eBranch :: Top Young Adult Books for the Year

Alligator bayou
Napoli, Donna Jo, 1948-
"It's 1899, and to a 14-year-old Sicilian immigrant, Louisiana is a lush world full of hidden rules and tension between the Negro and white communities. He's thrilled by a 'gator hunt in the bayou, and by his powerful feelings for a sweet Negro girl.

The Orange Houses
Griffin, Paul, 1966-
Meet Tamika Sykes—Mik to her friends (if she had any). She’s hearing impaired and way too smart for her West Bronx high school. She copes by reading lips and selling homework answers, and looks forward to the time each day when she can be alone in her room drawing. She’s a tough girl who never gets close to anyone, until she meets Fatima, a teenage refugee who sells newspapers on Mik’s block. Both Mik and Fatima unite in their efforts to befriend Jimmi, a homeless vet who is shunned by the rest of the community.The events that follow when these three outcasts converge will break open their close-knit community and change the lives of those living in the Orange Houses in explosive and unexpected ways.

Stitches : a memoir
Small, David, 1945-
"In this profound and moving memoir, Small, an award-winning children's book illustrator, uses his drawings to depict the consciousness of a young boy. The story starts when the narrator is six years old and follows him into adulthood, with most of the story spent during his early adolescence. The youngest member of a silent and unhappy family, David is subjected to repeated x-rays to monitor sinus problems. When he develops cancer as a result of this procedure, he is operated on without being told what is wrong with him. The operation results in the loss of his voice, cutting him off even further from the world around him. Small's black and white pen and ink drawings are endlessly perceptive as they portray the layering of dream and imagination onto the real-life experiences of the young boy. Small's intuitive morphing of images, as with the terrible postsurgery scar on the main character's throat that becomes a dark staircase climbed by his mother, provide deep emotional echoes. Some understanding is gained as family secrets are unearthed, but for the most part David fends for himself in a family that is uncommunicative to a truly ghastly degree. Small tells his story with haunting subtlety and power."

When You Reach Me
Stead, Rebecca
Four mysterious letters change Miranda's world forever. By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it's safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner. But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda's mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then Miranda finds a mysterious note scrawled on a tiny slip of paper: I am coming to save your friend's life, and my own. I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter. The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she's too late.

Marcelo in the real world
Stork, Francisco X.
This summer, Arturo Sandoval declares, his son Marcelo will learn about the real world. He will work in the mailroom of Arturo's law firm. He will interact with everyone in the office. He will be normal, as Arturo has always said he is, and not have a highly functioning form of Asperger's Syndrome, as Marcelo knows he does. And Marcelo, reluctantly, must agree to his father's terms. He soon learns reality isn't easy. Wendell, the son of Arturo's partner, offers friendship to further his own ends. The law firm hides an injustice that will transform Marcelo's world. But through it all, there is Jasmine, his beautiful and tenacious coworker, his true friend - and perhaps more. Reminiscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in the intensity and purity of its voice, this extraordinary novel encompasses a legal battle, a subtle love story, and the primal coming-of-age narrative: discovering the truth of one's own capabilities.

Lips touch : three times
Taylor, Laini.
From a writer of unparalleled imagination and emotional insight come three stories of supernatural love--tales about the deliciousness of wanting and waiting for that moment when lips touch. Illustrations.

The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian
Alexie, Sherman, 1966-
"Junior is a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation." "Born with a variety of medical problems, he is picked on by everyone but his best friend. Determined to receive a good education, Junior leaves the rez to attend an all-white school in the neighboring farm town where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Despite being condemned as a traitor to his people and enduring great tragedies, Junior attacks life with wit and humor and discovers a strength inside of himself that he never knew existed.

A long way gone : memoirs of a boy soldier
Beah, Ishmael, 1980-
"In the more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them." "In a Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a story: at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. At sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at his rehabilitation center, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and finally, to heal."

