Youth Adult Literature Reading List 9-16
Alexander, K., & Anyabwile, D.
(2019). The Crossover: A basketball novel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt.
Summary: The Crossover is
a novel about a boy named Joshua who has a twin. They are inseparable and both
deal with the pressures of being basketball stars. This story follows Joshua’s
journey of coming into his own, growing apart from his brother and feeling love
for the first time.
Genre: Realistic Fiction/Poetry
Grade Level Recommendations: 5th-7th
Grade
Strengths: Texture of the book is like
a basketball, Engaging and relatable for children to make connections to and
want to read because of their use of poetry mixed with hip hop vocabulary,
Using poetry helps make the pages shorter and more approachable for more
reluctant readers
Awards:
2015 Newberry Medal Winner
2015 Coretta Scott Honor King Honor
Award Winner
New York Times Bestseller
2015 YALSA
2015 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young
Adults
2015 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant
Young Adult Readers
Publishers Weekly Best Book
School Library Journal Best Book
Kirkus Best Book
Other books by the author: Booked,
Swing, Solo
Similar books: Rebound, Ghost,
The Playbook, The Crossover
Teaching Ideas: Death, Dying,
Basketball, Friendship, Relationships, Dedication, Family, Love, Puberty
Book Trailer:
Book Talk:
Author Talk:
Crutcher,
C. (2019). Losers bracket. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books, an imprint
of HarperCollins Publishers.
Summary: Annie Boots is part of the foster
system. She loves her foster family for the most part and experiences not
wanting to be around her biological family at all. She experiences the drama within
her biological family and continuously gets sucked back in to the chaos. One
day at Annie’s swim meet her nephew wound up going missing, and she realizes
she may be the only one that may be able to get him back. She reaches out for
help from her friends, her own social worker, and even her foster brother to try
to bring him home. Annie deals with putting all of the pieces together because he
is determined to find her nephew and get him home.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Audience: 8th-9th Grade
Strengths: Uses edgy language, authentic
characters and emotions are felt. Powerful messages speak to the reader, so it
makes easy to connect to even if you have never been in the system you feel for
her.
Author Talk:
Similar Books: The Poet X, Long Way Down
Other books by the same author: Staying
Fat for Sarah Byrnes, Whale Talk, Deadline
Teaching Ideas: Alternative family lifestyle,
Self-esteem, Reliance, Independence, Physical and Emotional Abuse, Family,
Loss, Foster System
Summary: Hazel was diagnosed with terminal
cancer at a young age. She had a medical miracle that bought her a few extra
years to live her life when she was sixteen years old. She wasn’t a normal teenager
by any means since she had to bring an oxygen tank with her everywhere she
went, and worry about not being around for too much longer was a thought she
had to deal with on a regular basis until one day she meets someone that
changed her life forever. His name was Augustus. She met him at a
patient/survivor group for kids with cancer. They both have an immediate
connection because they have both battled with their lives being dramatically
impacted by various types of cancer. He is full of life. Both of them get to
experience life together, one day at a time, discussing novels, their
mortality, life itself, and eventually they fall in love.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Audience: 9th-10th
Grade
Awards:
#1 New York Times Bestseller
#1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller
#1 USA Today Bestseller
#1 International Bestseller
TIME Magazine’s #1 Fiction Book of 2012
TODAY Book Club Pick
Strengths: Since the novel was turned into a
movie it would be a great activity to compare and contrast the novel and the
book. It is a heartfelt book that not many young adults would be able to
connect to unless they have experienced something like this. The author did a
great job of helping me get an insight into Hazel and Augustus’s way of
thinking, and how that mindset was shaped from their life experiences at such a
young age.
Book Trailer:
Book Review:
