The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Genre/Category: teenage violence, coming of age; *****
Ponyboy Curtis lives with his two older brothers. They and
their friends, the “greasers,” are in a perpetual battle with the rich kids.
Ponyboy’s friend Johnny accidentally kills one of them, so Ponyboy and Johnny
go on the run. Even though this book is forty years old and I cannot relate to
the events in the book, I connected with the book and its characters. I really
like Ponyboy because he feels so real. His brothers and friends have
characteristics that transcend their unique situation, so it is easy to see
them in my own friends and family. I would recommend this book to anybody over
the age of 14 (because it deals with some heavy issues).
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer
Armstrong
Genre/Category: nonfiction; *****
This is the most enjoyable nonfiction book I have ever read.
It tells the story of Shackleton and his crew of explorers who in the early 20th
century became trapped with their ship in ice as the ocean froze around them
just miles from Antarctica. This book narrates
how Shackleton was able to keep his whole crew alive as they trekked across the
ice, sailed stormy seas in lifeboats, and eventually made it to civilization. I
loved this book because of its inspirational story, its narrative style, and
all the photographs taken on the actual expedition. I would recommend this book
to anybody who is a reader. I did recommend it to my mom and step-dad, who in
turn recommended to my mom’s best friend, who in turn recommended it to her
friend, and who knows how many other people have read it because I liked it.
Guinea Pig Scientists by Leslie Dendy and Mel Boring
Genre/Category: nonfiction; **
Each chapter in this book tells the story of a different
scientist who experimented on him- or herself, and whose experiments led to
great scientific breakthroughs. For example, it talks about Marie Curie
discovering radium and Dr. Jesse Lazear discovering the cure for Yellow Fever
(both of whom died as a result). In theory this book should be really
interesting, but in practice it is actually pretty boring. The illustrations
were weird and there were almost no photographs. I would recommend this book
only to kids or teenagers who really like science.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Genre/Category: African-American lit, historical fiction,
racism; *****
Cassie Logan has not really experienced racism in her nine
years. This story portrays Cassie’s struggle to understand racism and her
family in a tumultuous year in the Depression-era South. She finally grows to
understand the importance of her family’s owning their land and how it helps
them stay independent of racist neighbors. This book is a good way to introduce
middle-grade-aged kids to the realities and horrors of racism (as I was when I
was 11). Cassie is a wonderful, relatable character from which to learn these
lessons—we learn as she learns.
The Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Cormier
Genre/Category: bleak, psychological, mystery; ****
Jason is wrongfully accused of a neighbor girl’s murder. The
detective over the case brings in master interrogator Trent. Trent forces a confession out of Jason even
though he knows he is innocent, and in doing so psychologically damages Jason
and ruins his own career. There is a surprise ending. I liked this book. It’s a
fast and easy read, but it deals with the hard issues of murder and losing
integrity. I really like the writing style and how it is written from the
perspectives of three different characters. I would recommend this book to
teenagers who like psychology.
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Genre/Category: fantasy; ***
Sophie Hatter lives in a magical land that is parallel to
our own. Through a chance encounter with the Witch of the Waste, Sophie is
turned from a young girl to an old woman. She seeks the help of the
temperamental and potentially dangerous Wizard Howl. They experience many
adventures together. This book is fun but a little confusing, and it is kind of
long. I would recommend to teenagers who like to read fantasy.
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Genre/Category: sports, coming of age; ****
Louie Banks starts out his senior year great—he’s a starting
member of the football team and the cutest girl in school likes him. Soon
issues of racism and unsportsmanlike conduct take over the football team.
Additionally, tragedy strikes Louie’s relationship with his girlfriend. Louie
learns how to use sports, cross country in particular, to deal with hardships
in his life. I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. Louie was a
very relatable character, and just reading this book made me want to go out and
run. I would recommend it to any teenager who likes or plays any kind of sport.
Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff
Genre/Category: poetry, teenage motherhood, poverty; *
LaVaughn’s goal is to be the first person in her family to
go to college. In order to earn money for college, she gets a job babysitting
for Jolly, who is a teenage mom with two kids. LaVaughn tries to help Jolly
take control of and improve her life while keeping her grades up. The best
thing about this book is that it was short (because it was poetry instead of
prose). It was hard to relate with the characters, so I felt disconnected with
the book. I probably wouldn’t recommend this book to anybody.
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Genre/Category: graphic novel, Asian-American lit, identity
crisis; ****
This graphic novel interweaves three stories all having to
do with identity crises. One involves the monkey king, one involves Jin—an
Asian-American boy who is ashamed of his culture, and Danny—a seemingly white
boy who is ashamed of his Asian cousin. I don’t read graphic novels, but I
liked this one and the way it used its medium (pictures instead of words) to
portray the identity crisis that can face Asian-American (or any non-white)
teens. It’s something that I haven’t thought about that much because I’ve
always been part of the majority. I would recommend it to any discerning reader
(because some aspects of the book can be mistook as racist).
The Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones
Genre/Category: mystery, child abandonment; ***
A thief dies in Declan Steeples’s old family home, bringing
up remembrances of his long-gone mother. Declan takes an emotional journey in
this book as he tries to find out what exactly happened to his mother several
years previously. She had left for a vacation but never come back, so Declan
wonders if she died while she was gone or even if his father murdered her. I
had mixed feelings about this book. While the plot did not have the typical arc
and was kind of slow moving, I really connected with Declan’s character. Even
though I didn’t really care about how the book ended, I wanted to read it
because I cared about what happened to Declan. I would recommend this book
particularly to teenagers who are dealing with hard emotional issues.
Godless by Pete Hautman
Genre/Category: religion (or lack thereof), teenage
rebellion; ***
Jason Bock is tired of his family’s religion, so when the
thought occurs to him that the town water tower supports life and could thus be
“God” he decides to create a religion around this idea. What starts out as a
fun and creative way to pass the time gives way to dangerous consequences when
Jason’s followers take their worship further than he had intended. Jason learns
about what it means to believe in something in this book. Overall I liked this
book. It held my attention better than most of the other books I’ve read this
semester, but I didn’t agree with Jason a lot of the time. I would recommend
this to open-minded religious and non-religious teens alike.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by
Mark Haddon
Genre/Category: autism, divorce/adultery; ****
Christopher John Francis Boone is autistic. The murder of a
neighbor’s dog prompts his investigation that eventually leads to disturbing
truths about his parents. I really liked this book. It is a fascinating view
into the mind of autism that helped me to understand better the absolute
rationality with which autistic people think. This book succeeded in humanizing
“the other” that people are often afraid of. It is often hard for the rest of
us to understand autism, but this book portrays it as just a different way of
thinking. This book would be very helpful for relatives and friends of people
with autism.
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Genre/Category: crime/courtroom, mystery, film; ****
Steve Harmon is on trial for a murder that happened as the
result of a robbery that Steve may or may not have participated in (we never
find out). Steve deals with the hardships of prison and attacks against his
character by distancing himself, which he does by writing a screenplay of his
trial. The book is the screenplay interspersed with Steve’s journal entries.
Throughout the course of this trial, Steve also suffers an identity crisis. I
liked the story and I liked Steve, but what I liked most about this book was
the format. As I read the blocking and camera instructions, I felt like I was
watching an episode of Law & Order in my head. I would recommend
this to pretty much any teenager.
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Genre/Category: poetry, historical fiction; **
Billie Jo is growing up in the Dust Bowl of the Great
Depression. After her mother dies a horrible death, Billie Jo must learn how to
move on with her life and rebuild her relationship with her father. I don’t
like novels in verse very much, and I don’t like reading about the Great
Depression (I do not like The Grapes of Wrath), so I didn’t like this
book very much. The style and the topic of the book alienated me, and since I
felt no connection with Billie Jo, there was nothing that really appealed to
me. I would only recommend this to someone who really liked poetry and/or the
Great Depression.
Whirligig by Paul Fleischman
Genre/Category: drunk driving, penance; ***
Brent Bishop is self-involved and vain, and one night in a
drunken effort to kill himself he kills a girl named Lea. As penance, Lea’s
mother wants Brent to put up whirligigs of Lea in the four corners of the
country. Brent learns about himself and learns to forgive himself on this
journey of self-discovery. Brent’s story was okay, but I better enjoyed the
stories about the people who were positively affected by the whirligigs. This
book portrays the long-lasting consequences, whether positive or negative, that
one action can have. I would recommend this book particularly to teenagers who
have a hard time seeing the consequences of their actions.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Genre/Category: graphic novel, movies, Caldecott winner;
****
Hugo Cabret lives in a secret room in a train station in Paris during the 1930s.
His parents have died and his uncle has disappeared, so he is left by himself
with two tasks—to keep the clocks of the train station running (which was his
uncle’s job) and to fix an automan that his father had found stowed away in a
museum. However, everything changes when Hugo meets mysterious George Melies,
who turns out to be the inventor of the automan and a former filmmaker. This
book mixes words and illustrations in a fun and creative way. When I flipped
through the pages of illustrations, I felt like I was watching a movie frame by
frame. Because I loved the illustrations, the words became a little tedious.
