South Dakota Young Adult Reading Program (YARP)

2007 Teen Reads List

This list is compiled by the Young Adult Reading Program Committee
South Dakota Library Association School Section

The Teen Reads list includes titles selected from among the many young adult and adult books considered to be quality literature appealing to teens in grades 7-12.  Please note that the books included on the list received positive reviews by national reviewing periodicals.  However, each person using the list should use his/her local selection standards when recommending books.

 
Author Title Notes
Bennet, Cherie A Heart Divided Random House Children's Books, 2004       ISBN:0385900392  Grades 9-12
When sixteen-year-old Kate, an aspiring playright, moves from New Jersey to attend high school in the South, she becomes embroiled in a controversy to remove the school's Confederate flag symbol. 

 
Bowler, Tim Firmament Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2004     ISBN:0689861613   Grades 6-10
While struggling to cope with the death of his father, a gifted musician, fourteen-year-old Luke must deal with a dangerous bully, a lonely old woman, a blind young girl, his mother's romantic involvement, and his own musical talent.


Bruchac, Joseph Code Talker

 

 Penguin Young Readers Group, 2005  ISBN:0142405965 Grades 7-12  
The United States is at war, and sixteen-year-old Ned Begay wants to join the cause—especially when he hears that Navajos are being specifically recruited by the Marine Corps.  His experiences in the Pacific—from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima and beyond—will leave him forever changed.

 
Carlson, Lori Marie Moccasin Thunder HarperCollins Publishers, 2005 ISBN:0066239591 Grades 8-12
Presents ten short stories about contemporary Native American teens by members of tribes of the United States and Canada, including Louise Erdrich and Joseph Bruchac.
Coy, John Crackback Scholastic, Inc., 2005  ISBN:0439697336  Grades 8-12
When Miles Manning, a successful high school football player, discovers his teammates are using steroids--and one of them is his best friend--he's faced with a tough decision: Is he willing to do what it takes to win?

 
Draper, Sharon Copper Sun Simon & Schuster Children's, 2006   ISBN:0689821816   Grades 8-12
Beaten, branded, and dragged onto a slave ship, Amari is forced to witness horrors worse than any nightmare and endure humiliations she had never thought possible -- including being sold to a plantation owner in the Carolinas who gives her to his sixteen-year-old son, Clay, as his birthday present.

 
Dunkle, Clare Hollow Kingdom Henry Holt & Company, Inc., 2003  ISBN:0805081089 Grades 6-12
In nineteenth-century England, a powerful sorcerer and King of the Goblins chooses Kate, the elder of two orphan girls recently arrived at their ancestral home, Hallow Hill, to be his bride and queen.
Hautman, Pete Invisible Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2005  ISBN:0689869037 Grades 7-12
Doug and Andy are unlikely best friends--one a loner obsessed by his model trains, the other a popular student involved in football and theater--who grew up together and share a bond that nothing can sever.

 
Hemphill, Stephanie Things Left Unsaid Hyperion Books for Children, 2005  ISBN:0786818506  Grades 11-12
After a lifetime of conforming to the image of what her parents and high school friends want her to be, Sarah must come to terms with her own identity when her destructive best friend tries to commit suicide. Told in the form of free-verse poems.
Hillman, Laura I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree: A Memoir of a Schindler's List Survivor Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2005  ISBN:0689869800  Grades 9-12
The remarkable true story of one young woman's nightmarish coming-of-age. But it is also a story about the surprising possibilities for hope and love in one of history's most brutal times.

 
Lester, Julius Day of Tears Hyperion Books for Children, 2005  ISBN:0786804904 Grades 6-9
Emma is the property of Pierce Butler and has taken care of his daughters, Sarah and Frances, since their parents divorced. Emma wants to raise the girls to have good hearts, like their mother's, even as a rift in morals has ripped the Butler household apart. Sarah and her mother oppose the inhumanity of slavery, while Frances and her father believe in the Southern way of life and treatment of blacks.

 
Lockhart, E. The Boyfriend List: (15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs, and Me, Ruby Oliver)

 

 Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2005  ISBN:0385732074  Grades 9-12
Fifteen-year-old Ruby "Roo" Oliver is having a tough year at Tate Prep.  Following nearly half a dozen panic attacks, Roo starts to spend some quality time on Doctor Z.'s couch, where she makes (at her shrink's urging) a list of boyfriends past and present, official and unofficial, and starts on a journey of self-discovery.
Lowry, Lois Gossamer Walter Lorraine Books, 2006   ISBN:0618685502  Grades 9-12
In a haunting story that tiptoes between reality and imagination, two people- a lonely, sensitive woman and a damaged, angry boy- face their own histories and discover what they can be to one another, renewed by the strength that comes from a tiny, caring creature they will never see.
Lubar, David Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie Penguin Group, 2005  ISBN:0142407801 Grades 7-10
While navigating his first year of high school and awaiting the birth of his new baby brother, Scott loses old friends and gains some unlikely new ones as he hones his skills as a writer.

 
Lynch, Christopher Inexcusable Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2005  ISBN: 0689847890 Grades 9-12
Keir, a high school senior, thinks of himself as a "good guy." So how could he possibly feel responsible when he cripples a football player on the field, earning himself the nickname "Killer"? After all, it was a perfect tackle. How could he have tormented some of the school's soccer players, kidnapping them for "a few hours of involuntary skinny-dipping," and destroyed town statues in a drunken rampage? And most of all, how could he have raped Gigi, the girl he adores, the night of their senior prom? Keir is sure he's done nothing wrong, though the wrecks he leaves in his wake indicate otherwise.

 

Meyer, Stephanie  Twilight Little, Brown Children's Books, 2005  ISBN:0316160172  Grades 9-12
Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn.

 
Oppel, Kenneth Airborn HarperCollins Publishers, 2004 ISBN:0060531827  Grades 6-8
Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search for the existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds of feet above the Earth's surface.


Sonnenblick, Jordan Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie Scholastic, Inc., 2005  ISBN:0439755204 Grades 7-12
Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal life: he plays drums in the All-Star Jazz band, has a crush on the hottest girl in the school, and is constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey. But when Jeffrey is diagnosed with leukemia, Steven's world is turned upside down.
Sorrells, Walter Fake ID Penguin Young Readers Group, 2005  ISBN:0525475141  Grades 9-12
After a lifetime of moving and assuming new identities, sixteen-year-old Chass begins to piece together the disturbing past that haunts her and her mother and which involves a mysterious tape, a deceased popular singer, and the secrets of several people in a small Alabama town.

 
Zevin, Gabrielle Elsewhere Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005  ISBN:0374320918  Grades 7-10
Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It's quiet and peaceful. You can't get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere's museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe's psychiatric practice.