Rapunzel’s Revenge

Title: Rapunzel’s Revenge

Author: Sean and Dean Hale

Illustrator: Nathan Hale

MLA Citation: Hale, Shannon and Dean Hale. Rapunzel’s revenge. New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury, 2008. Print.
Awards/Honors:ALA Notable Children’s Book (ALA)
Amelia Bloomer Project Selection (ALA)
An Al Roker Today Show Book Club Pick
An IndieBound Next Pick
Cybils Award (Graphic Novels)
Great Graphic Novels for Teens (YALSA)
Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults (YALSA)
Texas Maverick Graphic Novel List
Utah Book Award
Young Hoosier Book Award Nominee

Annotation: Hale and Hale present us with a different Rapunzel story – one where Rapunzel rescues herself and goes on a truely Western adventure to rescue her real mother and punish Mother Gothel.

Booktalk: Do you know the story of Rapunzel? Well, take everything you know about it and throw it out the window – Hale and Hale stand the story on its head! Turning Rapunzel into the heroine and replacing medieval castles with the Wild West and a tree , they re-imagine the tale that everyone knows.

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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Title: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Author: Ann Brashares

MLA Citation: Brashares, Ann. The sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. New York: Delacorte Press, 2001. Print.

Awards/Honors: ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2002)
Indiana Young Hoosier Award (2004)
Iowa Teen Book Award (2004)
Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award (2002)
New Jersey Garden State Teen Book Award (2004)
Rhode Island Children’s Book Award (2003)
Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award (2003)
Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List (2003)
Washington Evergreen Young Adult Book Award (2004)
Pacific Northwest Young Readers Choice Award (2004)
Missouri Gateway Readers Award (2004)
Arizona Young Readers Award (2005)
Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award (2004)
Book Sense Book of the Year (2002)
Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List (2002)
Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award (2004)

Annotation: Four teenage girls set out for a summer apart – Tibby is staying home, Lena is going to Greece, Carmen is going to South Carolina, and Bridget is going to Baja, California. They will stay connected and support one another through a pair of jeans that fits each one, different as they are, just right.

Booktalk: What would you do without your best friends? This is the question Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget are asking themselves as they prepare for a summer apart. Before they all head off and leave Tibby behind, however, they discover something amazing – an ordinary pair of thrift-store jeans somehow fits all of them  – despite their different body types – perfectly. They agree the pants must be magic and to send them to one another over the course of the summer. The pants will keep them together, witness their adventures, and offer support as they make their way across the US – and Europe – for their summer apart. How much will they see, learn, and grow over the course of the summer?

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Upstate

Title: Upstate

Author: Kalisha Buckhanon

MLA Citation: Buckhanon, Kalisha. Upstate. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. Print.

Awards/Honors: ALA ALEX Award (2006)

Annotation: Antonio is doing time for murdering his father. While in prison, he and his girlfriend, Natasha, exchange letters.

Booktalk: When Antonio goes to jail and is charged with murdering his father, Natasha swears she will wait for him. When the trial starts to head south, Antonio’s lawyer suggests entering a plea, which saves Antonio from possibly life in prison, but now there is no chance for appeal, no chance of getting out back to his life in Harlem, his life with Natasha. Time on the outside doesn’t stand still, though. Will Natasha still be there when Antonio has finished his time Upstate?

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The Giver

Title: The Giver

Author: Lois Lowry

MLA Citation: Lowry, Lois. The giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.

Awards/Honors: ALA’s 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000
ALA’s Best Book for Young Adults
Newbery Medal (1994)
School Library Journal “Best Book of the Year”
William Allen White Award (1996)

Annotation: In Jonas’ world, you do not decide what you want to be when you grow up – it is decided for you. When Jonas is given the job as the Receiver of Memories, he learns from The Giver the secrets of the community he believed was perfect.

Booktalk: What happens when you realize the world isn’t perfect? For Jonas, this idea has never crossed his mind. Yet when he is assigned the job of Receiver of Memories, The Giver opens Jonas’ eyes to the sacrifices the community makes to live in a perfect world. What would you do when you learned the price of perfect?

Straight from the Teens: Glen (17), says “This is one of the best dystopian novel I’ve read. I recommend it every chance I get!”

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Streams of Babel

Title: Streams of Babel

Author: Carol Plum-Ucci

MLA Citation: Plum-Ucci, Carol. Streams of Babel. New York: Harcourt, 2008. Print.

Awards/Honors: Margaret A. Edwards Award

Annotation: When two women in Trinity Falls, a small southern New Jersey town, die within two days of each other from a brain aneurysm after suffering  from flu-like symptoms for weeks, the question of coincidence arises. A teen in Pakistan acts as a virtual spy, capturing script about poisoning water supplies moves to New York in order to better capture the chatter. As more people in Trinity Falls become ill, can the simple sipping of tap water be killing them?

