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Playing on every teen’s passionate desire to look as good as everybody else, Scott Westerfeld (Midnighters) projects a future world in which a compulsory operation at sixteen wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty by conforming to an ideal standard of beauty. The "New Pretties" are then free to play and party, while the younger "Uglies" look on enviously and spend the time before their own transformations in plotting mischievous tricks against their elders. Tally Youngblood is one of the most daring of the Uglies, and her imaginative tricks have gotten her in trouble with the menacing department of Special Circumstances. She has yearned to be pretty, but since her best friend Shay ran away to the rumored rebel settlement of recalcitrant Uglies called The Smoke, Tally has been troubled. The authorities give her an impossible choice: either she follows Shay’s cryptic directions to The Smoke with the purpose of betraying the rebels, or she will never be allowed to become pretty. Hoping to rescue Shay, Tally sets off on the dangerous journey as a spy. But after finally reaching The Smoke she has a change of heart when David reveals to her the sinister secret behind becoming pretty. The fast-moving story is enlivened by many action sequences in the style of videogames, using intriguing inventions like hoverboards that use the rider’s skateboard skills to skim through the air, and bungee jackets that make wild downward plunges survivable -- and fun. Behind all the commotion is the disturbing vision of our own society -- the Rusties -- visible only in rusting ruins after a virus destroyed all petroleum. Teens will be entranced, and the cliffhanger ending will leave them gasping for the sequel. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbel
Book Description
Fourteen-year-old Emily boards an over-crowded ferry in Sumatra. When the boat sinks, she’s trapped by hundreds of panicked people. She finds Isman, a terrified young Muslim boy, floating in a life vest. Together, with Emily’s physical strength and Isman’s quiet faith, they swim for their lives.
“Fama conveys the elemental struggle and shows how Emily finds strength she didn’t know she had.”—Booklist
“Each moment brings. . . new problems—cold, hunger, sharks, a whirlpool, fear—and actively holds readers’ interest. An author’s note describes the inspiration for this unique book—a real ferry accident off the coast of Sumatra in 1996 when only 40 of the 400 passengers survived.”—School Library Journal
Book Description
Luke has never been to school. He's never had a birthday party, or gone to a friend's house for an overnight. In fact, Luke has never had a friend.
Luke is one of the shadow children, a third child forbidden by the Population Police. He's lived his entire life in hiding, and now, with a new housing development replacing the woods next to his family's farm, he is no longer even allowed to go outside. Then, one day Luke sees a girl's face in the window of a house where he knows two other children already live. Finally, he's met a shadow child like himself. Jen is willing to risk everything to come out of the shadows --does Luke dare to become involved in her dangerous plan? Can he afford not to?
Book Description
He had always wanted to be a warrior. The Rangers, with their dark cloaks and shadowy ways, made him nervous. The villagers believe the Rangers practice magic that makes them invisible to ordinary people. And now fifteen year-old Will, always small for his age, has been chosen as a Ranger’s apprentice. What he doesn’t realize yet is that the Rangers are the protectors of the kingdom. Highly trained in the skills of battle and surveillance, they fight the battles before the battles reach the people. And as Will is about to learn, there is a large battle brewing. The exiled Morgarath, Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, is gathering his forces for an attack on the kingdom. This time, he will not be denied . . . .
Book Description
Rose has always felt out of place in her family. So when an enormous white bear mysteriously shows up and asks her to come away with him, she readily agrees. The bear takes Rose to a distant castle, where each night she is confronted with a mystery. In solving that mystery, she finds love, discovers her purpose, and realizes her travels have only just begun.
As fresh and original as only the best fantasy can be, East is a novel retelling of the classic tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," told in the tradition of Robin McKinley and Gail Carson Levine
Book Description
Something wicked this way comes; in this case it’s high schooler Jack Barrett’s father, whose inherent drive for perfection has spiraled into a raging obsession ever since he began working for the mysterious Eden Corporation. When his father forcibly relocates the family to Paradise, a village that is literally owned by Eden’s enigmatic CEO, Jack uncovers a sinister plot that threatens the lives of everyone he loves. Delving even further into the secrets of the village, he soon learns just how high the price for perfection can be . . . and to what lengths some people are willing to go to obtain it.
