunnel in the Sky (1955) - Robert A. Heinlein

Tunnel in the Sky (1955) – Robert A. Heinlein

Pocket Books (2005 edition), 272 pages, ISBN 9781416505518

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

Annotation: Over 50 years ago, before anyone had ever heard of The Hunger Games, Robert Heinlein wrote this novel about teens fighting for their lives on a hostile planet. 

Booktalk: It started out as a final exam for a high school class, a 5 to 10-day survival test on an unknown planet. After the test, everyone’s supposed to walk through the portal and travel safely back to Earth. Only it’s been way over ten days and the portal refuses to open. And people are still being attacked. 

Red Shift (1973) - Alan Garner

Red Shift (1973) – Alan Garner

New York Review of Books (2011 reissue edition), 176 pages, ISBN 9781590174432

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

Annotation: Set in one location over a period of 1,000 years, Red Shift explores how time and place can determine who we are, for good or for bad. 

Booktalk: Tired of typical time travel stories? Red Shift is anything but typical! Tom is a teenager in a small British village who just wants to get away from his parents and spend time with his girlfriend Jan. When exploring the countryside, they discover an ancient ax-head, one used in the English Civil War by a soldier named....Thomas. And in Roman times, an ex-soldier fights wars with a very similar ancient ax. Are these three people related? Are they the same person? Is Tom being pulled into a different time?

Red Shift will challenge you and may make you ask how well you really know yourself.

Mortal Engines (2001) - Philip Reeve

Mortal Engines (2001) – Philip Reeve

(Hungry City Chronicles #1)

Scholastic, 293 pages, ISBN 9781407110912

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

AWARDS:

Nestle Children’s Book Prize, 2002

Shortlisted for the Whitbread Award, 2002

Annotation: Philip Reeve has created an unforgettable world in which cities travel the skies and literally eat each other for world dominance. 

Booktalk: Imagine your hometown. Now imagine it loosed from the Earth, flying through the skies, looking for other towns to eat. This is the world of Mortal Engines, a world of Municipal Darwinism where only the strong survive. 

Tom, an apprentice on the traction city of London, prevents the assassination of London’s most important citizen Thaddeus Valentine. Tom’s reward for saving Valentine? To find himself banished to die in the sea of mud called the Out Country. Something strange is going on and Tom finds that the only person he can trust is the hideously scarred girl who tried to kill Valentine. And she looks like she might just kill Tom....

Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (2011) – Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant, eds.

Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (2011) – Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant, eds.

Candlewick Press, 432 pages, ISBN 9780763648435

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

AWARDS:

None yet.

Annotation: This collection of fourteen tales (two of them comics) showcases not only great new steampunk stories, but some of the most talented YA writers publishing stories today.

Booktalk: So just what is Steampunk? Stories set in Victorian England or in “Wild West” America where steam power is king? Or is it just any science fiction story set in some recognizable historical period? Stories with airships? Goggles? Corsets?   

Steampunk! showcases all this and more. Whether you’ve read Steampunk for years or are just getting started, you’ll find something to fascinate you, something to instill in you a sense of wonder. And don’t feel as if you’ll be trapped in either the Victorian era or the Wild West: some stories are set in the present and one's even set in Ancient Rome. (Plus two stories are in comic book form.) But the thing they all have in common: great, exciting stories filled with wonder.  

Unwind (2007) - Neal Shusterman

Unwind (2007) – Neal Shusterman

(Unwind #1)

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 335 pages, ISBN 9781416912040

AWARDS:

Sakura Medal for Middle School Book, 2009

Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award List, 2010

One Book for Nebraska Teens, 2010-2011

Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award, 2011

Intermediate Oklahoma Sequoyah Award, 2009-2010

Annotation: Shusterman’s fast-paced novel challenges teens to consider when life begins, when it ends and what it really means to be alive.

Booktalk: What if your rights as a human being started when you turned eighteen? What if, before your eighteenth birthday, someone needed your right arm? Or your kidney? Or even your heart? Before your eighteenth birthday, everything’s up for grabs. Legally. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Except maybe run.

That’s what three teens have decided to do: Connor, because his parents think he’s a troublemaker, Risa, because her orphanage can no longer afford to keep her, and Lev, who’s being “unwound” because of his family’s strict religious practices. They’re all three on the run and if they can survive until they’re eighteen, they’ll be fine. 

But everyone is looking for them….