Mister Pip
Jones, Lloyd, 1955-
"On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with almost everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind: the eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dickens's classic Great Expectations." "So begins this story about the abiding strength that imagination, once ignited, can provide. While artillery echoes in the mountains, thirteen-year-old Matilda and her peers are riveted by the adventures of a young orphan named Pip in a city called London, a city whose contours soon become more real than their own blighted landscape. As Mr. Watts says, "A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe." Soon come the rest of the villagers, initially threatened, finally inspired to share tales of their own that bring alive the rich mythology of their past. But in a ravaged place where even children are forced to live by their wits and daily survival is the only objective, imagination can be a dangerous thing."

Skulduggery Pleasant
Landy, Derek
Meet Skulduggery Pleasant Ace Detective Snappy Dresser Razor-tongued Wit Crackerjack Sorcerer and Walking, Talking, Fire-throwing Skeleton --as well as ally, protector, and mentor of Stephanie Edgley, a very unusual and darkly talented twelve-year-old. These two alone must defeat an all-consuming ancient evil. The end of the world? Over his dead body.

Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal
Peet, Mal
From the author of the acclaimed "Keeper" comes a powerfully moving, Carnegie Medal-winning story about love, lies, and secrets set against the daily fear and horror of Nazi-occupied Holland.

American Shaolin : flying kicks, Buddhist monks, and the legend of iron crotch : an odyssey in the new China
Polly, Matthew
Laced with humor and illuminated by cultural insight, this coming-of-age tale explores one young American's quest to become a kung fu master at China's legendary Shaolin Temple. 8-page photo insert.

The invention of Hugo Cabret : a novel in words and pictures
Selznick, Brian
Orphan, clock keeper, thief: Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. Combining elements of picture book, graphic novel, and film, Caldecott Honor artist Selznick breaks open the novel form to create an entirely new reading experience in this intricate, tender, and spellbinding mystery.

The arrival
Tan, Shaun
In this wordless graphic novel, Tan captures the struggles and joy of the immigrant experience through clear, mesmerizing images which tell the story of a man who leaves his homeland and his family to build a better life.

The Pox Party
M.T. Anderson
Various diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, from birth to age sixteen, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War.

Samurai Shortstop
Alan Gratz
While obtaining a Western education at a prestigious Japanese boarding school in 1890, sixteen-year-old Toyo also receives traditional samurai training which has profound effects on both his baseball game and his relationship with his father.

Surrender
Sonya Hartnett
As he is dying, a twenty-year-old man known as Gabriel recounts his troubled childhood and his strange relationship with a dangerous counterpart named Finnigan.

Sold
Patricia McCormick
Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi, though poor, enjoys her life until the Himalayan monsoons wash away her family's crops and she is sold to a brothel in India by her stepfather. She remembers her mother's wisdom, "Simply to endure is to triumph," until the day comes that she can reclaim her life.

Anahita's Woven Riddle
Meghan Nuttall Sayres
In Iran, more than 100 years ago, a young girl with three suitors gets permission from her father and a holy man to weave into her wedding rug a riddle to be solved by her future husband, which will ensure that he has wit to match hers.

The Trap
John Smelcer
In alternating chapters, seventeen-year-old Johnny Least-Weasel, who is better known for brains than brawn, worries about his missing grandfather, and the grandfather, Albert Least-Weasel, struggles to survive, caught in his own steel trap in the Alaskan winter.

The King of Attolia
Megan Whalen Turner
Eugenides, still known as a Thief of Eddis, faces palace intrigue and assassins as he strives to prove himself both to the people of Attolia and to his new bride, their queen.

The Rules of Survival
Nancy Werlin
Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.

American Born Chinese
Gene Yang
Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.

The Book Thief
Marcus Zusack
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow
Susan Campbell Bartoletti
“I begin with the young…What material! With them I can make a new world.” Adolf Hitler exploited the idealism of millions of Germany’s young people to fuel his evil master plan for global domination.

Upstate
Kalisha Buckhanon
Natasha and Antonio, young lovers, communicate via letters for nine years during his incarceration for murdering his father.

Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story
Said Hyder Akbar and Susan Burton
California teen Hyder describes three summers (2002-4) he spent with his father who had returned to the Afghanistan to help rebuild his country by serving as spokesman to the president and governor of a border province.