Book Description
Shy Juliet Dove leaves Mr. Elives' magic shop with Helen of Troy's amulet--a virtual man magnet. Juliet doesn't know what she's got, but soon every boy in town is swooning for her. Yet, much as she'd like to lose all the unwanted attention, she can't: The amulet won't come off!
A side splittingly funny, heartbreaking whirlwind of a book about the high cost of loving, from the award-winning author of My Teacher Is an Alien and The Unicorn Chronicles.
Amazon.com (The book is so… much better than the movie!)
Here's a great big fantasy that you can pull over your head like a comfy old sweater and disappear into for a whole weekend. Christopher Paolini began Eragon when he was just 15, and the book shows the influence of Tolkien, of course, but also Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey, and perhaps even Wagner in its traditional quest structure and the generally agreed-upon nature of dwarves, elves, dragons, and heroic warfare with magic swords.
Eragon, a young farm boy, finds a marvelous blue stone in a mystical mountain place. Before he can trade it for food to get his family through the hard winter, it hatches a beautiful sapphire-blue dragon, a race thought to be extinct. Eragon bonds with the dragon, and when his family is killed by the marauding Ra'zac, he discovers that he is the last of the Dragon Riders, fated to play a decisive part in the coming war between the human but hidden Varden, dwarves, elves, the diabolical Shades and their neanderthal Urgalls, all pitted against and allied with each other and the evil King Galbatorix. Eragon and his dragon Saphira set out to find their role, growing in magic power and understanding of the complex political situation as they endure perilous travels and sudden battles, dire wounds, capture and escape.
In spite of the engrossing action, this is not a book for the casual fantasy reader. There are 65 names of people, horses, and dragons to be remembered and lots of pseudo-Celtic places, magic words, and phrases in the Ancient Language as well as the speech of the dwarfs and the Urgalls. But the maps and glossaries help, and by the end, readers will be utterly dedicated and eager for the next book, Eldest. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell
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Imagine being seasick for five months, two weeks, and six days as you--a girl from Philadelphia--sail farther and farther away from everything and everyone you've ever known to the unknown wilds of the Great Pacific Northwest in 1854: "I felt certain that luck had nothing to do with anything aboard the Lady Luck, a poorly named vessel if ever there was one. I had just spent the morning of my sixteenth birthday puking into a bucket, and I had little hope that the day would improve." Meet Boston Jane, a new reluctant young lady heroine from Jennifer L. Holm, author of the Newbery Honor Book, Our Only May Amelia.
Impulsive Jane, ever on the path to leaving behind her rough-and-tumble tomboy childhood to become a proper young lady, agrees to meet her very genteel fiancé on the rugged west coast of America. Unfortunately, William is not there when she arrives. Suddenly, Boston Jane, as her new Chinook neighbors call her, must cast aside her "faultless young lady" demeanor and depend on her long-suppressed pioneer spirit to survive. Holm cleverly weaves in lessons from Jane's Philadelphia finishing school, Miss Hepplewhite's Young Ladies Academy, in dramatic and often-hilarious contrast to the trials and tribulations Jane faces at sea and in Oregon country. Readers will be charmed by teenage Jane's ironic tone and inner conflicts and will cheer her on as she sheds layer after layer of decorum. Granted, the budding romance between Jane and sailor Jehu, "hidden" beneath the surface love story of Jane and the more uppity William, is an at-least-twice-told tale; but young readers will get caught up in the excitement of it nonetheless. The intricate details of mid-19th century life on an untamed frontier--complete with carefully researched Chinook tribal history and real-life incidents of white settlers--are absolutely fascinating. A thrilling, entertaining read. (Ages 9 and older) --Emilie Coulter
Book Description
Fourteen-year-old Francis Tucket is heading west on the Oregon Trail with his family by wagon train. When he receives a rifle for his birthday, he is thrilled that is being treated like an adult. But Francis lags behind to practice shooting and is captured by Pawnees. It will take wild horses, hostile tribes, and a mysterious one-armed mountain man named Mr. Grimes to help Francis become the man who will be called Mr. Tucket.