Ship Breaker (2010) - Paolo Bacigalupi

Ship Breaker (2010) – Paolo Bacigalupi

(Ship Breaker #1) 

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 326 pages, ISBN 9780316056212

AWARDS:

National Book Award Nominee for Young People’s Literature, 2010

Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book, 2011

Andre Norton Award Nominee, 2010

Cybils Award Nominee for Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction, 2010

Printz Award, 2011

YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2011

ALA’s Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults, 2011

RT Reviewers’ Choice Award Nominee for Best Young Adult Paranormal/Fantasy Novel, 2010

Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Books of the Year for Fiction, 2010

Annotation: Bacigalupi’s dystopian tale of a boy trying to escape both poverty and his abusive father is a hard-hitting, thrilling science fiction tale that strikes frighteningly close to home in 21^st century America. 

Booktalk: Ship Breaker: that’s what they call Nailer and people like him who search wrecked oil tankers for copper wire, a valuable commodity along America’s Gulf Coast in a post-oil world. Nailer knows that each day could be his last. He may die at any time, either from the region’s devastating poverty or from getting caught illegally scavenging tankers or from the beatings at the hand of his drunken father. When Nailer finds an abandoned clipper ship filled with riches, he decides things might just be going his way. Then he discovers a girl trapped inside the ship. Does he save her and risk capture by the authorities or steal the ship’s cargo and let her die?     

Mind of My Mind (1977) - Octavia E. Butler

Mind of my Mind (1977) – Octavia E. Butler

Warner Books, 224 pages, ISBN 9780446361880

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

Annotation: Doro, an immortal who has created a master race of superhumans for over 4,000 years, discovers that Mary, one of his telepaths, might have the ability to free herself and others from his dominating control. 

Booktalk: Congratulations. You’ve survived the transition. Most don’t, at least that’s what Doro told you when he helped make you an “active” telepath. He should know; he’s been doing this for 4,000 years. 

But now you’re learning more than Doro wants you to know. You can control minds from all over the country, making a mental network of actives, something even he can’t do. You see what Doro’s doing and know that it’s little better than slavery, maybe even worse. You know you can challenge him. You know you should. But if you fail, the consequences will destroy you and everyone you love.  

A Contract with God (1978) - Will Eisner

A Contract with God (1978) - Will Eisner

Kitchen Sink Press, 196 pages, ISBN 9780878160181

(also available in The Contract with God Trilogy (2005) - Will Eisner, W.W. Norton, 544 pages, ISBN 9780393061055)

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

Annotation: Considered by many to be the first true graphic novel, Eisner’s collection of four short, semi-autobiographical stories of Jewish life in and around the Bronx in the 1930s are just as effective and striking today as they were in 1978.

Booktalk: When your little daughter dies, do you blame God and turn your back on Him? (Didn’t the two of you have an agreement?) When a washed-out diva befriends a singing wino, does it mean the resurrection of her career at last? How long can a selfish building superintendent ignore his tenants before they take matters into their own hands? When you escape the city’s tenements for a vacation in the country, can you really get away from your own fears and prejudices? 

Comic book icon Eisner’s landmark graphic novel (considered to be the first to use that term) blew open the doors for what the graphic form could do: entertain while dealing with issues of tragedy, alienation, segregation, persecution, prejudice, poverty, sorrow, street life and the daily pressures of the Great Depression in the Bronx. Read A Contract with God and witness the birth of a literary form.    

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) - Sherman Alexie

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) – Sherman Alexie

Little, Brown Young Readers, 230 pages, ISBN 9780316013680

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

Awards:

National Book Award, Young People’s Literature, 2007

A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, 2007

American Indian Library Association Award, 2007

Horn Book Fanfare Best Book, 2007

American Indian Youth Literature Awards, 2008

ALA’s Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults, 2008

Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry, 2008

Annotation: Junior finds out that moving from a Native American reservation school to an all-white school can be almost as crazy as the cartoons he draws. 

Booktalk: 

The next morning, Dad drove me the twenty-two miles to Reardan.

“I’m scared,” I said.

“I’m scared, too,” Dad said.

He hugged me close. His breath smelled like mouthwash and lime vodka.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “You can always go back to the rez school.”

“No,” I said. “I have to do this.”

Can you imagine what would have happened to me if I’d turned around and gone back to the rez school?

I would have been pummeled. Mutilated. Crucified. 

