Short Story Book List for Young Adults

Summer is coming to a close, and we are running out of extra reading time. If you are looking for something that you can read in short bursts or get through rather quickly, but is still touching or highly entertaining you might want to check out one (or more) of these titles. Just remember, just because these books are in our young adult section, it does not mean that readers without a ‘teen’ in their age cannot get just as much out of these titles as the age group the publishers market them towards.

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Zombies Vs. Unicorns

Zombies VS. Unicorns  is a selection of short stories compiled by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier that deals with a question as old as time itself: What is better, strong, more awesome; the zombie or the unicorn? Stories in this anthology offer strong arguments for both sides of the debate. Contributing authors include Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan. Are you Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd is another anthology with Holly Black on the editing team. This anthology covers all things geeky, from Klingons and Jedi Knights to fan fiction, theater geeks, and cosplayers. No matter what kind of geek you are, or want to be, Geektastic can help you get your geek on! Contributing authors are M.T. Anderson, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, John Green, Tracy Lynn, Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Barry Lyga, Wendy Mass, Garth Nix, Scott Westerfield, Lisa Yee, and Sara Zarr.

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Athletic Shorts

Athletic Shorts: Six Short Stories by Chris Crutcher are stories about athletes, including some you might recognize from Crutcher’s longer works. Despite the title, while the stories are all about athletes they are not necessarily about sports. They are tales of love and death, bigotry and heroism, of real people doing their best even when that best is not all that good. This collection is suitable for younger readers as well.

M Is for Magic by Neil Gaiman and Teddy Kristiansen is a collection of eleven stories that involve strange and fantastical events. Humpty Dumpty’s sister hires a private detective to investigate her brother’s death, a teenage boy who has trouble talking to girls finds himself at a rather unusual party, and a boy you might recognize from The Graveyard Book makes a discovery, and confronts the much more troubling world of the living. This collection is also suitable for younger readers.

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Cloaked in Red

Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances by John Green, Lauren Myracle, and Maureen Johnson offers readers three intertwining short stories. In the tales several high school couples experience the trials and tribulations along with the joys of romance during a Christmas Eve snowstorm in a small town.

Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde offers eight different twists on the familiar tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The author uses the stories, and a highly entertaining introduction, to question the original tales and to exploring issues including why most characters seem dim-witted.

On the Day I Died: Stories from the Grave by Candace Fleming offers readers ten ghost stories set in White Cemetery, an actual graveyard outside Chicago. Each story takes place during a different time period from the 1860’s to the present, and ends with the narrator’s death. Some teens die heroically, others ironically, but all due to supernatural causes.

Books we’re looking forward to in September

LibraryReads.org is a new online endeavor designed to let librarians spread the word about  books they’re most excited about.

One of the goals of LibraryReads is to highlight the important role public libraries play in building buzz for new books and new authors. So click through to read more about what upcoming books librarians consider buzzworthy…

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

Help for the Haunted by John Searles

The Returned by Jason Mott

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Margot by Jillian Cantor

Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford

Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

A House in the Sky  by Amanda Lindhout & Sara Corbett

On Our Shelves: New Young Adult Fiction

Looking for something new to read, or want to place a hold on the newest books in our young adult collection? Well, you are in luck. Here is a list of some of our most recent additions that just might capture your interest regardless of if you are an adult or young adult.

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1. Playing Tyler by T. L. Costa
Tyler MacCandless is looking at a bleak future. With his father dead and his mother mentally checked out, Tyler is responsible for his older brother Brandon who’s in rehab for heroin abuse–again. With no skills to speak of outside of playing video games, a fast food future is all but a certainty. That is, until the day Tyler’s mentor Rick asks him to test a new video game. A good enough score can earn him a place in flight school. When Brandon goes missing, and Tyler discovers the game is far more than it seems.

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2. Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith
The discovery of a startling family secret leads seventeen-year-old Kiri Byrd from a protected and naive life into a summer of mental illness, first love, and profound self-discovery.

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3. Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff
Sixteen-year-old Boy Nobody, an assassin controlled by a shadowy government organization, The Program, considers sabotaging his latest mission because his target reminds him of the normal life he craves.

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4. Far Far away by Tom McNeal
When Jeremy Johnson Johnson’s strange ability to speak to the ghost of Jacob Grimm draws the interest of his classmate Ginger Boltinghouse, the two find themselves at the center of a series of disappearances in their hometown.[Cover]

5.Charm & Strange by Stephane Kuehn
A lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy must either surrender his sanity to the wild wolves inside his mind or learn that surviving means more than not dying.[Cover]

6. Openly Straight by Bill Koningberg
Tired of being known as “the gay kid”, Rafe Goldberg decides to assume a new persona when he comes east and enters an elite Massachusetts prep school–but trying to deny his identity has both complications and unexpected consequences.

Other new titles include Vortex by S.J. Kincaid, Ship out of Luck by Neal Shusterman, Mortal Fire by Elizabeth Knox, September Girls by Bennett Madison, Spies and Prejudice by Talia Vance, Rules of Summer by Joanna Philbin, How I Lost You by Janet Gurtler, Careful What you Wish For by Shani Petroff, The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp, Golden Boy by Tara Sullivan, I’m with Stupid by Geoff Herbach, Golden Girl by Sarah Zettel, and The Lost Sun by Tessa Gratton.

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I’m With Stupid

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Mortal Fire

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Ship Out of Luck

 

TODAY Book Club picks ‘The Bone Season’ as its first selection.

Following in Oprah’s footsteps, “The Today Show” is starting a new monthly book club.

The “Today” selections, chosen every four to five weeks, will have stickers on their covers indicating their inclusion in the club. The books, chosen by a team of producers and the show’s co-hosts, will include both fiction and nonfiction, newly released titles and classics. Discussion groups and excerpts will be featured online.

The first book, announced August 20, is The Bone Season, a futuristic novel about a 19-year-old clairvoyant by first-time novelist Samantha Shannon.

Shannon will chat about The Bone Season in a Google Hangout on September 16, which doesn’t give readers too much time to get on board. The book was just released on August 20, and may not be on many library shelves yet. Cheshire Library patrons can place a hold on the book through our online catalog.

Author Profile: Bella Andre

bella andre

Bella Andre

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Bella Andre is one of the rare self-published phenomenons who has become an ebook millionaire.   She recently signed a groundbreaking 7-figure print-only deal with Harlequin MIRA for her Sullivan series.  They will be released in mass market paperback in a global launch with continuous back-to-back releases from June 2013 to April 2014.

She started out writing songs, then non-fiction books.  When she wrote her first Romance novel, she knew she’d found her perfect career.  She’s a savvy marketer who works non-stop to improve the sales of her titles.  When she released her first original self-published story in July 2010, she wrote a personal email to everyone who had ever written to her in the last five years to get the word out.  She is known for her sensual stories with sizzling alpha heroes and strong women.

Besides writing, her favorite things to do are reading her favorite authors, hiking, and swimming.  She is married with two children and splits her time between Northern California and a 100 year old cabin in the Adirondacks.

Available (or soon to be) at our library:

Sullivan Brothers Series

The Look of Love

From This Moment On

Can’t Help Falling In Love

*Coming Soon*

I Only Have Eyes for You
If You Were Mine
Let Me Be The One
Come A Little Bit Closer
The Way You Look Tonight
Book 10    coming Fall 2013

Also Available:

Hot As Sin

Never Too Hot

Wild Heat

Ebook (Overdrive Catalog) – Candy Store