Running In The Family, Michael Ondaatje; Vintage International

“An autobiographical journey of discovery gathers together fragments of memory, experience, and family history in order to understand the meaning of his parents’ legacy and his own heritage.”
Robin’s Note: Michael Ondaatje is famous for writing the novel The English Patient, bu this is his memoir of childhood and his own family’s quirks and secrets.  As with all of his writing, the language is rich and absorbing, and his fondness for his homeland shines through even with the breakdown of his family.  His sense of place is unmatched.

Samurai Shortstop, Alan Gratz; Dial Books

“While obtaining a Western education at a prestigious Japanese boarding school in 1890, sixteen-year-old Toyo also receives traditional samurai training which has profound effects on both his baseball game and his relationship with his father.”
Robin’s Note: This title is a bit different from most sports titles, in that it’s historical, but I thought it might appeal, especially since we now have a star Japanese baseball player here in Boston.  The history of baseball in Japan is interesting, and they are likely the only other country that loves the sport as much as Americans do.  Baseball was adopted in Japan early on in the game’s history, and the conflict between the new culture it represented and the traditions of Japan, represented here by samurai culture, was fierce and often personal.

Crackback, John Coy; Scholastic Press

“Miles barely recalls when football was fun after being sidelined by a new coach, constantly criticized by his father, and pressured by his best friend to take performance-enhancing drugs.”
Robin’s Note: This title takes on a harsher aspect of sports by addressing steroids – their appeal and the dangers of using them.  John Coy has written a number of books featuring sports for teens, so if you like this one, there’s more to read.

Liar, Justine Larbalestier; Bloomsbury Children's Books

“Micah freely admits that she’s a compulsive liar. Over the years she’s duped her classmates, her teachers, and her parents. But when her boyfriend dies under brutal circumstances, the shock might be enough to set her straight. Or maybe not.”
Robin’s Note: This is a new book that’s gotten a lot of buzz, and I haven’t heard a bad word about it yet.  Micah is emotionally honest, but it’s one of those reads where it’s more and more difficult to spot the “true” story. 

Kendra, Coe Booth; PUSH

“High schooler Kendra longs to live with her mother who, unprepared for motherhood at age fourteen, left Kendra in the care of her grandmother.”
Robin’s Note: Coe Booth burst onto the teen novel scene with her first book, Tyrell, which is excellent, and this book follows Kendra’s life as she deals with boys, sex, an overprotective mom, and trying to make her imperfect family be more what she needs.  It can get gritty and is not a fairy-tale type story, but it definitely offers hope by the end.  Booth is another author for those who like Jacqueline Woodson and Sharon Draper.

Make Lemonade, Anthony Euwer; H. Holt

“In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn babysits for a teenage mother.”
Robin’s Note: Virginia Euwer-Wolff writes prose poetry novels (so, they are poetry, but the stories are novel-length), and her sense of character and voice are engaging and honest.  Make Lemonade is the beginning of a trilogy, followed by True Believer and This Full House, and each takes place during one year (so by the finish, LaVaughan is 16.)  Other similar authors to check out in terms of voice, realism, and setting,  include Angela Johnson (First Part Last), Rita Garcia-Williams (Jumped), and Nikki Grimes (Bronx Masquerade).

The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie; Little, Brown Young Readers

“Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.”
Robin’s Note: Sherman Alexie is an extraordinary storyteller—he goes from being hilariously funny to heartbreaking in only a few paragraphs.  This is his first novel aimed at teens, and its incredibly charming.  Junior, the lead, has a strong, sarcastic voice, which leads to many a laugh out loud scene, but the circumstances of his life show you why he needs it: alcoholism is rampant on the reservation where he lives, and the pressure of being perceived as betraying his friends and community at the same time as trying to fit in to an new school is crushing at times.  If you like his style, you should also check out his short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and novels for adults.

Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode The Internet Out Of Idaho, Jon Katz; Villard

“Jesse and Eric were roommates in the tiny town of Caldwell, Idaho, nineteen-year-old working class kids eking out a living with their seven-dollar-an-hour jobs selling and fixing computers. College was never in the cards. Their families had been torn apart by divorce and hard times, separation and illness. They had almost no social lives, and little to look forward to. Geeks is the story of how Jesse and Eric—and others like them—used technology to try and change their lives and alter their destiny.”
Robin’s Note: This is an intriguing memoir about two guys who became part of the dotcom boom in the 1990s, and gives a strong portrait of the time and place that allowed them to escape their fate trapped in a small town with no community outside message boards.  The rise of the internet and internet business is featured in this book, and it’s fascinating to see how much the world has changed since in terms of both the Internet and in terms of the opportunities technology still brings.