But overall this was a unique read that I would recommend to anybody,
especially those who like film.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Genre/Category: fantasy, mystery, ghosts, Newbery winner;
****
This is the story of Bod, a boy whose family was murdered
when he was baby and has been taken in by an entire graveyard of ghosts. Each
chapter recounts an important event in Bod’s life—the first time he makes a
human friend, the first time he goes to school, etc.—all of which tie together
at the end as Bod faces his family’s killer and helps save the world. I really
liked the originality of the story and, as always, I loved Gaiman’s writing
style—he writes how I think. The illustrations interspersed throughout the book
were a nice touch that would make this book less intimidating to reluctant
readers. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Genre/Category: fantasy, horror; ***
Let me preface this review with the fact that I have not
seen the movie Coraline. Coraline is a little girl who has just moved
into a new flat with her emotionally absent parents. She goes through the door
that is supposed to connect her flat to the empty flat next door, but she ends
up in an alternate world where everything and everybody is just a little bit
different from home. Coraline soon learns that her “Other-Mother” has created
taken her real parents prisoner and that she must free them as well as other
children that the Other-Mother has taken captive or else she will join them.
While I like Gaiman’s books in general, this one was a bit too bizarre for me.
And although Coraline is a very young girl, I would not recommend this book to
kids under the age of 11 or 12 because I would not want to give them nightmares
(of course, as a child I was very affected by things I read and watched, so
maybe some children could handle it). What makes this book suitable for older
readers as well is that Gaiman makes allusions to things that only older
readers would understand, such as when the actresses that live downstairs talk
about when they played Shakespeare characters.
Becoming Joe DiMaggio by Maria Testa
Genre/Category: poetry, historical fiction, sports; ***
Joseph Paul grows up listening to Yankees games on the radio
with his Italian-immigrant grandfather; they like to play baseball and talk
about Joseph Paul becoming like the great Joe DiMaggio one day. This
coming-of-age story portrays the struggles of Joseph Paul’s family as well as
his learning that he doesn’t need to be a great baseball player to be like Joe
DiMaggio; he just needs to be a great man and strive for greatness in whatever
he does. Despite its title, this book does not focus solely on sports, it just
uses sports as a conduit for Joseph Paul to learn about life. If you have to read a story in poetry form,
this book is good because it is fast and the historical aspects of it are
interesting.
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter
Sís
Genre/Category: nonfiction, Caldecott honor; ****
This book mixes words and illustration to tell the true
story of the author’s life growing up in Communist Czechoslovakia. He accepts
his way of life as the way it is supposed to be, that is until his adolescence
when he starts seeing influences from the West sneaking behind the Iron
Curtain. He loves rock‘n’roll, Western cars, long hair, and filmmaking among
other things. Sís eventually escapes to the United States with his family, but
only after years of having to hide what he loves. I liked this book because it
is a very real look at how life actually was under Communism. I would recommend
it to older kids and teenagers, because especially here in the U.S. we grow up
learning that Communism was bad without much concrete evidence. This book provides
the concrete evidence of how the ideal of Communism turned into the suppression
of free thought.
Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Genre/Category: young adult; ***
Tyler Miller used to be your average high school student,
but that was before he vandalized the school and finally hit puberty. Now his
father won’t trust him, but his crush Bethany
is finally interested. That is until something happens at a party that has
everyone suspecting Tyler
of not being a very good guy. This book recounts Tyler’s struggle to show the world that he is
not some messed up, perverted, twisted teenager, but that overall he is a good
person. What I liked most about this novel was Tyler’s voice—he feels real. Any teenager can
relate to him because, like every teenager, he feels misunderstood. I wouldn’t
recommend this book to younger teenagers because it depicts masturbation a few
times. I felt a little uncomfortable reading these sections too.
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Genre/Category: nature, survival, divorce/adultery, Newbery
honor; ***
Brian Robeson is on his way in a small plane to his father’s
house in northern Canada
the summer after his parents’ divorce when the pilot has a heart attack. Brian
is able to land the plane in a lake in the Canadian wilderness, but then he must
learn how to survive in nature. He matures mentally and physically as he learns
to pay attention to and appreciate his surroundings. Brian is rescued after
surviving the entire summer by himself in the woods. Hatchet is the
quintessential boy’s survival novel. I have to say that I liked it a lot when I
first read it eleven years ago, but now I find it hard to relate with and get
into. I would recommend it to ten-to-fourteen-year-old boys and to the select
few girls who like to read and like nature.
Finding Our Way by René Saldana
Genre/Category: short stories, latino/a lit; ***
Finding Our Way is a collection of short stories,
each of which portray a different latino/a teenager in the city of Mission, Texas. Some of the
stories concentrate on race, but all concentrate on trials that teenagers face.
My favorite story was the one about Melly, who wanted to be the first girl to
dive off the bridge. She matures and learns about herself through a
conversation with her grandmother. I would recommend this book to just about
anyone.
