10-12+Fiction

McBride, Lish. **Hold Me Closer, Necromancer.** Sam works at a dead end fast food jobs with his friends, who sometimes play "potato hockey" in the parking lot during slow times. He is confronted by a very angry man (his car was hit during the hockey game) who recognizes in Sam a fellow Necromancer (raiser of the dead) and that's when things get very interesting! Both hilarious and gorey, this book is a bit risque as well. Meant for older teens. (Craker)

//**In a Heartbeat **// by Loretta Ellsworth. Eagan is an ice skater, a possible Olympic Games competitor; full of sass and fire. She just wishes that she’d paid closer attention when her geometry teacher, Mrs. Koster, told the class that half an inch could make a big difference. Amelia is a different kind of fighter. She’s battled a weak heart for about six years and can’t remember what it was like to be healthy. She’s on the waiting list for a new heart and just hopes she can live long enough. “Through alternating viewpoints, "In a Heartbeat" tells the emotional and compelling story of two girls and one heart.” (Townsley)

//**Undone **//by Brooke Taylor. Wow! Full of twists, turns... and with a final surprise. When the fearless Kori befriends Serena, Serena can hardly believe it. Kori does anything she wants to do; goes anywhere she wants. No one can stop her. Serena, quiet and reserved, would love to be more like that. A really good read about friendship, love and loss. (Townsley)


 * The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb: A Novel by Melanie Benjamin. A fictionalized account of the life of Marcy Lavinia “Vinnie” Warren Bump, who, at on two feet eight inches tall, used her height to become a legend, joining P.T. Barnum’s circus, marrying superstar General Tom Thumb, and living in the spotlight, while trying to protect her similarly sized sister, Minnie.
 * Beneath a Meth Moon: An Elegy by Jacqueline Woodson. Laurel Daneau has moved to a new life after losing her mother and grandmother during Hurricane Katrina and falls under the spell of meth.
 * Bumped by Megan McCafferty. In 2036 New Jersey, when teens are expected to become fanatically religious wives and mothers or high-priced surrogates for couples made infertile by a widespread virus, sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony find in one another the courage to believe they have choices.
 * Bunheads: A Novel by Sophie Flack. Hannah Ward, nineteen, revels in the competition, intense rehearsals, and dazzling performances that come with being a member of Manhattan Ballet Company’s corps de ballet, but after meeting handsome musician Jacob she begins to realize there could be more to her life.
 * The Chamber of Five by Michael B. Harmon. Sixteen-year-old Jason Weatherby, having been asked to join the elite group of students known as the Chamber of Five, is shocked when he is told he has to assault a student as his initiation and decides to try and take down the organization from within.
 * Crossing Lines by Paul Volponi. Adonis, a football hero and boyfriend to one of the prettiest girls at school, goes along with the team when they target Alan, a new kid who wears lipstick and joins the fashion club, but he must choose between being popular and doing the right thing when his buddies come up with a plan to humiliate Alan.
 * Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor. Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters – the chimaeras who form the only family she has ever known.
 * The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Sixteen-year-old Hazel, who has cancer, meets Augustus at a kids-with-cancer support group and as they fall in love they both wonder how they will be remembered.
 * Forgotten by Cat Patrick. Sixteen-year-old London Lane forgets everything each night and must use notes to struggle through the day, even to recall her wonderful boyfriend, and love.
 * The Future of Us by Jay Asher. Emma gets her first computer and an American Online CD-ROM in 1996, and when her best friend Josh visits and they log on, they discover themselves on Facebook fifteen years in the future.
 * iBoy by Kevin Brooks. Sixteen-year-old Tom Harvey was an ordinary Londoner until an attack causes fragments of an iPhone to be embedded in his brain, giving him incredible knowledge and power, but using that power against the gang that attacked him and a friend could have deadly consequences.
 * Irises by Francisco X. Dewey. Teenage sisters Kate and Mary are forced to make adult decisions regarding the direction of their lives after their loving but old-fashioned father dies suddenly and leaves them alone with their mother, who has been in a persistent vegetative state since an accident four years earlier.
 * The Jerk Magnet: Life at Kingston High by Melody Carlson. When sixteen-year-old Chelsea Martin's future stepmother gives her a total makeover, she attracts all of the wrong boys and drives away many girls.
 * Leverage by Joshua Cohen. High school sophomore Danny excels at gymnastics but is bullied, like the rest of the gymnasts, by members of the football team, until an emotionally scarred new student joins the football team and forms an unlikely friendship with Danny.
 * Putting Makeup on Dead People by Jen Violi. Donna Parisi, still grieving over her father’s death four years ago, comes to the realization while standing in front of the dead body of a classmate at a funeral home that she could find purpose in a career in the funeral industry.
 * Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. In the year 2044, Wade Watts, like the rest of humanity, chooses to escape reality and spends his waking hours in the limitless, utopian virtual world of the OASIS, but when Wade stumbles upon the first of the fiendish puzzles set up by OASIS creator James Halliday he finds he must compete with thousands of others – including those willing to commit murder – in order to claim a prize of massive fortune.
 * Robopocalypse: A Novel by Daniel H. Wilson. Archos, a powerful artificial intelligence, takes on the persona of a shy human boy and begins to take over the world’s technology and turn it against humanity, launching a robot war that no one seems to be able to contain or stop.
 * Shattered Souls by Mary Lindsey. A Texas high school student starts hearing voices and assumes she is schizophrenic like her father, but instead she finds out that she is a “Speaker,” who can communicate with the dead in order to help their troubled souls find resolution.
 * Trafficked by Kim Purcell.A seventeen-year-old Moldovan girl whose parents have been killed is brought to the United States to work as a slave for a family in Los Angeles.
 * Truth & Dare: 20 tales of heartbreak and happiness. A collection of short stories that depict the trials and challenges faced by high school students, including stories written by Jennifer Boylan, Michael Lowenthal, Sherry Shahan, Gary Soto, Jill Wolfson, and others.
 * Why We Broke Up: A Novel by Daniel Handler. Sixteen-year-old Min Green writes a letter to Ed Slaterton in which she breaks up with him, documenting their relationship and how items in the accompanying box, from bottle caps to a cookbook, foretell the end.
 * Wither by Lauren DeStefano. After moden science turns every human into a genetic time bomb with men dying at age twenty-five and women dying at age twenty, girls are kidnapped and married off in order to repopulate the world.Paired Readings