Similar Books: Breakthrough, The New Girl,
The Guardian’s Playlist, Don’t Look Back
Other books by the same author: Paper
Towns, Looking for Alaska, Turtles All the Way Down
Teaching Ideas: Romance, Relationships, Death,
Illness, Coping, Grieving, Self Esteem, Reliance, Independence, Mortality
*Required Youth
Adult Literature Reading List
King,
A. S. (2014). Reality boy. Little, Brown & Company.
Summary: Reality Boy is a novel that
focuses on a boy named Gerald who had to deal with growing up on a reality tv show
from the age of young age. He dealt with abuse from his siblings, especially
his sister Tasha. Gerald grew up with a lot of anger and rage that was
downplayed by his parents. This novel takes a deep look into the effects of the
lack of parenting and how truly traumatizing it can be for our youth. All of
his outbursts and anger issues that resulted in violent outbursts were all
filmed all on this television show that he now cannot break away from causing
even more frustration and turmoil in his life. It seems like everyone is just
waiting for Gerald to snap as you make your way through the book. As Gerald
starts to form friendships and build relationships, especially with Hannah, he
starts to see that there is a possibility that there is more out there for him,
opportunity wise, than he realized. He just had to find a way to get it.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Awards:
New York Times’ Editors’ Choice
2013 Publishers Weekly Best YA Book
2013 School Library Journal Best Book
2013 Kirkus Reviews Best YA Book
2013 VOYA Perfect Ten book
2013 Association of Booksellers for Children
Best Book for Children
2014 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Book
2014 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young
Readers Book
An Amazon Best Book of the Month
Publishers Weekly Book of the Week
Winter 2013-2014 Top Ten Kids’ Indie Next List
Pick
2014 Texas Tayshas Reading List Top Ten Book
2014 Carolyn W. Field Award Nominee
2015-2016 Tennessee Volunteer State Book
Award Master List Book
Audience: 9th Grade
Strengths: Watching Gerald’s life unfold was
like watching a reality show in real life, which is almost to the equivalent of
watching a car accident happen right in front of you. This was a novel that you
did not want to put down because even though it was tragic and terrible you
still had hope for the characters. I loved the
mix of the behind-the-scenes of the show and then flashing forward to the present
because it really showed the impact on the entire family but on Gerald in
particular.
Book Trailer:
Book Review:
Similar Books: See Me, Oasis
Other books by the same author: Everybody Sees
the Ants, Ask the Passengers, Still Life with Tornado, Dig, Please Ignore Vera
Dietz
Teaching Ideas: Violence, Reality Shows,
Television, Amount of time spent, Radio, Bullying, Effects of radio and television,
Effects of parenting, Right and wrong, Responsibility
*Required Youth
Adult Literature Reading List
Quintero,
I. (2014). Gabi: A girl in pieces. TX: Cinco Puntos
Summary: This is a story about a Mexican-American
teenager named Gabi Hernandez. She chronicles her senior year of school in her
diary where she talks all about college applications Sebastian’s coming out,
Cindy’s pregnancy, all of the cute boys, the food she craves, and her own
father’s drug addiction issues. She starts to fall in love with poetry, and it
helps her find her place. She struggles with the thoughts and opinions of her
family members that always seem to have something to say about her sexuality,
physicality, and what her future will look like. At the end she finally comes
to the realization that sometimes adults do have agendas that maybe conflict
with your own. This is her experience of how she comes into her own.
Awards:
Kirkus Review Best Books of 2014
School Library Journal Best Books of 2014
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Audience: 7th grade
Strengths: Narrated in a diary/journal form allows you to feel comfortable with the reader and process the information easier because it is written in smaller chunks.
Book Trailer:
Book Talk:
Similar Books: American Born Chinese, The
Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian
Other books by the same author: Ugly Cat
and Pablo, Photographic, My Papi has a Motorcycle
Teaching Ideas: LGBT Community, Drugs,
Alcohol Abuse, Dating, Relationships, Sex, Stereotyping, Abortion
*Required Youth
Adult Literature Reading List
Summary: Starr is a sixteen year old girl who has two different personas that she has to balance. One is “Garden Heights Starr” where she lives, and the other is “Williamson Starr” which is where she goes to school. Starr lives in a poor, drug and gang controlled neighborhood. She knows many people that live in the neighborhood, but has very few friends here because her parents sent her to a school away from the area. In her suburban, fancy prep school Starr has about three very close friends, Hailey, Maya, and her boyfriend Chris that all play a huge role in shaping Starr throughout the novel. Life is all good until things go sideways when an old childhood friend of Starr’s named Khalil got shot right in front of her. He was unarmed. Starr was traumatized and had to deal with all of these emotions on top of fighting for justice for her friend. During this time she starts to realize things about life and how skewed and unfair things were. She finds her voice and fights for what is right despite other peoples’ opinions and the potential loss of relationships.
Sartrapi,
M. (2004). Persepolis. NY: Pantheon
Summary: Persepolis is a story about our
author Marjane Sartrapi who grew up in Tehran. She captures her own experiences
that she dealt with as a child growing up in the Middle East. This novel shows
all of the things she experiences from ages six to fourteen where she saw the
overthrow of the Shaw’s regime, the devastating effects of the Iraq war, and
the success of the Islamic Revolution. This
story encompasses what daily life in Iran looked like from a child’s
perspective and that feeling of perseverance and helplessness that she
experienced regularly throughout the story.
