by Celia Rees
Mary is a witch who escapes from England after her grandmother is hung for witchcraft. She hides among a group of pious Puritans coming to America to start a new life, but eventually her community begins to suspect her true nature.

Reading Rants is a site by another Jen librarian. She’s been doing this for a long time and has an impressive lists of reviews. Guys should check out her Boy Meets Book page, with reviews of books that would appeal specifically to boys.

by Neil Gaiman
There is another city in the tunnels under London. Richard Mayhew stumbles into it by chance and finds himself in a world stranger and more dangerous than he imagined. This book wasn’t written specifically for teens, but as the author of the Sandman series, Gaiman is popular with teens.

by Vivian Vande Velde

Giannine Bellasario gets a gift certificate from her absentee father to play a virtual reality game. Meanwhile, the gaming center is under seige by a censorship group that apparently took its cues from PETA and ELF. While Giannine is under, the protesters damage the game she was playing on. She must win the game or she might die. The game itself features interesting characters like a barbarian king who just wants his crown back and some half-brothers that want nothing more than to off Giannine’s character. While playing the game, she learns about trust and forgiveness. Overall, an engrossing read. I would recommend it to middle school or high school girls who kind of like computers and fantasy, but aren’t obsessed. It would also be a good book for kids with absentee dads.

Jan (pronounced YAHN) Miller feels like she is the exact opposite of her best friend, who was named one of the ten New York “It Girls.” Jan feels like everything is against her during her senior year of high school. Nothing is working out right, especially her latest crush.

The Year of Secret Assignments is a fun novel about tenth graders at rival schools who begin a pen pal assignment for school. Lydia, Emily, and Cassie are each paired with a boy from Brookfield High. They exchange letters that soon lead to pranks, mysteries, love, and a major fight. Will their friendships survive this assignment?

Feed by MT Anderson looks at life in a frightening near future, where people have the Internet imbedded in their head, and the hottest new thing are oozing lesions caused by environmental toxins. Titus is comfortable with his life until he meets a girl who decided to fight the feed.

Pirates! by Celia Rees is about a merchant’s daughter and a plantation slave who escape on a pirate ship called Deliverance. Nancy Kington is escaping an arranged marriage to a brutal plantation owner, while Minerva Sharpe is escaping slavery. The lives of Nancy and Minerva are linked in more ways than they know. Kids who like adventure stories with a conscience will love this fast-moving and exciting story.

In Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes, 12-year-old Martha Boyle finds out she was mentioned in the diary of a classmate who died a month ago. Olive Barstow’s mother brings her the page from the journal just as Martha and her family are preparing to leave for the coast. This coming-of-age novel is written in very short vignettes, making it a quick and easy to read, but ultimately, it’s not a very satisfying read.

When school weirdo Christopher Creed disappears without a trace, he leaves behind a note mentioning several students by name. Privileged, happy Torey Adams is on the list. As Torey tries to figure out why Creed mentioned him and where Creed disappeared to, he starts to see a side of life he never imagined existed. He starts to notice the hypocrisy of his friends and wonder why he didn’t treat Creed better. Author Carol Plum-Ucci does a very good job capturing a teenage boy’s thoughts in her first novel. Although they’re probably going to make a movie out of this one, do yourself a favor and read the book first.

REVIEWS BY ADULTS:

A review by a librarian in Chandler, Arizona
Short Review by Teenreads.com
Reviews by teens and adults at sff world

RELATED LINKS:

Carol Plum-Ucci’s query letter (might be of interest to aspiring writers)
An article about Plum-Ucci in a New Jersey community paper
Young adult novels set in New Jersey (I include this link because my family is from New Jersey.)

Have you read this book? What do you think of it?
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