The Silver Kiss

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Klause, Annette Curtis. The Silver Kiss. New York: Delacorte Press, 1990.

Annotation: A mysterious young man with a dark secret shows up and helps a teenage girl dealing with a dying mother and an emotionally absent father in a town that recently had a string of strange murders.

Book talk:

Should I let him in? He had blood on his face the other day. He was eating something. A bird? But he seems lonely and full of despair. Like me and how my father is always with my mother at the hospital. It’s just me at this house alone all the time because they won’t let me see her. And now my best friend is moving away. Maybe he’ll understand about loneliness and the pain of death. But what about the blood? And the murders here recently? What if he is the killer? I believe he’s been watching me. But again his voice sounds like he’ll understand. Should I let him in?

Awards: 

• 1991 Locus Award for first novel
• Oklahoma Sequoyah Young Adult Book Award
• Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award
• South Carolina Children's Book Award
• California Young Reader Medal
  

Awards source: http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit71.html#2881-1990 and http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780440213468

The Giver

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Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993.

Annotation: Sometime in the future, a 12-year-old boy is assigned the profession of receiving all of humanity’s memories. As he receives more memories, he realizes his world isn’t as perfect as it is intended to be.

Book talk:

What do you want to do when you are older? Well, Jonas has no choice. The elders of his community pick out everyone’s professions and assign them to the children at a Ceremony of Twelve. In fact, his community doesn’t have much choice at all or knowledge of anywhere else. It is a perfect world. There is no fear or pain. Children do not grow up with their birth mothers, but with assigned families. People who break rules and older adults are “released.” But Jonas is given a special profession – the receiver of memory. Now he is assigned to remember all the memories the Giver will pass on – all the memories for the entire community. He alone will now bear the burden of all the people’s memories so that the others won’t have to, including war and disease, but also freedom and love. What does Jonas do with his new knowledge? What should he do?

Awards:

• Newbery Medal Book
• ALA Notable Children’s Book
• ALA Best Book for Young Adults

Awards source: http://www.randomhouse.com/teachers/guides/give.html

The First Part Last

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Johnson, Angela. The First Part Last. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2003.

Annotation: Sixteen-year-old Bobby finds outs his girlfriend is pregnant and learns to balance being a teenager and a new parent.

Book talk:

What’s the right thing?

This is what 16-year-old Bobby asks himself in The First Part Last after he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant. Told in Bobby’s voice using poetic language, the chapters alternate between him asking this question in the past and him living with his decisions in the present.  But don’t get the idea that the author glosses over the subject. Instead, Angela Johnson faces the topic head on, capturing Bobby’s emotional ups and downs as he balances his love for his daughter with his own insecurities with his situation. “This little thing with the perfect face and hands doing nothing but counting on me. And me wanting nothing else but to run crying into my own mom’s room and have her do the whole thing.” So what does Bobby do?

What’s the right thing?

Awards:

• ALA Michael L. Printz Award,
• Abraham Lincoln Book Award Master List (IL),
• ALA Best Books For Young Adults
• ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
• Alabama Author's Award
• Booklist Editors' Choice
• CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book
• Charlotte Award Suggested Reading List (NY)
• Coretta Scott King Award (ALA)
• Florida Teens Read Master List
• Garden State Teen Book Award Nominee (NJ)
• Gateway Readers Award Nominee (MO)
• Georgia Peach Book Award Master List
• Green Mountain Book Award Master List (VT)
• Gryphon Award for Children's Literature
• Iowa Teen Award Master List
• IRA Young Adults' Choices
• Rosie Award Nominee (IN)
• Sequoyah Young Adult Master List (OK)
• South Carolina Book Award Nominee
• Volunteer State Book Award Master List (TN)
• YARP Award Master List (SD)

Awards source: http://books.simonandschuster.com/First-Part-Last/Angela-Johnson/9780689849237

Am I Blue?

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Bauer, Marion Dane, ed. Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence. New York: Harper Trophy, 1994.

Annotation: A collection of short stories ranging in different genres and from different young adult authors give a voice to young adults who are gay or a lesbian or who have a homosexual parent.

Book talk:

“A myth is yours only if you choose to own it.”

Although we live in a country that claims it is a melting pot, not all of its residents have had a voice in literature. Two boys – one Puerto Rican, Polish and Irish and one half-black half-Chinese – attempt to take one of the oldest stories in the world and give a voice to everyone – including all sexual preferences. Told in a film treatment style, the story shares the journey of their love and how they share it with the rest of the world. But “The Honorary Shepherds” isn’t the only tale. Am I Blue? has something for everyone – fantasy and realism, sad stories and funny stories, and stories about first love and death. What holds this collection of short stories together is a thread of giving the voiceless a voice. Of owning myths or changing the myth that homosexual people aren’t among us. Because they are, and each story gives an honest account of how it feels to grow up being gay or a lesbian or with a homosexual parent. 