Booktalk: When a morphine addict dies from the flu, it is chalked up to a weaken immune system. When a lawyer dies from the flu as well within a day of the addict, people begin to question the coincidences. Autopsies turn up more coincidences, naming the cause of death as “Brain Aneurysm”.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Shahzad, a 16-year-old virtual spy works to learn more about the ominous message he found  – “Waters will run red in Colony One…Waters will run red three hours from Home Base in December…They will drink in December and die like mangy dogs in April”.  As the chatter increases and more people become sick, can Shahzad help the USIC find Colony One through Streams of Babel?

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Annie on My Mind

Title: Annie on My Mind

Author: Nancy Garden

MLA Citation: Garden, Nancy. Annie on My Mind. New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1982. Print.

Awards/Honors: Margaret A. Edwards Award

Annotation: Liza and Annie meet at the Metropolitan one rainy November day. They quickly become friends, spending every moment as they can together the week of Thanksgiving. When their quick-forming friendship develops into more, both must sort out their feelings and their relationship.

Booktalk: Have you ever questioned something that is the status quo? Annie and Liza meet at the Metropolitain Museum of Art and form a friendship that makes Liza question where her thoughts are coming from. When Liza and Annie unexpectedly begin kissing one another on the beach, their relationships moves into a new dimension. Over spring break, though, something happens that brings an end to their relationship. Now away at college at MIT, Liza can’t get Annie off her mind. How would you come to terms with your feelings going against the status quo?

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The Chocolate War

Title: The Chocolate War

Author: Robert Cormier

MLA Citation: Cormier, Robert. The chocolate War. New York, New York: Dell Pub. Co., 1974. Print.

Awards/Honors:  ALA Best Books for Young Adults
School Library Journal Best of the Best 1966–1978
New York Times Outstanding Books of the Year
Lewis Carroll Award
Margaret A Edwards Award

Annotation: Jerry Renault, a freshman at Trinity School, an all-boys high school, refuses to partake in the annual chocolate fundraiser. Challenging school tradition and authority is one thing, but challenging The Vigils, the school’s secret society, is another.

Booktalk:  Have you ever questioned tradition? Every year Trinity School has a chocolate fundraiser, where the boys sell their quotas of chocolate without challenge. Yet this year, Father Leon doubled the quota and doubled the price, still expecting the boys to sell their quotas – 50 boxes – without question.

Jerry Renault, a freshman, quarterback for the freshman football team, does the unthinkable when asked to accept his quota. While everyone is saying “Yes”, Jerry says “No”. What starts out as an Assignment from The Vigils, the school’s secret organization, turns into a personal choice, begins a new phase of The Chocolate War.

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Review: A Child Called “It”

Title: A Child Called “It”

Author: Dave Pelzer

MLA Citation: Pelzer, David J.. A Child Called “It”: An Abused Child’s Journey from Victim to Victor. Deerfield Beach: Health Communications, 1995. Print.

Awards/Honors: 

Annotation: The accounts of a boy named Dave and the abuse he endures by the hands of his mother, an alcoholic, and a father that doesn’t stop her.

Review:  A Child Called “It” is a heartbreaking account of the abuse Dave endures from his mother. Written from the perspective of a child, A Child Called “It” brings the reader into the torturous world of young Dave. Pelzer forces the reader’s eyes open to the horrors of child abuse, ranging from the expected abuse to unbelievable chemical torture.

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Review: Forever

Title: Forever

Author: Judy Blume

MLA Citation:Blume, Judy. Forever. Scarsdale: Bradbury Press, 1975. Print.

Awards/Honors:  1996 ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award

Annotation: The story of a high-school couple’s journey through the world of love, sex, and the realization that sharing sexual experiences does not mean “forever”.

Review:  Forever deals with the first love relationship that so many young adults encounter. Blume does an excellent job at accurately representing what a teen’s first serious relationship often consists of – the love bordering on obsession, the sexual relationships and concerns that go along with it, and the thought that this first relationship could mean “forever”. Blume also does a wonderful job at illustrating the awkwardness of one’s first sexual encounter. While this has led to Forever being banned and challenged so much that it made ALA’s Top 100 Most Frequently Banned Books list, it is important for teens to understand that their first time will most likely not be as romantic and magical as so many other sources have told them it would be. Blume also addresses the issue that with sexual relationships come responsibilities and the potential for serious and life-altering consequences.

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Review: The Things They Carried

Title: The Things They Carried

Author: Tim O’Brien

MLA Citation: O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway Books, 1998. Print.

Awards/Honors: 1990 Pulitzer Prize Finalist
French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Annotation: The Things They Carried tells the fiction story of a platoon’s experience during the Vietnam War. O’Brien uses snap shots of stories to illustrate the lives of the platoon members’ lives before, during, and after the war.

Review:  The Things They Carried attempts to intertwine both the physical and emotional things that were carried by soldiers during the Vietnam War. Moving fluidly from lists of rations and their corresponding weights to the emotions and memories each man “humped” for himself, O’Brien sheds a light on the war many still talk about today. O’Brien also writes of times before the war and times after the war. O’Brien clearly illustrates that although Vietnam has been left far behind, along with the rations, packs, guns, and army fatigues, the men still carry Vietnam with them every day. O’Brien successfully makes readers forget that they are reading a work of fiction and pulls them in for the journey that sometimes moves forward, sometimes doubles back, as memories often do.

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