HAVE YOU READ THE BEST OF 2010 PART ONE — FICTION
Over the past twelve months many stories have been published for teens and tweens. The noted periodical, SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, selected the best. You will find all of these titles at the East Meadow Public Library.
HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAY OF READING.
13 TREASURES by Michelle Harrison
Bedeviled by evil fairies that only she can see, thirteen-year-old Tanya is sent to stay with her cold and distant grandmother at Elvesden Manor. where she and the caretaker’s son solve a disturbing mystery that leads them to the discovery that Tanya’s life is in danger. (TWEEN)
ALCHEMY AND MEGGY SWANN by Karen Cushman
In 1573, the crippled, scorned, and destitute Meggy Swann goes to London, where she meets her father, an impoverished alchemist, and eventually discovers that although her legs are bent and weak, she has many other strengths. (TWEEN)
ANNEXED by Sharon Dogar
Everyone knows about Anne Frank and her life hidden in the secret annex, but what about Peter van Pels, the boy who was also trapped there with her? As Peter and Anne become closer and closer in their confined quarters, how can they make sense of what they see happening around them? Anne’s diary ends on August 4, 1944, but Peter’s story goes on, beyond their betrayal and into the Nazi death camps. (HIGH SCHOOL)
ATHENA:GREY-EYED GODDESS by George O’Connor
From the moment she emerged, fully grown, from the head of Zeus, Athena was one of the most complex Olympians. This graphic novel retells her many interwoven tales: how she killed Pallas, fought the Gigantes, aided Perseus, and cursed Arachne. (GRAPHIC NOVEL)
BLACK HOLE SUN by David Gill
On the planet Mars, sixteen-year-old Durango and his crew of mercenaries are hired by the settlers of a mining community to protect their most valuable resource from a feral band of marauders. (HIGH SCHOOL)
CONFESSIONS OF THE SULLIVAN SISTERS
By Natalie Standiford
Upon learning on Christmas Day that their rich and imperious grandmother may soon die and disown the family unless the one who offended her deeply will confess, each of the three Sullivan sisters sets down her offenses on paper. (HIGH SCHOOL)
A CONSPIRACY OF KINGS by Megan Whalen Turner
Kidnapped and sold into slavery, Sophos, an unwilling prince, tries to save his country from being destroyed by rebellion and exploited by the conniving Mede empire.
COSMIC by Frank Cottrell
Super-sized, eleven-year-old Liam makes a giant leap for boy-kind by competing with a group of adults for the chance to go into space. (TWEEN)
FEVER CRUMB by Philip Reeve
Foundling Fever Crumb has been raised as an engineer although females in the future London, England, are not believed capable of rational thought, but at age fourteen she leaves her sheltered world and begins to learn startling truths about her past while facing danger in the present.
FINNIKIN OF THE ROCK by Melina Marchetta
Now on the cusp of manhood, Finnikin, who was a child when the royal family of Lumatere was brutally murdered and replaced by an imposter, reluctantly joins forces with an enigmatic young novice and fellow-exile, who claims that her dark dreams will lead them to a surviving royal child and a way to regain the throne of Lumatere.
THE GRIMM LEGACY by Polly Shulman
New York high school student Elizabeth gets an after-school job as a page at the “New-York Circulating Material Repository,” and when she gains coveted access to its Grimm Collection of magical objects, she and the other pages are drawn into a series of frightening adventures involving mythical creatures and stolen goods.
INCARECERON by Catherine Fisher
To free herself from an upcoming arranged marriage, Claudia, the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, a futuristic prison with a mind of its own, decides to help a young prisoner escape.
KING OF ITHAKA by Tracy Barrett
When sixteen-year-old Telemachos and his two best friends, one a centaur, leave their life of privilege to undertake a quest to find Telemachos’s father Odysseus, they learn much along the way about what it means to be a man and a king.
OSTRICH BOYS by Keith Gray
After their best friend Ross dies, English teenagers Blake, Kenny, and Sim plan a proper memorial by taking his ashes to Ross, Scotland, an adventure-filled journey that tests their loyalty to each other and forces them to question what friendship means.
THE RED PYRAMID by Rick Riordan
After their father’s research experiment at the British Museum unleashes the Egyptian god Set, Carter and Sadie Kane embark on a dangerous journey across the globe–a quest which brings them ever closer to the truth about their family, and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs. (TWEEN)
REVOLUTION by Jennifer Donnelly
An angry, grieving seventeen-year-old musician facing expulsion from her prestigious Brooklyn private school travels to Paris to complete a school assignment and uncovers a diary written during the French revolution by a young actress attempting to help a tortured, imprisoned little boy–Louis Charles, the lost king of France. (HIGH SCHOOL)
THE THINGS A BROTHER KNOWS by Dana Reinhardt
Although they have never gotten along well, seventeen-year-old Levi follows his older brother Boaz, an ex-Marine, on a walking trip from Boston to Washington, D.C. in hopes of learning why Boaz is completely withdrawn. (HIGH SCHOOL)
THREE RIVERS RISING: A NOVEL OF THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD
By Jame Richards
Sixteen-year-old Celestia is a wealthy member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, where she meets and falls in love with Peter, a hired hand who lives in the valley below, and by the time of the torrential rains that lead to the disastrous Johnstown flood of 1889, she has been disowned by her family and is staying with him in Johnstown. Includes an author’s note and historical timeline.
TOADS AND DIAMONDS by Heather Tomlinson
A retelling of the Perrault fairy tale set in pre-colonial India, in which two stepsisters receive gifts from a goddess and each walks her own path to find her gift’s purpose, discovering romance along the way.
TRASH by Andy Mulligan
Fourteen-year-olds Raphael and Gardo team up with a younger boy, Rat, to figure out the mysteries surrounding a bag Raphael finds during their daily life of sorting through trash in a third-world country’s dump.
WICKED GIRLS: A NOVEL OF THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS
by Stephanie Hemphill
A fictionalized account, told in verse, of the Salem witch trials, told from the perspective of three young women living in Salem in 1692–Mercy Lewis, Margaret Walcott, and Ann Putnam, Jr. (HIGH SCHOOL)
ZOMBIES VS. UNICORNS by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier
Twelve short stories by a variety of authors seek to answer the question of whether zombies are better than unicorns. (HIGH SCHOOL)
WATCH FOR PART TWO — NONFICTION BOOKS
Mrs Jackson
Head of Young Adult Services
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