Genre: Graphic Memoir
Awards:
New York Times Notable Book
Time Magazine “Best Comix of the Year”
San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Time
Best-seller
Audience: 6th grade
Strengths: Black and white powerful comic
strip images make it engaging for the reader. Because they are in black and
white it adds an extra layer of harshness that connects to the theme of this
story. A thought-provoking story that touches on a lot of controversial topics,
a great novel for discussion. This memoir captures a child’s view of Iran’s
cultural revolution and the horrific things that went with it. Because this
story is about our author’s life the reader feels a deep sense of connection to
it because of the sensitivity of the issues and you can feel the author’s
emotion.
Book Trailer:
Book Review:
https://youtu.be/0DtBCzITK2g
https://youtu.be/0DtBCzITK2g
Similar Books: Fun Home: A Family
Tragicomic, Jewels of Allah: The Untold Story of Women in Iraq
Other books by the same author: Persepolis
2: The Story of a Return, The Complete Persepolis
Teaching Ideas: Biography, Oppression,
Women’s rights, Inequality, History of Iran and Iraq, Determination,
Perseverance, Politics, Opinions
*Required Youth
Adult Literature Reading List
Summary: Ryan Dean is a fourteen year old
junior at a boarding school for rich kids. He is your typical teenage boy who
is experiencing all of the life experiences and hormones that a teenage boy
would. He is dealing with life, love, sex, and bullies. He lives in Opportunity
Hall, which is dorm where all of the troublemakers reside and his roommate is
the biggest bully on the rugby team. He deals with all of the feelings of love
and heartbreak when he realizes that his best friend Annie doesn’t feel the
same way about him. He learns how to continue pushing through, and he realizes
the important things in life whenever life starts to fall apart for him.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Audience: 8th-9th Grade
Strengths: This novel makes you go through the
whole range of emotions. It is relatable and easy to connect to especially for
middle schoolers because the topics are on point and realistic to what they
experience. This novel incorporates many major characters that play dynamic roles
in Ryan’s life. They give you a complete, full experience of what it feels like
to be in high school again. It includes infographics and detailed illustrations
that give the reader a solid sense of the story.
Book Trailer:
Book Review:
Book Talk:
Similar Books: Stupid
Fast by Geoff Herbach, Leverage by
Joshua C. Cohen
Other books by the same author: Stand Off,
100 Sideways Miles, Grasshopper Jungle
Teaching Ideas: LGBT, Relationships,
Friendships, Sex, Intimacy, Bullying, Hormones, Puberty
*Required Youth
Adult Literature Reading List
Thomas,
A. (2017). The Hate U Give. NY: HarperCollins
Summary: Starr is a sixteen year old girl who has two different personas that she has to balance. One is “Garden Heights Starr” where she lives, and the other is “Williamson Starr” which is where she goes to school. Starr lives in a poor, drug and gang controlled neighborhood. She knows many people that live in the neighborhood, but has very few friends here because her parents sent her to a school away from the area. In her suburban, fancy prep school Starr has about three very close friends, Hailey, Maya, and her boyfriend Chris that all play a huge role in shaping Starr throughout the novel. Life is all good until things go sideways when an old childhood friend of Starr’s named Khalil got shot right in front of her. He was unarmed. Starr was traumatized and had to deal with all of these emotions on top of fighting for justice for her friend. During this time she starts to realize things about life and how skewed and unfair things were. She finds her voice and fights for what is right despite other peoples’ opinions and the potential loss of relationships.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Audience: 6th Grade
Awards:
William C. Morris Award Winner
National Book Award Longlist
Printz Honor Book
Coretta Scott King Honor Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller
Strengths: The characters are very relatable
and the controversial topics that are addressed in the novel are currently what
we are experiencing in our society now.
Book Trailer:
Book Review:
Similar Books: Five Feet Apart, The Sun is
Also a Star, Dear Martin
Other books by the same author: On the
Come Up
Teaching Ideas: Police brutality, Systematic
Racism, Protesting, Gun Violence, Emotions/Feelings, Prejudice, African
American Culture, Drugs, Street life, Gang Violence, Family, Death, Right versus
Wrong
*Required Youth
Adult Literature Reading List
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