Young Adult

When the face of a missing child on a milk carton begins to bring back memories, 15-year-old Jane begins to question if her loving parents are truly hers. An older book (it’s about 15 years old), but a real page-turner.

Order multiple copies of this one (written in verse), as your girls will love this cautionary tale that all teenagers (and their parents and teachers) need to read.

Picked this book up because of its clever play on “Khan Academy,” and I wound up breezing through this very funny book about a teenage con artist navigating his way through prep school. Very entertaining.

“Haunting” is the best way to describe this extraordinary book that asks, “How can a bird that is born for joy sit in a cage and sing?” Adults should enjoy this tale just as much as young adults. Many thanks to Cynthia McDermott for introducing me to this pick.

Subtitled “The Ultimate 24/7 Guide to Surviving the High School Years,” this book is the perfect gift for the child who is preparing to enter high school (or even, I daresay, middle school). The book is filled with practical advice from real-life teens, checklists and interesting tidbits from the authors, who I understand are quite good speakers (I have not had the opportunity to see them yet).

When I was a teenager one of the few authors I devoured was Robert Louis Stevenson. Lawrence’s High Seas Trilogy captures the time period perfectly, and I have observed a number of reluctant readers who complained when they finished all three books in this series. These are keepers.

If you like stories that will scare you out of your pants, this is the book for you. You could read this aloud to teens and hear a pin drop…that is, until they jump out of their seats and scream.

Some of the toughest people to find books for are my teenage skateboarders, so I revere this book as a passport to peaking their interest in reading. A truly great book to recommend for the summer vacation.

Cool “lost” comic of the 1940s about a Chinese American superhero known as “the Green Turtle.” This is a graphic novel your boys will fight over. Great illustrations by Sonny Liew.

May created the comic Princess X in fifth grade with her buddy Libby, who soon after died in a car crash. Now that she is 16, May is startled to find her creation plastered around the streets of Seattle. Here’s a graphic novel your girls will bend over backwards to read.

Many children grow up with an imaginary friend. Slacker teen Jane White, on the other hand, created an imaginary enemy that she can blame all of her problems on. Nothing is ever Jane’s fault (sounds like a typical American, yes?), so when Jane’s imaginary friend writes her back, silliness sure to bring a smile to your face ensues.

Yes, there are some problems with this book, as I found quite a few problems with the author’s scientific knowledge (and, believe me, science is not my area of expertise). Still, I have tried quite a few of the experiments with success, and a lot of the creations are sure to impress friends, business associates and students. The book is just meant for fun.

I think a lot of us could use a book to escape with right about now, so grab a copy of this tale of one girl’s European travel adventures as she tries not to think about her father’s recent death or her mother’s deployment to Iraq. Moving and extremely well-written.

This one is a winner! Written as the diary of a teenage girl during the mid-1970s, this book sounded like a “girl” book all the way. Do not make that mistake. I was amazed to find the story to be captivating, funny and gripping all at once. A real page-turner about a girl’s coming of age disrupted by a ghost in the attic that happens to be her brother, who died in Vietnam.

I guess I was on a British authors’ kick this past month. Linda Newbery crafts a compelling mystery around Matt, “a new kid in town,” who feels a connection to a boy with the same initials who died on a road where Matt bicycles. Matt’s new chums, Robbo and Tig, torment the boy’s killer, but maybe there is more to the story than Robbo and Tig let on. This one is sure to entice middle schoolers.