A Certain October by Angela Johnson

A Certain October is a small and unassuming book. It paints an intricate picture of Scotty and her friends and family as she navigates through a difficult month in her life. Scotty's younger brother with autism steals cookies and runs naked through the neighborhood. Her best friend Misha is preparing for the homecoming dance where she is a rebellious homecoming queen candidate. Scotty's other best friend, Falcone, has broken up with his boyfriend and trying to find a way to visit his estranged older sister. Everyone is going about their normal lives when Scotty and her brother are in a train wreck. The book is about how she deals with the resulting injuries, death, and guilt. It's not a sad book, though. It shows how ordinary people can go on living in spite of difficult circumstances Angela Johnson's writing style is spare and deceptively simple, at times poignant and often humorous. It's a beautiful and rewarding book that will most certainly win some literary awards this year. Recommended for grades 9-up.

BZRK by Michael Grant

This book at times blew my mind and went right over my head. It's about two rival factions of futuristic scientists who have developed nanobots that can be controlled by human brains and sent into other people's bodies, usually for evil purposes. Smart young kids are the best at controlling these nanobots but they frequently go insane after a few years of piloting the bugs through human flesh. (Lots of gross descriptions of this here, by the way.) A war is on and this book is all action and intrigue as they battle for world domination. I totally see the appeal to teens but honestly, it was a little hard for me to follow this crazy story. Recommended for grades 9-up.

Cardboard by Doug TenNapel

This colorful, action-packed graphic novel drew me in and I finished the book in one sitting. It features an underdog kid named Cam with a down-and-out father. Together they create a cardboard man that comes to life. Bill, as he is called, is a good character (as far as cardboard men go) and helpful to have around. The problems arise when Cam's nasty friend Marcus figures out how to create his own cardboard army of evil creatures. The cardboard creatures rage out of control and Cam and Marcus must fight them off. This alone is a great plot for middle school kids, but what made it compelling for me was the subplot of Cam's unemployed dad dealing with the grief of losing his wife and feeling like an inadequate father. The art and the story work together perfectly to tell a story that will have great appeal to kids intermediate and middle school kids. Recommended for readers from 4th grade and up.

Outcasts United: The Story of a Refugee Soccer Team That Changed a Town by Warren St. John

This is the young people's version of an adult book that was published several years ago. It's the true story of a soccer team for refugees in a town very close to where I live in Georgia. It is really the story of a Jordanian woman named Luma who immigrated to the United States and dedicated herself to helping refugees by coaching soccer teams for children and teenagers. The author, a New York Times reporter, followed Luma's teams for a season and wrote about their games, their life stories, and the community where they settled. Luma is a tough coach who cares deeply for her players but often has to make difficult decisions about who will play on her teams. The players come from all over the world and Clarkston, Georgia isn't the most welcoming place for them. For many of the players, the "Fugees" team becomes their family and their reason for living. I love the story of this team and I know this book will appeal to soccer fans. My criticism of this book is that I wanted deeper knowledge about Luma and the families she works with but this book tended to spend more time on soccer play-by-play than on the details of their lives. This book is a solid nonfiction choice for middle school students, but I suspect that adults and older teens will prefer the original version of Outcasts United.

UnWholly by Neal Shusterman

I'm a huge fan of Unwind and of Neal Shusterman in general, and this sequel did not disappoint. In fact, it got me even more interested in this futuristic world in which scientific advancements have made human body parts a valuable commodity—valuable enough to where people willingly justify killing teenagers for their body parts.  The main characters from Unwind are all back and fighting against unwinding in various ways. Lev is a poster child for rescued tithes, while Connor and Risa are living at the airfield and protecting hundreds of runaway unwinds. Risa, paralyzed from the waist down, sacrifices herself to protect Connor, and ends up in the company of Cam, the world's first composite human—made entirely of the body parts of unwound teenagers. His creators think he will be welcomed by humanity as the perfect person but many see him as a monster. A new character named Starkey emerges as the champion of the "storks" and an enemy to Connor's society of unwinds. It's another thought-provoking and riveting read that students are already devouring. The book stands on its own, but all the pieces are in order for an amazing third book in the trilogy.

