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Young Adult Books You Want to Read

As you may or may not know, our company, The Book Report Network, has a number of websites about books and authors in addition to Bookreporter.com. Throughout the year, Bookreporter.com features adult books on Teenreads.com, our site for young adult readers, that we think will have definite appeal to a teen audience. In the spirit of sharing, we are now spotlighting a selection of titles each month from Teenreads.com that we believe are great reads that you might enjoy.

The Secret Language of Sisters by Luanne Rice

February 2016

When Ruth Ann (Roo) McCabe responds to a text message while she's driving, her life as she knows it ends. The car flips, and Roo winds up in a hospital bed, paralyzed. Everyone thinks she's in a coma, but Roo has locked-in syndrome --- she can see, hear and understand everything around her, but no one knows it. Mathilda (Tilly) is Roo's sister and best friend. She was the one who texted Roo and inadvertently caused the accident. Now, Tilly must grapple with her overwhelming guilt and her growing feelings for Roo's boyfriend, Newton --- the only other person who seems to get what Tilly is going through.

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Front Lines by Michael Grant

February 2016

World War II, 1942. A court decision makes women subject to the draft and eligible for service. The unproven American army is going up against the greatest fighting force ever assembled, the armed forces of Nazi Germany. Three girls sign up to fight. Rio Richlin, Frangie Marr and Rainy Schulterman are average girls, with dreams and aspirations. Each has her own reasons for volunteering: Rio fights to honor her sister, Frangie needs money for her family, and Rainy wants to kill Germans. These daring young women will play their parts in the war to defeat evil and save the human race.

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Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit

January 2016

Anna Łania is just seven years old when the Germans take her father, a linguistics professor, during their purge of intellectuals in Poland. Then Anna meets the Swallow Man. He is a mystery, strange and tall, a skilled deceiver with more than a little magic up his sleeve. And when the soldiers in the streets look at him, they see what he wants them to see. Over the course of their travels together, Anna and the Swallow Man will dodge bombs, tame soldiers and even, despite their better judgment, make a friend. But in a world gone mad, everything can prove dangerous. Even the Swallow Man.

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This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

January 2016

The principal of Opportunity, Alabama's high school finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve. The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class, but the doors won't open. Someone starts shooting. Told from four perspectives over the span of 54 harrowing minutes, terror reigns as one student's calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.

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My Name is Not Friday by Jon Walter

January 2016

Well-mannered Samuel and his mischievous younger brother, Joshua, are free black boys living in an orphanage during the end of the Civil War. Samuel takes the blame for Joshua's latest prank, and the consequence is worse than he could ever imagine. He's taken from the orphanage to the South, given a new name --- Friday --- and sold into slavery. What follows is a heartbreaking but hopeful account of Samuel's journey from freedom, to captivity and back again.

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Traffick by Ellen Hopkins

November 2015

In TRICKS, Ellen Hopkins introduced us to five memorable characters tackling enormous questions: Eden, the preacher’s daughter who is helped into a child prostitution rescue; Seth, the gay farm boy who finds himself without money or resources other than his own body; Whitney, the privileged kid whose dreams are ruined in a heroin haze; Ginger, who is arrested for soliciting an undercover cop; and Cody, whose gambling habit forces him into the life, but who is shot and left for dead. And now, in TRAFFICK, these five are faced with the toughest question of all: Is there a way out?

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Need by Joelle Charbonneau

November 2015

Teenagers at Wisconsin’s Nottawa High School are drawn deeper into a social networking site that promises to grant their every need…regardless of the consequences. Soon the site turns sinister, with simple pranks escalating to malicious crimes. The body count rises. In this chilling thriller, the author of the bestselling Testing trilogy examines not only the dark side of social media, but the dark side of human nature.

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Calvin by Martine Leavitt

November 2015

Seventeen-year-old Calvin has always known his fate is linked to the comic book character from "Calvin & Hobbes." He was born on the day the last strip was published; his grandpa left a stuffed tiger named Hobbes in his crib; and he even has a best friend named Susie. As a child Calvin played with the toy Hobbes, controlling his every word and action, until Hobbes was washed to death. But now Calvin is a teenager who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Hobbes is back --- as a delusion --- and Calvin can't control him. Calvin decides that if he can convince Bill Watterson to draw one final comic strip, showing a normal teenaged Calvin, he will be cured.

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Juba! by Walter Dean Myers

October 2015

Walter Dean Myers' last novel is based on the true story of the meteoric rise of an immensely talented young black dancer, William Henry Lane, who influenced today's tap, jazz and step dancing. With meticulous and intensive research, Myers has brought to life Master Juba's story. The book includes photographs, maps and other images from Juba's time and an afterword from Myers' wife about the writing process of JUBA!

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Half a Creature from the Sea: A Life in Stories by David Almond

October 2015

May Malone is said to have a monster in her house, but what Norman finds there may just be the angel he needs. Joe Quinn’s house is noisy with poltergeists, or could it be Davie’s raging causing the disturbance? Fragile Annie learns the truth about herself in a photograph taken by a traveling man near the sea. Set in the northern English Tyneside country of the author’s childhood, these eight short stories by the incomparable David Almond evoke gritty realities and ineffable longings, experiences both ordinary and magical. In autobiographical preludes to each story, the writer shows how all things can be turned into tales, reflecting on a time of wonder, tenderness and joy.

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