Awards:

• ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
• Horn Book Fanfare
• ALA Best of the Best Books for Young Adults
• New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age
• ALA Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Book Award
• Minnesota Book Award
• ALA Best Book for Young Adults

Awards source: www.harpercollins.com/books/Am-Blue-/?isbn=9780064405874

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

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Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The diary of a young girl. (B.M. Mooyaart-Doubleday, Trans.). New York: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1967.

Annotation: A Jewish teen details her life in a diary while in hiding from Nazi Germany during World War II.

Review: 
Anne Frank is the story that has captured the world’s heart since its publication in 1947. It is the true account of a Jewish teen girl living in Amsterdam during World War II. For her thirteenth birthday in 1942, Anne is given a diary, which she treasures and confides her most personal thoughts. Shortly after that, her family – mother, father and older sister – goes into hiding with another family and an older gentleman. Anne’s family and the others hide in the “secret annex” for a little more than two years, with Anne sharing her thoughts and observations in the diary all the while. 

She documents the fears and the claustrophobic conditions of her life in hiding along with the things many teenagers experience when growing up – defining oneself, laughter, quarrels, jealousy and even first love. Because the diary shares Anne’s raw feeling, it gives readers a rare glimpse into what it was like to be a Jewish teen during World War II and to live with a fear of being discovered yet still hoping for deliverance. The book also provides the tragic ending to Anne after her diary expectantly ends Aug. 1, 1944, and how her diary is published.

Award: YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

Award source: http://www.randomhouse.com/highschool/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553296983

The Braid

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Frost, Helen. The Braid. New York: Frances Foster Books, 2006.

Annotation: During the Highland Clearances in Scotland, two sisters weave braids and tales of their experiences with alternating narrative poems.

Review:
Two sisters – Sarah and Jeannie – braid their hair together and cut it in the middle so that each sister has one half. Then they both go on separate journeys during the Highland Clearances in Scotland. Sarah moves with her grandma to another place in Scotland while Jeanie travels with the rest of the family to Canada. With their braids, the sisters remember each other and share their experiences with loss, love and perseverance.

What makes The Braid so unique is that Helen Frost uses a formal structure based on Celtic knots, which includes narrative poems in the alternating voices of the two sisters and praise poems about something in the narrative poem. The poems are “braided” together by including similar lines. Although the reader can tell it is a poem, the story still is easy to read. The narrative comes off so naturally the reader doesn’t realize how formal the structure is until the notes at the end of the book.

The structure makes The Braid a great book for teens to get rid of any preconceived notions about poetry and realize how accessible it can be. The sisters also are young adults who go through difficult experiences the teen could relate to, including the loss of family members and teen pregnancy, in addition to the historic elements, such as boat crossings. The story does a beautiful job weaving the sisters’ experiences together and would bring in the average teen reader.

Awards:

• YALSA "Best Books for Young Adults, 2007"
• 2007 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book
• 2007 honor book: "Lion and the Unicorn" Award for Excellence in North American Poetry
• School Library Journal "Best Books of the Year, 2006"
• Kirkus Reviews "Editor's Choice, 2006"
• NCSS-CBC Notable Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies
• Notable Book in Historical Fiction, 2007, for the Children's Literature Assembly (CLA) an affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
• Bank Street College of Education Children's Book Committee "Best Children's Books of the Year, 2007"
• Cooperative Children's Book Center "CCBC Choices 2007"
• Special Recognition: 2007 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People
• Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards Master List
• Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List

Awards source: http://www.helenfrost.net/item.php?postid=17

Forever

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Blume, J. (1975). Forever. New York: Pocket Books.

Annotation: Two high school seniors experience the highs and lows of love they are convinced will last forever.

Review: 
Katherine and Michael are convinced their love will last forever. They meet on New Year’s Eve and fall into a journey full of the joy and curiosity of a first love. Who wants to think about the end for the relationship? They are prepared to be together for the rest of their lives, but then they are separated for a summer.

The story captures what falling in love for the first time is like, with all the ups and downs of saying “I love you” and fights. Although Forever has explicit scenes of teen sex, they are honest, realistic accounts that show the first time isn’t always a sweeping epic but can be awkward. Those scenes sometimes have influenced people to want to ban Forever from teens, but because of the book’s honesty, it can be a good starting point for discussion of teen pregnancy, using protection and love lasting forever. Judy Blume also includes a note about safe sex at the beginning of the book. Teens going through similar experiences could find the book relatable. Although the book was written in the 1970s, few of the references are dated (mostly that Robert Redford was the teen heartthrob and the kids can drink at age 18).

Forever also includes references to other stressful topics teens deal with, such as suicide and a grandparent’s death. However, these topics could have been given more description to capture the depth of emotions felt because it seemed they were backdrops to the main emotional struggle: first love. Some of the relationship situations also could have used more emotional depth. For example, when Katherine is dealing with a new attraction, there could have been more emotional descriptions to prepare the reader for the way she reacted. In general, the story is a quick read, but the main focus of first love still is relatable for teens, capturing how one can react to the first time.

Award: 1996 Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner
Award source: http://www.judyblume.com/books/ya/forever.php