“The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature” (Printz Award, 2012) and is not based on popularity. The following books are my choices as suggestions for older teens.
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour: The protagonist age and the college setting alone would have me searching this book out to suggest to an older teen.
And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard: This book deals with some very mature issues faced by the main character, seventeen year old Emily.
This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki. A wonderful nostalgic graphic novel that contains mature situations would be appropriate for the older teen.
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner: This book takes place in the 1950’s in a dystopian setting that gives the reader a glimpse into what England might have been like if Nazi Germany won the war. While the cover and book size may suggest to the
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According to the YALSA website “The Teens' Top Ten is a "teen choice" list, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year (ALA, 2012). Titles from this list such as I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Turtles All The Way Down and Wonder Woman: Warbringer were checked out during my two week work period behind the circulation desk in May. But it is important to point out that even books from this list were not among the most checked out items by teens. By far the most popular items in our teen section are graphic novels and magna that are checked out by teen patrons under the age of sixteen. The Kealakekua Library rarely has teens between the age of sixteen and nineteen using the
Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion concentrates on the Scopes trial, otherwise called the "Monkey Trial," which happened in Dayton, Tennessee in the mid year of 1925. The trial occurred in excess of a Tennessee law that banned the educating of human development out in the open schools. The American Civil Liberties Union needed to test the law, and a junior instructor named John Scopes, consented to help them. The alleged "trial of the century" united the well known government official and speaker, William Jennings Bryan, who headed the opposition to development campaign; and Clarence Darrow, who was viewed as the best criminal protection legal advisor of the time. The two men, plus their individual direction, clashed in the trail with the indictment in the end ready to maintain the law.
From Willa, With Love by Coleen Murtagh Paratore is told through the eyes of a young teenage girl, Willa, who helps her mother, Stella, and her stepfather, Sam run their popular business, the Bramblebriar Inn. It’s August time in Bramble, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Willa is enjoying her summer. She tries to keep herself busy to keep the thought of missing her dreamy boyfriend, JFK as she calls him, who is away for six weeks at a baseball camp and her best friend, Mariel, who is visiting her mother for the summer. To fill up her schedule she helps her mother plan weddings at the inn, spends time getting to know her newly discover half brother, Will, who is visiting, takes walks along the beach with her dog, Salty, and reads tons of books.
Anthem and The Maze Runner are both dystopian society based books that teens like to read because they can relate to them and they like how twisted they are.
received recognition from the New York Times, Amazon, and Scholastics. Courage is by far the
Although some books do contain negative values and deemed inappropriate by some people, Bleachers, by John Grisham contains many positive values and is very appropriate for adolescents to read.
I would recommend this book to all high school readers and any readers who have a desire to read a
The genre historical fiction focuses young readers to inform them about historical and significant cultural events in history, but to do in a way that is comfortable for readers in this age group. One Crazy Summer is a good example of young adult literature of highlighting cultural/historical events and entertaining to its audience. Two characteristics that make this a great novel for middle school readers is that 1- It encourages further inquiry( historical) and 2-The situations and characters are relatable (Y/A novel).
Some readers may argue that this story has a different theme altogether. They may say that the story is about jealousy or greed, speaking of the other children’s need to see the sun and envy of Margot for remembering it. This is because there’s many possible main themes for All Summer in A Day. Each reader will formulate a slightly different one. Some may even attempt to tie this story to abusive behavior, claiming that the way Margot is treated by her classmates is abusive. The main theme in each reader’s mind truly depends on the views and opinions of the person creating
“It has been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands.” (Bradbury, 1954) In the dystopian story, “All Summer In A Day” by Ray Bradbury, it takes place on the planet, Venus. A group of children, along with scientists get to live there, while being educated at the underground school. Margot, who is only 9 years old, wasn't born on Venus like the other children, but instead on Earth. She’s the only one who remembers how the sun felt through her skin and how beautiful it shined. On the contrary, the other children are jealous of her because she has some memory of the sun, while they don’t. Jealousy caused the children to harass, isolate, and make her depressed.
In “Bold Books for Teenagers: Summer Reading”, Gallo explains that action packed stories filled with adventure attract teenage students and allow them to actively participate in these adventures by reading. The creepy scenes of the lab and mutant children in cages with their organs out and the morphing of Erasers and violent fights were all disturbing yet attract both male and female audience: the males get excited by them while the girls sympathetic. In James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series, the suspense and nonstop action, as well as Max’s “smart mouth and witty” narration keep teens (especially boys) reading. The way the characters are well detailed makes them never predictable and straightforward with their plans which keeps the readers on their
Kids can be cruel when they are envious as shown in the short story, “All Summer In A Day,” by Ray Bradbury. The sun is what makes Margot happy, and when that gets taken away from her. In this short story there is several acts of cruelty to Margot by her classmates. These kids live in the planet of Venus, and they haven’t seen the sun in seven years, except for Margot. The kids are only nine years old so they haven’t seen the sun since they were two years old, but Margot moved there from Earth when she was four and she remembers the sun and that makes the other kids envious. In the beginning of the story it is the day that the sun is supposed to come out for the first time in seven years! The kids were skeptical except for Margot because she wanted to see it so bad. The kids were starting to prepare for the sun to come out but they were sitting inside waiting. While they were waiting the kids decided to lock Margot in a closet and not let her out. When the sun came out all the kids ran outside to play in the sun that felt so warm and nice on their skin, except for Margot, who was sitting inside in the dark closet. When the kids came back inside they felt sorry for leaving Margot in there. Envy can lead people to commit awful acts and cause shame as demonstrated throughout the character's actions in, “All Summer In A Day.”
The story of Summer, by David Updike, is set during that idyllic time in life when responsibility is the last word on anyone's mind. And yet, as with all human affairs, responsibility is an ever-present and ever-necessary aspect to life. What happens when the protagonist, Homer, loses his awareness of a certain personal responsibility to maintain self-control? Homer's actions increasingly make him act foolishly, internally and externally. Also, how does Homer return to a sense of sanity and responsibility? To a degree, I would say that he does.
As an adult reader who has crossed over to the reality of life, reading about these characters can be a transparent, futile exercise because as adults looking back at youth we have the experience to know where these characters are headed before they even start their journey. However, for young adults who are still in the throes of existential angst this is a powerful novel that handles teenage rites of passage and coming-of-age issues such as loyalty, friendship, belonging, and even death and loss very well.
All Summer in A Day by Ray Bradbury is about how a little jealousy can turn into rage and reveals that children, along with adults, can be blinded by something so simple.The author of All Summer in A Day believes jealousy and bullying are the key emotions played in this short story. Bradbury claims that the main characters, Margot, is being bullied because she was Earth longer. Whereas, the other students don’t even remember Earth because of how early they all moved to Venus. When Margot arrives, she was four. The other children had arrived two years before. The author describes her as “a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the
Black teen fiction, genre fiction, science fiction. children's books, middle grade, picture books, and all types of novels. I'm