Ungifted by Gordon Korman

Donovan is kind of a troublemaker at his middle school. He's definitely not a kid that would get recommended to attend a special academy for gifted students. But after causing a major statue malfunction that destroys his school gymnasium, the superintendent has Donovan's name on a piece of paper on his desk. When that paper accidentally gets submitted to the academy for gifted students, Donovan realizes that it's a great place to hide from the punishment he faces for the statue incident. Donovan definitely doesn't rise to the occasion and become gifted in math and science, but he does make some friends and the gifted kids come to appreciate his laid back style and sense of humor. There's a robot and a pregnant sister that factor into the story to keep things interesting. While I don't think this is quite at the level of Schooled or No More Dead Dogs, this is another fun book about middle school life from Gordon Korman.

My Family for the War by Anne C. Voorhoeve

Imagine being separated from your parents at age 10 and being sent to live with a new family in a new country. That is what happens to Franziska on the eve of World War II. She is a German girl who is a Christian, but her Jewish ancestry makes her a target for the Nazis. Her father is arrested and her mother gets her on a kindertransport train to England, where she is taken in by a Jewish family. She spends the next seven years with a strange family in a strange country, all the while worrying about her parents and hoping that they survive the war. Frances, as she is called in England, grows and changes and feels more English than German at times. Her relationship with her foster family is at the heart of the book. It's a rich, detailed story about growing up and coming of age, and the backdrop of World War II makes it all the more interesting. Recommended for historical fiction readers grades 7-up.

The Fairy Ring: Elsie and Frances Fool the World by Mary Losure

This nonfiction book may need some selling to get it in the hands of readers. The background story is this—during World War I a couple of English girls took photos of themselves with paper fairies in them. The photos were later discovered and thought to be real photos of fairies. Elsie and Frances gained a lot of fame and scrutiny for the photos but didn't let on that they were a hoax for many decades. This is the story of how and why they took the photographs, and why educated people in the early 1900s (included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) believed in photographs of fairies. It's a relatively short, easy read about a strange piece of history. A fun and fascinating work of nonfiction for intermediate and middle school readers.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

The most peculiar thing about this book are the strange historical photographs of children—one levitating, one covered in bees, another holding up a huge boulder with one hand. They are all part of the stories that Jacob's grandfather has always told him about the orphanage in Wales where he lived during World War II. After grandfather dies under strange circumstances, Jacob is compelled to go to the mysterious island in Wales that might hold some answers about his grandfather's bizarre stories. What he finds is an abandoned orphanage, more old photographs, and evidence that these peculiar children may still be alive. What he finds out about people who are "peculiar" and the forces that haunt them is alarming and it all fits into place with grandfather's unbelievable stories. Grave danger is lurking and Jacob must choose a new path in life. It's weird and creepy and definitely interesting. Unfortunately, it's a set-up for a sequel that is as yet unpublished. I think this book looks like a book for younger readers, but really would be most appropriate for 7th-10th grade readers of horror, suspense, and mystery books.

52 Reasons to Hate My Father by Jessica Brody

Lexington Larrabee is a spoiled rich girl who is on the brink of inheriting twenty-five million dollars from her business-tycoon father. Unfortunately, she makes headlines when she crashes her $500,000 car into a convenience store and her father takes away the trust fund. Instead he gives her a list of 52 jobs she must do for one week each. The jobs include cleaning houses, working at a fast food restaurant, digging graves, working at a funeral home, and the list goes on. She will only inherit her money if she completes the jobs. Her father, totally uninvolved with her life, sends his stuffy young intern to keep track of her progress. Along the way Lex starts to take charge of her life and to unravel the family secrets that have made her life not-so-perfect. It's a predictable book in many ways, but very fun to read. It's definitely on the fluffy side, but well-written with a few twists and turns to keep you guessing. It's also pretty clean and totally appropriate for grades 7-up.

