CHILDREN'S
Released: March 1, 1989
"A lively, authentic story, with refreshingly pleasant characters—one that may help readers to realize (as Alice does at summer's end) that adapting to everyone else's prescriptions is less important than being oneself."
A wide-ranging author—who has proved herself adept at fantasy, the teen-age novel, humor, and historical fiction—writes a funny, perceptive story about the summer before junior high: 12-year-old Alice's Dad calls it "The Summer of the First Boyfriend."
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Sept. 1, 1997
"The werewolves' taste for risky pranks and the author's knack for double—and even triple—entendres add sly undercurrents to this fierce, suspenseful chiller. (Fiction. 12-14)"
Klause returns to the steamy sensuality of her first book, The Silver Kiss (1990), for this tale of a hot-blooded teenage werewolf who falls for a human "meat-boy.'' Grieving for her father and unimpressed by the age-mates in her pack, Vivian defies her mother and fellow lycanthropes by setting her sights on suburban poet-schoolmate Aiden Teague.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: May 1, 2001
"Almost ridiculously contrived, it's nevertheless a compelling story suffused with raw and honest emotion, the heightened nature of which will naturally appeal to teens. (Fiction. 12+)"
A brother and sister try in their separate ways to cope with the ultimate family cataclysm.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 31, 1997
"Cole shows real literary chops in a book whose aesthetic merits outrun, by far, the ethics police. (Fiction. 13-16)"
A brilliantly crafted, shocking account, narrated by a teenager, of her mother's chronic incompetence and her own sexual abuse; it will slice readers to the bone less for its tragic details than for the casual, ingenuous tone in which they are revealed.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 1, 2001
"There is a list of advocacy groups at the end, unusual in a novel, but understandable, perhaps necessary, in this one. (Fiction. YA)"
The lives of three suburban high school students become dramatically entangled in a manner familiar mostly to high-schoolers and soap-opera fans.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: April 30, 2001
"A welcome return. (Fiction. YA)"
CHILDREN'S
Released: April 1, 2000
"An astounding first effort. (Fiction. YA)"
This raw portrayal of 11 New York City high school students of various ages and races quickly belies its ironic title.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Aug. 1, 2003
"An easy read with substance and spirit. (Fiction. YA)"
"Froggy Welsh the Fourth is trying to get up my shirt," begins this eminently accessible journey from self-hatred to confidence.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 1, 2001
"Romantic and sexy, with a happy ending that leaves Sophie together with Mr. Right, Sones (Stop Pretending: What Happened when My Big Sister Went Crazy, 1999) has crafted a verse experience that will leave teenage readers sighing with recognition and satisfaction. (Fiction/poetry. YA)"
This year's umpteenth novel in verse begs the question, if the narrative were told in conventional prose, would it be worth reading?
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FICTION
Released: June 15, 1951
"A strict report, worthy of sympathy."
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: Oct. 20, 1975
"Another way of looking at Forever is as an updated Seventeenth Summer."
Increasingly Judy Blume's books center on single topics and the topic here, as pronounced in the first sentence, is getting laid.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: May 30, 1988
"War-story fans will find enough action here, though it isn't glorified; thoughtful readers will be haunted by this tribute to a ravaged generation."
FICTION
Released: Feb. 4, 1999
"Perhaps the folks at (co-publisher) MTV see the synergy here with Daria or any number of videos by the sensitive singer-songwriters they feature."
Aspiring filmmaker/first-novelist Chbosky adds an upbeat ending to a tale of teenaged angst—the right combination of realism and uplift to allow it on high school reading lists, though some might object to the sexuality, drinking, and dope-smoking.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: April 1, 2004
"ROTFL. (Fiction. YA)"
Told entirely in instant messages, this modern epistolary tale prompts both tears and LOL (laughing out loud).
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CHILDREN'S
Released: March 12, 1974
"Mature young readers will respect the uncompromising ending that dares disturb the upbeat universe of juvenile books."
Vicious and violent mob cruelty in a boy's prep school is not a new theme but Cormier makes it compellingly immediate in this novel of Trinity High, a boys' day school with the close, concentrated, self-contained atmosphere of a boarding school, temporarily headed by the venomous, manipulating Brother Leon and unofficially run by power-obsessed senior Archie Costello, the ingeniously audacious "assigner" for a secret organization called the Vigils.
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CHILDREN'S
Released: May 1, 2003
"The strong language and themes make this a raw, yet immensely likable tale for older teens. (Fiction. YA)"
Curt MacCrae, a semi-homeless, blond ferret of a boy and guitar genius, saves big Troy Billings from leaping to a splattering demise in front of the F train.
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