Paired Readings If you liked the “Hunger Games,” try…………………………………………………………………….”Ashes,” by Ilsa Bick If you liked Jane Austen, try………………………………………..…….”Death Comes to Pemberly,” by P.D. James or “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” by Seth Grahame-Smith If you liked “The Scarlet Letter,” try…………………………..……….”When she woke: A Novel,” by Hillary Jordan If you liked “The Help,” try……………………………..….”Saving CeeCee Honeycutt: A Novel,” by Beth Hoffman If you liked “Hamlet,” try……………………………………..………………………..”Falling for Hamlet,” by Michelle Ray I you liked “Macbeth,” try……………………………………………………”Lady Macbeth’s Daughter,” by Lisa M. Klein If you liked “Jane Erye,” try…………………………………………………………………………………….”Jane,” by April Linder

(Carla Brown, LD Bell HS/Trinity HS)


 * //Americus//** by M. K. Reed. What would you do if activists came to your library and told you that you couldn’t read **//Harry Potter//**, or **//The Hunger Games//**? Who should make that decision for you? Who should make that decision for your community? (Gilbert)
 * //Axe Cop Vol. 1//** by Malachai Nicolle. Here’s the first volume of the Axe Cop web comic. Follow Axe Cop as he interviews sidekicks, dispenses helpful advice to readers, and fights ninjas and dinosaurs. (First of a series). (Gilbert)
 * //Kill Shakespeare//** by Conor McCreery,, Anthony Del Col, and Andy Belanger. Shakespeare’s stable of familiar faces is here, but this is not your English teacher’s Bard. (First of a series). (Gilbert)
 * //Daytripper//** by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. Follow Bras as he lives several last days throughout his life. How would you want to be remembered? (Gilbert)