No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz

This book takes place in a huge shopping mall where an act of bioterrorism has taken place. Hundreds of people are quarantined in the shopping center and given no information about why they are there, what is happening to the victims, or how long they will be held captive. There are four characters narrating this book—all teenagers who were there at the mall for various reasons. At first the quarantine seems like a lark, but after days and days of roaming the mall, bathrooms are filthy, food is getting scarce, and communication with the outside world is cut off. How would everyday people react in such a situation? While this book has a great premise, it failed to live up to my initial expectations. I didn't relate closely to any of the teen characters and I didn't believe some of their reactions to this frightening situation. It wasn't a bad book at all—it just didn't grab me like I was hoping it would.

Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral

This unusual book is not a graphic novel, but it is a story told through photographs and documents. The main characters are a teenage girl who is a piano prodigy and a neighbor boy who seems to offer her an alternative to her rigorous, highly disciplined life. As the book progresses, Glory plays the piano in major concerts but also becomes unable to play anything but Chopsticks. Is she really going crazy or is it crazy to keep up her life as a piano player? Is she running away with Frank or has he deserted her? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what happened in this book. It's intriguing and full of clues, but maybe I'm not visually literate enough to figure it out. I would love to hear from others who think they get it!

Divergent by Veronica Roth

There are lots of books trying to be the next Hunger Games, and this is one of the best contenders that I've read in the last few years. It's set in a future-world-gone-bad and a teenager has a life-changing choice to make about her future. Society is divided into five factions—abnegation (selflessness), candor (honesty), dauntless (bravery), amity (peaceful), and erudite (intelligence)—and sixteen-year-olds must choose which virtue they will dedicate their life to. Tris makes a surprising choice and in the following weeks of training must dig deep to survive in a hostile environment. She learns some secrets about the factions and she suddenly finds it difficult to live in her black and white world when she knows that all is not as it seems. There's lots of action here and also characters to care about. I have had quite a few students (and teachers) excited to talk about this book.

The Edumacation of Jay Baker by Jay Clark

Jay Baker, the freshman narrator of this book, is so full of jokes and pop culture references that sometimes I could hardly keep up with him. He's secretly in love with his cheerleader best friend, dealing with his parents' separation, and fighting off a bullying homophobic former friend who constantly torments him at school. Although Jay Baker would have you believe he's kind of a wimp, he seems to have no problems with girls falling for him—in fact, he starts up a relationship with tennis-playing Caroline who can match him joke for joke, and then finds he has two girls vying for his attention. It's a very enjoyable, funny book about the trials and tribulations of an unusually smart, funny guy with a lot going on in his life. His interactions with his mom, dad, sister, and history teacher all seemed very true to life—and I appreciated that the adults were meaningful characters in the book. I read through this quickly and liked it a lot—it's Jay Clark's first book and I'm sure he will be a talent to watch. Recommended for high school guys and girls.

A World Away by Nancy Grossman

I know that there is a whole world of Amish romances out there but I have never read one. I thought when I picked this YA book up it might be something like that for a teen audience. I still have no idea how this compares to the adult Amish romances, but I found this to be an enjoyable coming of age story with an interesting cultural twist. Eliza is a 16-year-old Amish girl who longs to get out of her sheltered community and experience life among the "English" (that's us). When the opportunity to be a nanny for a Chicago family arises she jumps at the chance to give up her plain dress. She buys her first pair of jeans at Walmart and heads off to the land of cell phones, texting, television, video games, movies, computers, and much more. She meets a romantic interest very quickly who loves to show her new things and introduces her to his friends. Of course, she struggles at first to make sense of the world of "English" teenagers, but she enjoys many things about her new life. She makes a startling discovery also—her mother's sister whom she has never even heard of lives nearby. Aunt Beth was shunned many years ago for marrying an outsider. This is the life that Eliza would be choosing if she decides to leave the Amish community. In many ways the book was predictable—of course she would meet a boyfriend and be forced to decide between going back to her Amish community or joining the larger world. But I wasn't sure until the end what choice Eliza would make or how she could ever be happy in either world. All in all this was an engaging story that made me want to keep reading and opened my eyes to a culture about which I know very little. Definitely recommended for high school readers—and let's face it, it's girls who will enjoy it the most.