Young Adult

I remember reading this book when I was a teenager. It is super-short, and I figured it would strike a chord with today’s teenage fans of Avatar.

The sequel to Schaefer’s excellent The Teashop Girls, this story provides tea history, romance and even a good recipe or two.

I try not to push authors too much, but Peck's follow up to A Long Way from Chicago is every bit as good as the first (if not better). Again, I consider this a "must" read, as Peck is today's Twain.

Harold Holzer served as chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation and has written countless books on the 16^th President. What I love about this book is its focus on his personal life, as his family endured its fair share of trials and heartaches. A wonderful and refreshing look at a man every American needs to examine closely, as they don’t make Presidents like Lincoln anymore.

Wonderful Mexican author who will inspire your girls especially with these 56 vignettes about the Mexican Revolution seen through her eyes as a child.

A classic about a man who receives a penguin in the mail as a gift from his hero, Admiral Drake. Mr. Popper had dreamed of exploring the arctic regions; now, he has to provide one for his hungry house guests.

I must confess that I love just about everything Sarah Weeks writes, and I have had the pleasure of watching her perform her works in Readers’ Theatre presentations with other wonderful authors (e.g., Avi, Pam Muñoz Ryan and Richard Peck). You and your kids will get a kick out of the mysterious tale of Polly the pie maker and why – after she passed away – she left all of her wonderful pie recipes to her cat.

This stirring and uplifting true story makes for a wonderful read for all ages, as it follows the unbelievable life of Chi Fa (which means “new beginning”) as he emigrates to the United States and prospers. Every day I realize there are extraordinary people all around me, if I just learn about their personal stories. Great book to engage students to tell their own stories, especially immigrants.

People tell me there is an Italian movie of this book, and I’d be interested in seeing it. This book will spurn a number of dialogues among your high school students, as it reads a lot like Stephen King’s novella The Body (made into the popular movie Stand by Me).

One of the best pieces of young adult historical fiction that I have read in the past five years. A boy apprentices for a doctor in the 19th century and searches for a cure to the consumption that is killing everybody in town, including his own family. I used this book for a class that was discussing advances in medical technology (it worked great with my impression of Steve Martin acting as a middle age doctor/barber in a hilarious old Saturday Night Live sketch).

Probably most appropriate for upper elementary and middle school students, this fantasy will whet young readers' appetites for the Harry Potter series.

Probably every fourth or fifth grader has read Gardiner’s popular Stone Fox about a boy’s dog sled race in Alaska. This is the one I prefer, though, as it is the funny and educational tale of a boy who decides to discover human photosynthesis and enter his findings into the school science fair. Young Allen ingests a ton of magnesium and soon loses his taste buds and craves sunlight, and the government does not want anyone to know that he has, indeed, discovered human photosynthesis. This book will get reluctant readers reading and teach them a thing or two about science while they eagerly laugh and flip pages.

I am a huge fan of the great Japanese film director Akira Kirosawa, and one of Kurosawa’s most provocative films is Rashomon, the story of a woman’s rape told from different perspectives. Walter attempts to do the same in this book by telling the story of a teenager who kills an elderly store owner, as told through 18 different first-person perspectives. I have heard many teachers gripe that the book offers no definite resolution, but that is precisely one of the things I like about the book. It makes for intense book discussions.

When a young adult book wins a National Book Award, you know it must be pretty special. This one is, as it tells the story of the teenage son of a poor puppet-maker who becomes a theatre apprentice and discovers the identity of Robin Hood-like character in famine struck 18th-century Japan.

Alright, the Megaboy book got me thinking about Kurosawa, so of course I wound up re-watching some of my favorite Kurosawa films (The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Ran, The Hidden Fortress). If you have never heard of Kurosawa, just know that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg idolized him, and his movies inspired all sorts of American adaptations (e.g. The Magnificent Seven, High Plains Drifter, Star Wars). Because of Kurosawa, I have managed to get a lot of middle and high school students interested in foreign films and Joseph Campbell. This brief autobiography is great and should whet your appetite for the much longer The Emperor and the Wolf (about Kurosawa and his turbulent relationship with his favorite star, Toshiro Mifune).