Six Picks – Realistic Fiction for Young Adults

September 28, 2013July 16, 2014 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Summer’s over, and life is back to reality! If you like your fiction with a dose of realism, here’s a list of realistic fiction books for young adults (that adults can enjoy, too!).

The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is a about Sixteen-year-old Hazel, a stage IV thyroid cancer patient. She has accepted her terminal diagnosis until a chance meeting with a boy at cancer support group forces her to reexamine her perspective on love, loss, and life. (A movie adaptation is currently in production.)

Butter

Butter by Erin Jade Lange is about an obese boy everyone calls “Butter”. He is about to make history by eating himself to death, live on the Internet, and everyone is invited to watch. When he first makes the announcement online he gets morbid cheerleaders rallying around his plan. As their dark encouragement grows, it begins to feel a lot like popularity. What happens when Butter reaches his suicide deadline? Can he live with the fallout if he doesn’t go through with his plans?

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth takes place in the early 1990s. After Cameron Post’s parents die she moves in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She rebels against the norms and her family decides she needs to change her ways, she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center.

Skinny

Skinny by Donna Cooner is about fifteen-year-old Ever Davies. She is obese and has a cruel inner voice that never lets her forget about her weight or how others see her. She undergoes gastric-bypass surgery, a and makes the decision to start participating in high school life, which includes pursuing her dream of becoming a singer.

The Complete History of Why I Hate Her

The Complete History of Why I Hate Her by Jennifer Richard Jacobson is about sixteen year old Nola who wanting a break from being known only for her sister’s cancer. Shae leaves Boston for a waitressing job at a summer resort in Maine, but soon feels as if her new best friend is taking over her life.

Eleanor & Park

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this wonderful debut novel is the story of two star-crossed misfits–smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

If realistic fiction is your favorite genre, or all of these are currently checked out, take a look at just about any book from John Green, Sarah Dessen, or Lurlene McDaniel. You could also look for Wonder by R.J. Palacio, A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie by Matt Blackstone, Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones, or Tangled by Carolyn Mackler. This is far from a complete list, but it just might be the start you need.

Do you have a favorite realistic fiction book or author?

Short Story Book List for Young Adults

August 29, 2013August 23, 2013 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

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.

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.

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.

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.

On Our Shelves: New Young Adult Fiction

August 25, 2013August 23, 2013 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.