King Of The Mild Frontier: An Ill-advised Autobiography, Chris Crutcher; Greenwillow Books

“Chris Crutcher, author of young adult novels such as “Ironman” and “Whale Talk,” as well as short stories, tells of growing up in Cascade, Idaho, and becoming a writer.”
Robin’s Note: Jack Gantos’ Hole in My Life is an intriguing memoir of a life that could have gone horribly awry, and this memoir is very engaging but in a different way.  Chris Crutcher is know for many teen novels, but his memoir is charming and often laugh out loud funny.  If the crime element is what appealed to you in Hole in My Life, this title doesn’t have that same allure, but as a memoir of a regular guy who went on to become a top-notch writer, it’s a solid choice.

The Foreshadowing, Marcus Sedgwick; Wendy Lamb Books

“Having always been able to know when someone is going to die, Alexandra poses as a nurse to go to France during World War I to locate her brother and to try to save him from the fate she has foreseen for him.”
Robin’s Note: This is a relatively short but evocative title and gives a strong sense of what it was like both on the homefront and in the trenches during World War I.  There’s a touch of the supernatural in Alexandra’s ability to sense who will die, and the suspense comes from whether she can change what she has seen, but the real story is in the conflict, especially between what the people at home believe is necessary in war and what the soldiers (and Alexandra, as a nurse) witness as the reality of modern battle.

Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta; HarperTeen

“In this absorbing new novel by the award-winning author of “Saving Francesca,” nothing is as it seems and every clue leads to more questions as Taylor Markham tries to put together the pieces of her past.”
Robin’s Note: If you enjoy rich language, intense drama, and building suspense, this novel is outstanding.  This one takes a bit of time to get into, so you may have to push yourself to get through the first fifty pages (the novel is purposefully disorienting at the start), but once you get into the story and the characters, it’s unforgettable.  The setting is Australia, although it takes a while to figure out quite where you are, and the interlocking tales of these teens current lives and past connections are slowly unraveled.  I’ve rarely read a more haunting book about past incidents pushing forward unexpected consequences on the current generation, and the power of friends to both hurt and save you.

Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld; Simon Pulse

“In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts.”
Robin’s Note: You may have already read or seen Scott Westerfeld’s more noted books (Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras), and this is his new series, already extremely popular (so you’ll likely have to request it rather than find it on the shelf.)  This one has a definite steampunk flair, if that’s a style that appeals, and the combination of a familiar situation (World War I) tweaked to involve air battles and genetic engineering makes for an innovative setting.  Westerfeld is known for packing in the action and never letting it stop, and this series continues that tradition.  This title also has the added charm of gorgeous illustrations throughout the text, a tradition not seen very often in novels any more, but in this case beautifully rendered.

Inda, Sherwood Smith; DAW Books, Inc.

“Indevan-Dal is the second son of the Prince and Princess of Choraed Elgaer, destined to become his elder brother Tanrid’s Shield Arm-his military champion. Like all second sons, he is to be privately trained at home by Tanrid, the brother whose lands he will one day protect. When the King’s Voice comes to summon Inda to the Military Academy, he might well feel foreboding, or even fear-war is imminent-yet youthful Inda feels only excitement. But there are things that Tanrid hadn’t prepared him for, and Inda will soon learn that the greatest threats to his safety will not come from foreign enemies, but from supposed allies within his own country.”
Robin’s Note: If you want a fantasy world that’s very complex and vividly built, Sherwood Smith’s series (officially for adults, but has lots of teen appeal) is a great one to get lost in.  Smith has a strong sense of how complex a world can be (her books are all set in the same world, in fact, but at different times and in different nations, much like Tolkien’s meticulous world and language building.)  This series is four books total, and is now complete: Inda, The Fox, King’s Shield, and Treason’s Shore.  The primary tale concerns Inda and his king, Evred, following their coming of age and featuring intelligent strategy, epic battles, piracy, and each character’s friendships and loves.  The military tale (in this first book) is the one that hooked me—smart, tense, and full of loyalty and betrayal.  One note: these books are long, and she takes her time building up the world—mainly that’s to envelop the reader in a new place and make it familiar—but they do take some time to get going, so have patience.

A Curse Dark As Gold, Elizabeth C. Bunce; Arthur A. Levine Books

“Upon the death of her father, seventeen-year-old Charlotte struggles to keep the family’s woolen mill running in the face of an overwhelming mortgage and what the local villagers believe is a curse, but when a man capable of spinning straw into gold appears on the scene she must decide if his help is worth the price.”

Robin’s Note: Appealing for a strong sense of a historical setting and a clever reworking of the Rumplestiltskin tale, this book includes a steadily building romance, a strong heroine, and a well-built world.  Great for fans of fairy tale retellings as well as historical fantasy.

The Red Necklace, Sally Gardner; Dial

In the late eighteenth-century, Sido, the twelve-year-old daughter of a self-indulgent marquis, and Yann, a fourteen-year-old Gypsy orphan raised to perform in a magic show, face a common enemy at the start of the French Revolution.

This title grabs you right from the beginning with its spooky atmosphere, intriguing characters, and strong sense of time and place (without overwhelming the reader with historical details.)