Series Books

The Hunger Games Trilogy

THE HUNGER GAMES
Suzanne Collins
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780439023481
Ages 12-up
384 pages

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Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules and level of audience participation may change, but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

The Inheritance Cycle

BRISINGR: Inheritance, Book III
Christopher Paolini
Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375826726
Ages 12-up
784 pages

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Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still there is more at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep.

First is Eragon’s oath to his cousin Roran: to help rescue Roran’s beloved, Katrina, from King Galbatorix’s clutches. But Eragon owes his loyalty to others, too. The Varden are in desperate need of his talents and strength --- as are the elves and dwarves. When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices --- choices that take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice.

Eragon is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once-simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?

Sequel to FLORA SEGUNDA

FLORA'S DARE: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room)
Ysabeau S. Wilce
Harcourt Children's Books
ISBN: 9780152054274
Ages 12-up
528 pages

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Flora Fyrdraaca wants nothing more than to be a ranger, and for that she must master the magickal --- and dangerous --- language of Gramatica. But before she can find the ideal teacher, her aspirations are put to the test. Would a true ranger be intimidated by a tentacle that reaches for her from the depths of a toilet? Be daunted by her best friend’s transformation into a notorious outlaw, thanks to a pair of sparkly stolen boots? Be cowed by the revelation that only she can rescue the city of Califa from the violent earthquakes that threaten its survival?

Never. Saving her city and her best friend are the least a Girl of Spirit can do --- yet what Flora doesn’t expect are the life-altering revelations she learns about her family and herself.

Stand-Alone Titles

THE BIG GAME OF EVERYTHING
Chris Lynch
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780060740344
Ages 12-up
288 pages

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Jock is a regular, well-adjusted guy, except for one thing: Some members of his family are not so typical. Jock’s hippy parents own a barbershop where they avoid cutting hair. His grandfather has lost more than a few of his marbles. And his younger brother, Egon, is a big, mean bully. Yet somehow it all works until a handful of visitors arrives and so does the Big Game of Everything. Now Jock has to figure out the rules, not just for himself but for his entire family.

BOG CHILD
Siobhan Dowd
David Fickling Books/Random House
ISBN: 9780385751698
Ages 12-up
336 pages

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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 a hunger strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and his being 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.

CRICKET MAN
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Ginee Seo Books/Atheneum
ISBN: 9781416949817
Ages 12-up
208 pages

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Kenny Sykes is on a mission. He is determined to make his mark somehow in his new town and his new school. In the meantime, he has appointed himself the secret savior of the hundreds of crickets who seem bound to commit suicide by jumping into Kenny's pool. He is not entirely sure why he wants to save them. But once school starts again, Cricket Man finds that there are more important things that need saving --- namely, Jodie Poindexter: beautiful junior, across-the-street neighbor, and, underneath her composed facade, the most troubled and secretive girl in school.

THE DEVOURING
Simon Holt
Little, Brown for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780316035736
Ages 12-up
240 pages

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The Vours: Evil, demonic beings that inhabit human bodies on Sorry Night, the darkest hours of the winter solstice.

When Reggie reads about the Vours in a mysterious old journal, she assumes they are just the musings of an anonymous lunatic. But when her little brother, Henry, begins to act strangely, it's clear that these creatures exist beyond a madwoman's imagination, and Reggie finds out what happens when fears come to life.

To save the people she loves, Reggie must learn to survive in a world of nightmares. Can she devour her own fears before they devour her?

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK
Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins Children's Books
ISBN: 9780060530921
Ages 10-up
320 pages

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Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place --- he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians' time as well as their timely ghostly teachings --- like the ability to Fade. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? And then there are things like ghouls that aren't really one thing or the other.

HERO-TYPE
Barry Lyga
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
ISBN: 9780547076638
Ages 12-up
304 pages

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Everyone is treating Kevin as a hero. He was in the right place at the right time, and he saved a girl from being murdered. Only Kevin knows, though, why he was able to save her. Things get even more complicated when Kevin is seen removing two patriotic "Support the Troops" ribbons from his car bumper. Now the town that lauded him as a hero turns on him, calling him unpatriotic. Kevin, who hadn't thought much about it up until then, becomes politically engaged, suddenly questioning what exactly supporting the troops or even saying the pledge of allegiance every day means.