You can’t just betray your tribe and then change your mind ten minutes later. I was on a one-way bridge. There was no way to turn around, even if I wanted to.

“Just remember this,” my father said. “Those white people aren’t better than you.”

But he was so wrong. And he knew he was wrong.

Despite hard times and being dumped on by just about everyone in his life, Junior finds strength that he didn’t know he had. Between Junior’s LOL narration and his insane cartoons (which are included in the book), it’s next to impossible not to like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Shadowland (Mediator #1) (2000) - Meg Cabot

Shadowland (Mediator #1) (2000) – Meg Cabot

HarperTeen, 287 pages, ISBN 9780060725112

(photo credit: www.goodreads.com)

AWARDS:

ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers

ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

Annotation: Suze is an average teenage girl who just happens to be able to see and talk to ghosts.

Booktalk: Meet Suze. She sees dead people. That’s the problem: ghosts won’t leave her alone until she helps them solve the problems that got them killed in the first place. But now Suze has a new problem. When her mom remarries, Suze suddenly has a new dad, new brothers, a new house and a new school which is (you guessed it) haunted. But the ghost haunting Suze’s new school isn’t looking for help from Suze; she’s looking for revenge.   

Rooftop (2006) - Paul Volponi

Rooftop (2006) – Paul Volponi

Puffin, 199 pages, ISBN 9780142408445

(photo credit http://www.goodreads.com/)

AWARDS:

ALA Best Young Adult Book

ALA Quick Pick

New York City Library Book for the Teen Age

Texas Library Tayshas List

Annotation: Clay and his cousin Addison are both struggling through a drug treatment program in a rehab home in New York City. After watching Addison get shot and killed by the police, Clay must decide whether he can ever trust any authority figures again.

Booktalk: Clay hadn’t seen his cousin Addison in months. Now they’re together in a New York City rehab program, where staying clean isn’t easy, but at least they have each other. But one night, both boys make a bad choice, resulting in the shooting death of Addison by the police. Clay watches as it all goes down, but is afraid to tell anyone the truth about the tragedy. Is there anyone he can really trust?

The Summoning (2008) - Kelley Armstrong

The Summoning (2008) – Kelley Armstrong

(Darkest Powers Trilogy #1)

Harper Teen, 390 pages, 9780061662690

Awards:

Texas Library Association Tayshas High School Reading List

Young Reader’s Choice Award, Senior Division – Pacific Northwest Library Association

Annotation: When puberty hits Chloe Saunders, she starts seeing ghosts.

Booktalk: You’re a fifteen-year old girl who has her first period, then sees a ghost, which freaks you out so bad that you accidentally attack a teacher and get sent to a group home. 

Which sucks. 

To make things even worse, everyone at Lyle House is either obnoxious, rude, weird, or all three. Nobody understands you. They don’t even try. You still see ghosts, but you also see other kids secretly doing things just as weird, maybe weirder. You decide to find out what’s going on, why Lyle House is so messed up and what secrets are being kept hidden.But be careful: you might not like what you find....

Pretty Monsters: Stories (2008) - Kelly Link

Pretty Monsters: Stories (2008) – Kelly Link 

Viking Juvenile, 390 pages, ISBN 9780670010905

(photo credit: www.openlibrary.org)

Awards: 

2008 World Fantasy Award

2009 Locus Award Finalist

Individual Story Awards:

"Pretty Monsters": 2009  Locus Award for Best Novella

"Magic for Beginners": 2005  Nebula Award for Best Novella

"The Faery Handbag”: 2005 Hugo Award and Nebula Award for Best Novelette, Locus Award winner

"The Specialist's Hat": 1999  World Fantasy Award

Annotation: Kelly Link’s first YA short story collection, strange things happen, weirdness rules and nothing is quite what it seems.  

Booktalk: Miles digs up the grave of his dead girlfriend to retrieve the poems he placed in her casket. Jeremy inherits a phone booth in Las Vegas. At summer camp, James (while wearing a dress) comes face-to-face with a human-eating monster. A girl’s 200-year-old grandmother owns a people-swallowing handbag. A teen soccer star stranded in Costa Rica is quarantined during a flu epidemic, waiting for the return of aliens. 

Link’s stories combine wizards, ghosts, talking corpses, monsters, aliens and more, yet all the while focusing on the weirdness of growing up in a strange world with parents who don’t always make sense.