Feed by M. T. Anderson
Genre/Category: science fiction, distopia; ***
Titus lives in a world where companies insert advertisements
directly into the brain through the “feed” and the Earth is literally dying. He
learns of a different way of life when he meets Violet, a girl who did not get
the “feed” when she was a baby like everyone else but when she was seven.
Raised by a professor, she understands some of our way of life while trying to
fit into Titus’s way of life. Titus grows a little, starts to become aware of
problems in the world, but doesn’t like his new feelings and struggles to
recover the apathy that once ruled his life. I generally find distopic
literature to be intriguing, but the world of Feed seemed so far-fetched
that it didn’t really interest me. I guess the characters’ inability to
overcome their disintegrated and deeply flawed society was the point of the
novel, but I just didn’t care that much. I would recommend it to people who
like science fiction and distopic literature, but not to those who don’t like
to read swear words.
The House You Pass on the Way by Jacqueline Woodson
Genre/Category: gay/lesbian, African-American, mixed race;
****
Staggerlee is a loner until her estranged cousin Trout comes
to visit for the summer. Both girls struggle with feelings of same-sex
attraction and are finally able to talk about it together. After that summer,
Staggerlee is finally able to make friends (while still unsure of her sexual
orientation) and Trout returns home and gets a boyfriend (having figured out
that she likes boys after all). Even though I have never experienced what
Staggerlee experiences, I know what it is like to be unsure of who you are, so
I was able to relate to this book better than I thought I would. It’s an
interesting, non-offensive, non-intimidating foray into gay/lesbian lit.
Morning Girl by Michael Dorris
Genre/Category: Native American lit, historical fiction; ***
This was a relatively short story about a girl named Morning
Girl and her brother Star Boy who live on a Caribbean
island where Columbus
lands. Their world is peaceful and timeless, only being somewhat disturbed by a
hurricane and their mother’s stillbirth. At the end of the book, Morning Girl
greets Columbus’s
ships and waves them ashore with no idea what is in store. I thought that Morning
Girl was a cute story marked by an understated tragedy at the end. I would
recommend it to kids who are interested in North American explorers or Native
Americans.
The Warm
Place by Nancy Farmer
Genre/Category: Animals (Africa),
fantasy; **
Ruva the baby giraffe is captured and taken to a San Francisco zoo. She
escapes with the help of a chameleon and a rat, who all try to escape back to Africa together. They end up on a boat with people who
are really demons and aid in these demons’ demise. This was a cute story, but
if I hadn’t had to finish reading it then I wouldn’t have because I wasn’t
invested in the too-naïve Ruva or the other animals that she interacted with.
Elementary school–aged kids might enjoy it, but I wouldn’t recommend it to a
teenager.
Until an Angel Closes My Eyes by Lurlene McDaniel
Genre/Category: Romance, cancer, Amish; **
Leah has just recovered from cancer when she learns that her
step-dad also has cancer that has just come out of remission. She turns to her
long-distance Amish boyfriend Ethan, who she met when she was in the hospital,
for help. He is going through struggles of his own, so he temporarily moves in
with Leah and her family. This story felt predictable and artificial. Leah
didn’t feel like a real person. Leah and Ethan’s relationship seemed too
intense and problemless for a couple of 18-year-olds. Usually I cry when people
die in books, but I didn’t care that much when Leah’s step-dad died. Maybe
die-hard romance fans would like it, but I think most other people would find
it silly.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Genre/Category: Native American lit, racism, alcoholism,
physical disfigurement; ***
Junior is a physically disfigured (because of a birth
defect) Native American boy who leaves his reservation in Washington to attend high school in a nearby
white farming town. He does this because the reservation school sucks and he
wants to get out of the cycle of misery and alcoholism and early death that
most of his tribe is stuck in. He goes from being bullied to being popular
quite quickly at his new school, but his best friend from the rez and most of
the tribe think that he betrayed them. Junior struggles through deaths of close
friends and family throughout the course of the book. I didn’t really enjoy
this book, but that was at least partially because of the audio narration. The
author narrated the book, and he didn’t have a very dynamic voice, so I was
bored most of the time I was listening to the book. I would recommend this book
to older teenagers, because it deals with quite heavy topics.
Treasure Island by
Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre/Category: adventure, historical fiction, pirates; ****
This book tells the famous story of Jim Hawkins, a boy who
embarks on a search for buried treasure with a bunch of adults (including the
infamous pirate Long John Silver) after a treasure map is left in his
possession by a pirate who dies at his family’s inn. Unfortunately for Jim,
Long John Silver wants the treasure for himself and turns out to be a dangerous
adversary. This book is really good and its story is now classic, but because
it was written in the 19th century it was hard to get through after
reading so many contemporary young adult books. I would recommend this book to
anyone who likes its story or likes to read the classics.
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