Let us know what you think! At the beginning of each month, several newly published books will be selected by Teen Services Librarians at the Northport-East Northport Public Library. The titles are geared for teens and tweens, and include fiction, non-fiction, and audiobooks. You may submit multiple entries. Read the selected titles below and submit your review.
May 2008
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
While trying to score a date with her cute co-worker at the Scooper Dooper, sixteen-year-old Audrey gains unwanted fame and celebrity status when her ex-boyfriend, a rock musician, records a breakup song about her that soars to the top of the Billboard charts.
Found* by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Tween
When thirteen-year-olds Jonah and Chip, who are both adopted, learn they were discovered on a plane that appeared out of nowhere, full of babies with no adults on board, they realize that they have uncovered a mystery involving time travel and two opposing forces, each trying to repair the fabric of time.
Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Tween
Fourteen-year-old Brady and his cousin Quinn love extreme sports, but nothing could prepare them for the aftermath of Brady's close encounter with a meteorite after it crashes into his Black Hills, South Dakota, bedroom.
Snakehead* by Anthony Horowitz
Category: Audiobook
Recommended Age: Teen
While working with the Australian Secret Service on a dangerous mission, teenaged spy Alex Rider uncovers information about his parents.
Once Upon a Time in the North* by Philip Pullman
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
In a time before Lyra Silvertongue was born, the tough American balloonist Lee Scoresby and the great armoured bear Iorek Byrnison meet when Lee and his hare daemon Hester crash-land their trading balloon onto a port in the far Arctic North and find themselves right in the middle of a political powder keg. Prequel to The Golden Compass.
Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali by Charles R. Smith Jr.
Category: Non-Fiction
Recommended Age: Tween and Teen
A biography of the boxer, told in rap-like verse, tracing his professional career, political struggles and shift to Islamic faith.
How Not to be Popular by Jennifer Ziegler
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
Seventeen-year-old Sugar Magnolia Dempsey is tired of leaving friends behind every time her hippie parents decide to move, but her plan to be unpopular at her new Austin, Texas, school backfires when other students join her on the path to "supreme dorkdom."
April 2008
The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Tween
In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hubener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people.
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
Visitors, spectators, and residents of Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925 describe, in a series of free-verse poems, the Scopes "monkey trial" and its effects on that small town and its citizens.
The Fortunes of Indigo Skye by Deb Caletti
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
Eighteen-year-old Indigo is looking forward to becoming a full-time waitress after high school graduation, but her life is turned upside down by a large check given to her by a customer who appreciates that she cares enough to scold him about smoking.
You Know Where to Find Me by Rachel Cohn
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
In the wake of her cousin's suicide, overweight and introverted seventeen-year-old Miles experiences significant changes in her relationships with her mother and father, her best friend Jamal and his family, and her cousin's father, while gaining insights about herself, both positive and negative.
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
In the City, where an iron-fisted Mayor's goal is perfect control through education, fifteen-year-old Tack is torn between a growing sympathy for the Truancy, an underground movement determined to bring down the system at any cost, and the desire to avenge a death caused by a Truant.
InJEANious: 52 Ways to DIY Your Denim by Lauren A. Greene
Category: Non-Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
Packed with dozens of simple, stupendous ideas for transforming a plain pair of jeans into a one-of-a-kind fashion statement, this book offers looks ranging from girly to glam, from rocker to right-on, from boho to...you know. Rhinestones, artfully placed rips, graffiti--these easy techniques and easy-to-find supplies let every teen turn their jeans into a personal art statement. Tips on shopping, finding the right fit, caring for jeans, and more add to the value.
Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution by Moying Li
Category: Biography
Recommended Age: Teen
Bringing to life a dark time in China's history, this powerful memoir follows the author, who, during the summer of 1966 when student Red Guards launched brutal assaults and forced confessions, finds solace in a world of imagination and learning when her father smuggles a reading list of banned books to her from labor camp.
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Tween
When fourteen-year-old baseball player Hutch feels threatened by the arrival of a new teammate named Darryl, he tries to work through his insecurities about both Darryl and his remote and silent father, who was once a great ballplayer too.
March 2008
Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Tween
Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York.
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Tween
After unscrupulous collector S. Wendell Palamino cons him out of a valuable baseball card, sixth-grader Griffin Bing puts together a band of misfits to break into Palomino's heavily guarded store and steal the card back, planning to use the money to finance his father's failing invention, the SmartPick fruit picker.
Category: Audiobook
Recommended Age: Teen
Don't stare at invisible faeries. Don't speak to invisible faeries. And never, ever attract their attention. These are the three rules of survival for Aislinn, a teenage girl who possesses the seer's sight--a gift (or curse) that reveals to her the hordes of fey kind who mingle mischievously among mortals undetected. But the old rules are breaking. Keenan, a powerful, radiantly beautiful faerie--both terrifying and alluring--has taken a special interest in Aislinn, haunting her footsteps everywhere she goes. Keenan is in fact the Summer King, and he's determined to make Aislinn his queen. Although she can't deny feeling tempted, there are other things to consider. Namely the loss of her freedom and human life, and the deadly fates suffered by all the other mortal girls Keenan tried to transform into his queen.
Blood Relatives* by Ellen Schreiber
Category: Graphic Novel
Recommended Age: Teen
Sixteen-year-old Raven, an outcast who always wears black and hopes to become a vampire some day, falls in love with the mysterious new boy in town, eager to find out if he can make her dreams come true.
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs--and, perhaps, save their own lives.
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
In 1990, thirteen-year-old John "Spud" Milton, a prepubescent choirboy, keeps a diary of his first year at an elite, boys-only boarding school in South Africa, as he deals with bizarre housemates, wild crushes, embarrasingly dysfunctional parents, and much more.
Category: Fiction
Recommended Age: Teen
Between her violin concertos, pressure to excel, getting perfect SAT's, and just trying to be one of the cool crowd, a young Korean-American girl struggles in her senior year to meet everyone's expectations, including some of her own.