HOW TO (UN)CAGE A GIRL
Francesca Lia Block
Joanna Cotler Books/HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780061358364
Ages 14-up
128 pages

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The pain of wanting to fit in, the joy of being consumed by love, the shame about your maturing body, the power in learning you’re beautiful --- these are moments every girl knows intimately. They are all part of growing up, of uncaging and setting oneself free. In the poem “thirteen: the little oven,” a girl asks, “is this junior high school? hell? or somewhere worse?” In another, “my love,” the poem declares “my love is undisciplined, unruly, tangled, she is always hungry,” capturing the overpowering feeling of finding and being overcome by love.
 
In this three-part poetry collection, Francesca Lia Block charts the journey from girlhood to womanhood with truth, emotion and understanding.

IMPOSSIBLE
Nancy Werlin
Dial Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780803730021
Ages 12-up
384 pages

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Lucy is 17 when she discovers that the women of her family have been cursed through the generations, forced to attempt three seemingly impossible tasks or fall into madness upon their child’s birth. But Lucy is the first girl who won’t be alone as she tackles the list. She has her fiercely protective foster parents and her childhood friend Zach beside her. Do they have enough love and strength to overcome an age-old evil?

THE JUVIE THREE
Gordon Korman
Hyperion Books for Children
ISBN: 9781423101581
Ages 12-up
256 pages

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Gecko Fosse drove the getaway car. Terence Florian ran with the worst gang in Chicago. Arjay Moran killed someone. All three boys are serving time in juvenile detention centers until they get a second chance at life in the form of Douglas Healy. A former juvenile delinquent himself, Healy is running an experimental halfway house in New York City where he wants to make a difference in the lives of kids like Gecko, Terence and Arjay.
 
Things are going well, until one night Healy is accidentally knocked unconscious while trying to break up a scuffle among the boys. Terrified of the consequences, they drop him off at a hospital and run away. But when Healy awakes, he has no memory of them or the halfway house. Afraid of being sent back to Juvie, the guys hatch a crazy scheme to continue on as if the group leader never left.

LIVING DEAD GIRL
Elizabeth Scott
Simon Pulse
ISBN: 9781416960591
Ages 16-up
176 pages

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When Alice was 10, Ray took her away from her family, her friends --- her life. She learned to give up all power, to endure all pain. She waited for the nightmare to be over.
 
Now Alice is 15 and Ray still has her, but he speaks more and more of her death. He doesn’t know it’s what she longs for. She doesn’t know he has something more terrifying than death in mind for her.
 
This is Alice's story. It is one you have never heard, and one you will never, ever forget.

NATION
Terry Pratchett
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061433016
Ages 12-up
384 pages

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Mau is the only one left after a giant wave sweeps his island village away. But when much is taken, something is returned, and somewhere in the jungle, Daphne --- a girl from the other side of the globe --- is the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the same wave. Together the two confront the aftermath of catastrophe. Drawn by the smoke of Mau and Daphne's sheltering fire, other refugees slowly arrive: children without parents, mothers without babies, husbands without wives --- all of them hungry and all of them frightened. As Mau and Daphne struggle to keep the small band safe and fed, they defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ISLAND
Allegra Goodman
Razorbill/Penguin Young Readers Group
ISBN: 9781595141958
Ages 12-up
272 pages

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Honor and her parents have been reassigned to live on Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life is peaceful there --- the color of the sky is regulated by Earth Mother, a corporation that controls New Weather, and it almost never rains. Everyone fits into their rightful and predictable place.
 
Except Honor. She doesn’t fit in, but then she meets Helix, a boy with a big heart and a keen sense for the world around them. Slowly, Honor and Helix begin to uncover a terrible truth about life on the Island: Sooner or later, those who are unpredictable disappear…and they never come back.

THE REVOLUTION OF SABINE
Beth Levine Ain
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763633967
Ages 12-up
224 pages

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Sixteen-year-old Sabine Durand, daughter of aristocrats, thinks of nothing but donning exquisite ball gowns and being seen at all the right parties in Paris. When she secretly rekindles a forbidden friendship with Michel, he spirits her away to her first salon and she meets the revolutionary Ben Franklin. Fueled by ideas of change, Sabine is determined to take control of her life as it spins toward an arranged marriage to a salacious aristocrat. But how can she break free of her social-climbing mother's cruel grasp? Perhaps the secret lies in her portrait, recently painted by Fragonard, and her new understanding of love.